Observe data collection at the moment of measurement See, observe, learn how data are collected at moment and place of measurement. "You never learn more about a process than when you directly observe how data are actually measured," said Cuthbert Daniel, a superb applied statistician. See with fresh eyes. Walk around what you want to learn about. Talk to those who do measurements. See how numbers came to be. Do those measuring know the desired answer? Are those measuring skilled, alert, honest, biased, incompetent, sloppy, tired and emotional?...Artifacts and errors in measurements measured? How are outliers adjudicated? Edward Tufte, Seeing With Fresh Eyes uxmeasurement
Solution to evaluation and back again A second reason the systems engineer’s design is never completed is the solution offered to the original problem usually produces both deeper insight and dissatisfactions in the engineers themselves. Furthermore, while the design phase continually goes from proposed solution to evaluation and back again and again, there comes a time when this process of redefinement must stop and the real problem be coped with—thus giving what they realize is, in the long run, a suboptimal solution. Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn Co-Evolution of Problem and Solution Spaces in Creative Design