Step One: Your Requirements Are Dumb
Musk: Make your requirements less dumb. Your requirements are definitely dumb. It does not matter who gave them to you. It's particularly dangerous if a smart person gave you the requirements, because you might not question them enough. Everyone's wrong some of the time.
Whatever requirement or constraint you have — it must come with a name. Not a department, because you can't ask the department. You have to ask a person. And that person must take responsibility for that requirement. Otherwise you can have a requirement that an intern two years ago randomly came up with off the cuff, and they don't even work at the company anymore.
It must come with a name. Not a department. You have to ask a person — and they must take responsibility.
Step Two: Delete the Part or Process
Musk: Try very hard to delete the part or process. This is actually very important. If you're not occasionally adding things back in, you are not deleting enough. The bias tends to be very strongly toward 'let's add this part or process step in case we need it.'
You can make 'in case' arguments for so many things. For a rocket that is trying to be the first fully reusable rocket — the Holy Grail of rocketry — you've got to delete the part or process step. You can't hedge your bets.
If you're not adding things back in 10% of the time, you're clearly not deleting enough.
Step Three: Simplify or Optimize — Not Step One
Musk: Only the third step is simplify or optimize. The third step — not the first step. The reason it's the third step is because it's possibly the most common error of a smart engineer — to optimize a thing that should not exist.
Everyone's been trained in school that you've got to answer the question. You can't tell the professor your question is dumb — you'll get a bad grade. So everyone's basically got a mental straightjacket on. They'll work on optimizing the thing that should simply not exist.
The most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist.
Steps Four and Five: Accelerate, Then Automate
Musk: Step four is accelerate cycle time. You're moving too slowly — go faster. But don't go faster until you've worked on the other three things first.
And then the final step is automate. I have personally made the mistake of going backwards on all five steps. Multiple times. I automated, accelerated, simplified — and then deleted.
Don't go faster until you've worked on the other three things first.
The $2 Million Glass Mats
Musk: There were five glass mats on top of the Model 3 battery pack. At one point it was choking the entire production line. I was basically living on the battery pack production line trying to fix it.
First mistake — I tried to fix the automation. Make the robot better. Then accelerating was a mistake. Then optimizing was a mistake. Finally I said — what the hell are these mats for?
I asked the battery safety team. They said they're for noise and vibration. I asked the noise and vibration team. They said fire safety. It was like being in a Dilbert cartoon. We tried a car with the mats and without — put a microphone in both. You cannot tell the difference. So we just deleted them and bypassed this $2 million robot.
I asked battery safety — they said noise. I asked noise — they said fire safety. It was like a Dilbert cartoon.