AUGIWorld Magazine September/October 2007

The CAD Manager You got a problem with that? I just visited the eye doctor and renewed my eyeglass prescription. I have been wearing glasses since I was about 19. Doing the close work as a drafter for eight hours a day soon resulted in my inability to focus on long distance objects. I got corrective lenses and have been tied to them ever since. Just like glasses have supported my efforts to see into the distance, dealing with an avalanche of problems has helped me take a longer and more analytical view of my duties. How can problems help with this? They usually narrow your focus to the here and now. They don’t allow you to look at things from a distance. True, but stepping back and looking at things from a grander perspective is always helpful in the long run. And CAD managers are in it for the long run. End users are usually focused on getting their jobs done, one file or one model at a time. They struggle with issues that sabotage their productivity and purpose. They work diligently to avoid anything that will slow them down or stop their progress. They have blinders on, and rightly so, to the big picture issues. They need to get the drawing out the door. They don’t really have to worry about overall CAD issues, just the ones that affect them. The CAD manager, on the other hand, has to have a longer view of problems. The CAD manager is tasked with keeping the factory floor humming. They are the ones that worry about the next job, the next release, the next hardware upgrade, and the next major problem that the software might bring. problems that impact the most people in your firm. Prioritization of problems is the issue, not avoidance. Working on the worthy problems will allow you to take a larger, longer view of your position and purpose. Problems tend to fill the space and time that is available. If you have a series of small problems, you tend to space them out in your day so that you will not get bored or stagnant in your work process. If your only problem in the day is to create a LISP routine that edits a specific area of your CAD files, you will take just about the whole day to think it through, plan it out, and write the code. If there is no other problem to work on, you will refine it when you are done. The time you spend may not have any direct correlation to the impact of the program. It may be that only one project or one file needs fixing and the quick and dirty code would have been fine. You may be doing what Wayne Hodgins of Autodesk calls “Perfecting the Irrelevant.” In this podcast, accessible at http://waynehodgins.typepad.com/ ontarget/2006/11/perfecting_the_.htm, Hodgins mentions several stories about companies that perfected products which consumers did not want or need. We can often do this if we are not taking a longer look at the problems that are cropping up every day. Remember that small problems are important, too. If we spend our day avoiding all of the small problems, they will soon become big problems. But often we find that the plethora of small problems cloud our view of the bigger ones. Each time you see a small problem or when you have a bunch of small problems, take a step back and see if they are not symptoms of a larger problem. Maybe the root cause of several problems is that one large problem that needs to be addressed. Improve your skills at an Autodesk Authorized Training Center. Know more. Work better. Autodesk® Authorized Training Centers offer a full range of classes to help you boost your career, meet industry requirements, increase your productivity, and stay on top of the latest technology. With over 1,000 convenient locations worldwide, they’re the only training facilities authorized by Autodesk. And the best place to go to get ahead—and stay ahead—in your career. For details, go to www.autodesk.com/ atc4 or call 1-800-964-6432. © 2005 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved. Autodesk is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. Most people view problems as barriers or annoyances. They get in the way of getting things done and leading a productive work life. When we view problems from this perspective, our goal becomes eliminating problems. We know that it is not possible to live a life that is free from problems. I have come to think of them as serving a positive purpose. They allow us to focus our efforts, refine our skills, and develop resilience. When viewed in this manner, problems actually become a source of inspiration. Don’t get me wrong. No one likes problems. They tend to drag you down, wear you out, and eat into your productivity. In addition, when you eliminate them, new ones crop up. But remember, if all your company’s CAD problems were to disappear, you would be out of a job. So embrace the problems and use them to your advantage. The real challenge becomes how to avoid getting bogged down by problems. One way of doing that is to look for the larger problems and focus on them. Think of problems as a symptom and you need to find the root disease. The point is to focus on the larger Finding the bigger problems Looking for patterns I like to look for patterns in the problems I find. When I approach a user who is having trouble attaching an Xref, I eventually will ask if anyone else is having trouble w w w. A U G I . c o m 4 http://www.autodesk.com/atc4 http://waynehodgins.typepad.com/ontarget/2006/11/perfecting_the_.htm http://waynehodgins.typepad.com/ontarget/2006/11/perfecting_the_.htm http://www.AUGI.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AUGIWorld Magazine September/October 2007

Contents The CAD Manager Feature: A Good First Impression ADT and SketchUp Team for Presentations Accessing Values: Now or Later Finding the 3D in Map 3D: Surface Visualization Rocks & Rock Walls Autodesk University 2007 Preview The Missing Link On the Back Page

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