SJ #30 — Educating the Whole Engineer

Before you start

How this works

You will answer the same question twice. The first time is yours alone — no options, no framework, no prompts. Then you'll be coached, and you'll answer again. The gap between the two is the point of the exercise.

What to expect

Step 1 gives you the scenario and nothing else. You write what you would actually do. Once you submit it, it locks — you cannot go back and improve it.
Steps 2 to 4 ask you three questions drawn from entrepreneurial mindset. They aren't tests. They're the questions a more experienced engineer would have asked before answering.
Step 5 coaches you on character — specifically on the two ways your instinct can fail: by having too little of a quality, or too much of it.
Step 6 is your rewrite. Step 7 puts both versions side by side.
Nothing is saved to a server. Take your record with you at the end.

Section codeFrom your instructor.

PseudonymNot your name. Write it down.

What is recorded. Your written answers, under this section code and pseudonym. Not your name, email, or IP address. Step 5 asks you to identify your own failure mode — the pseudonym exists so you can answer that honestly.

Before you can start

Step 1 · Uncoached

What would you do?

What to do

Read the situation and write what you would actually do. A short paragraph is plenty.
There are no options to choose from yet, and no framework to apply. That's deliberate.
This answer locks when you continue. Don't polish it — an honest first instinct is more useful to you later than a careful one.

The situation

A critical experiment for your renewable energy project fails completely, producing no usable data and consuming significant time and budget. Your team is demoralized, and stakeholders are questioning the experimental approach. However, the failure revealed unexpected material behavior that could lead to new insights.

Your responseWhat do you do, and why?

0 words

Before you can continue

Step 2 · Curiosity

What has the framing already decided for you?

What to do

Answer both questions before moving on. Short notes are fine.
You'll notice these aren't about the water system. They're about the question you were handed.

Before you can continue

Step 3 · Connections

Whose knowledge counts as evidence?

What to do

Answer both questions.
Connections is about integrating sources and managing risk — including the risk of being wrong about who is worth listening to.

Before you can continue

Step 4 · Creating value

What could exist afterwards that doesn't exist now?

What to do

Answer both questions, then choose the option closest to your thinking.
The options appear here for the first time. Notice whether any of them matches what you wrote in step 1.

Now that you've seen them — which option is closest to your own answer?

Before you can continue

Step 5 · Character

The two ways your instinct fails

Every strength has two failure modes. Too little of it and the quality is missing where the situation needed it. Too much and it crowds out everything else. Neither is a character flaw — both are the same quality, badly calibrated.

What to do

Read the coaching on the dimension your choice leans on.
Answer the three questions underneath. They are the ones that make the coaching land.
Then place yourself honestly on the edge you are actually closer to.

Before you can continue

Step 6 · Coached

Answer it again

What to do

Write a fresh response to the same situation. Don't edit the old one — write a new one.
You don't have to change your mind. A stronger version of the same decision counts.
Your locked first answer is below for reference. It cannot be edited.

The situation, again

A critical experiment for your renewable energy project fails completely, producing no usable data and consuming significant time and budget. Your team is demoralized, and stakeholders are questioning the experimental approach. However, the failure revealed unexpected material behavior that could lead to new insights.

Your coached response

0 words

Your locked first answerRead-only.

Before you can continue

Step 7 · Compare

Before and after

Uncoached — step 1

Coached — step 6

What changed, and what made it change?If nothing changed, say why not — that's a legitimate answer.

What this case was built to surface

Which edge are you personally closer to, across projects — not just this one?Cite one moment from your own work.

Before you can finish

Step 8 · Evaluation

What this exercise did, and didn't do

Three short parts: what changed in your writing, how you'd rate your own movement, and what you thought of the exercise itself. The last part is for whoever built this, not for you.

Your own reading

The exercise itself

Answer honestly — this is feedback on the design, and it doesn't affect anything about your work.

Anything else worth telling whoever teaches this next?Optional.

Before you can finish

Situational Judgment #30 - Many Ways of Knowing

Traditional Indigenous knowledge, government standards, and ecosystem science offer different approaches to rural water management.

The experiment produced no data, and one anomaly

How this works

What would you do?

What has the framing already decided for you?

Whose knowledge counts as evidence?

What could exist afterwards that doesn't exist now?

The two ways your instinct fails

Answer it again

Before and after

What this case was built to surface

What this exercise did, and didn't do

Your own reading

The exercise itself

Your record

Captured responses

Our Approach