These friends are all highly experienced in product development techniques, and educated to world-class product development standards. Their world-class product development standards experiences include: RTCA/D0-178B, IEEE/EIA 12207, ISO 9001, SEI-CMM, Six Sigma, MIL-STD-498, and IEC 61508 to name a few.

Often these friends would fantasize about how they would run a business if they were permitted to perform to the best of their abilities. This, of course, would require theoretical processes never permitted by their current employers. Their educations taught them to try new techniques. Their many years of employment, which required them to do things the hard way, motivated them to "do it right the first time."

One day, while several of these friends were again discussing their fantasies, they vowed to start a company of their own, which would permit them to be all they knew they could be. These friends found pandering to their passions highly motivating. They also realized that between them, they had acquired most of the skills needed to run a high performance development company.

So, a plan was needed to move from the talking stage to the doing stage. The problem was these friends were so busy with thier current jobs they had little time to spend on their new venture. Some small progress was made, but at that rate, it would take it would not reach critical mass in a reasonable time.

Then it happened! Because of economic conditions, one of the friends employers terminated his employment. What seemed at first to be a disaster, turned out to be the beginning of the new enterprise. This freind had assests that permitted him to pursue the new company that the friends fantasized about.

All during his career, this friend would nag his employers with "Why not do it right the first time?" He knew there are better ways to do things that would save time, money, and provide better products. Therefore, he named the new company "Why Not Engineering". Why not do the job correctly, was the premise of Why Not Engineering. Doing it right the first time permitted a new approach to developing a business that never had been done before. This business would have process before product!

Process before product, how could this be? The new company would be modeled and developed to world-class product development standards before a product would be considered. All other companies have de facto and ad hoc processes lingering from their early beginnings. These lingering processes are difficult to improve upon, because of momentum caused by the idea "we have always done it that way". Why Not Engineering does not have this tremendous momentum to overcome.

Why Not Engineering began by funding several projects. The first project is a configuration management process. This requires a Change Control Board (CCB) and permits all Why Not Engineering "value added" to be controlled. The configuration management process permits Why Not Engineering to be assembled like building blocks. To be world-class, the configuration management process must be automatic and secure. A Debian GNU/Linux server with Concurrent Version System (CVS) was built for security. WinCVS was installed on MS Windows workstations networked to the server to automate the configuration management process. Procedures are being developed and documented in a project management manual.

Almost immediately after the start of the configuration management process, the project management process started. Project management permits the Why Not Engineering goals to be executed with control. To be world-class, the project management process must track project actual progress and costs against planned progress and costs. Procedures are being developed and documented in a project management manual.

The quality assurance process is the next project. To be world-class, the quality assurance process needs to be independent from the development processes, and be able to write corrective actions. To help measure compliance to company goals, the corrective actions are used by management. Procedures are being developed and documented in a quality assurance manual.

The product development processes is the forth project. A product lifecycle was documented and procedures are being developed to follow the product lifecycle. The documented product lifecycle complies with world-class standards. With configuration management, quality assurance, and project management processes in place, the product development processes have the needed infrastructure to ensure that the product lifecycle is followed. The procedures are being documented in the product development manual.

With completion of the four projects, Why Not Engineering will have processes adequate to world-class standards for quality and safety. The next logical step for Why Not Engineering is to develop a product to the adequate processes to demonstrate compliance. Why Not Engineering is currently entertaining ideas for a first project.

To prove compliance to world-class standards for quality and safety, Why Not Engineering is considering enlisting a third party for certification. Certification requires auditing the Why Not Engineering processes for adequacy to the appropriate standards. The product development should be reviewed in close to real time by the certifier to ensure compliance to the adequate processes. Validation of the final product should establish Why Not Engineering as a world leader with the ability to develop quality and safety products.

This world-class ability to develop quality and safety products can be packaged into a Modular Strategic Business Unit (MSBU). This MSBU can be loosely couples to exisiting organizations with minimal impact upon their existing processes. The software development principle of loose coupling means that the interfaces between the MSBU and the organization are few and simple. In this way an organization can connect an MSBU to its current operation and develop world-class quality and safety products without changing their current operation.

The goals of Why Not Engineering are to be capable of high quality and safety product development, and of world-class quality and safety process proliferation. This leads to the fulfillment of the mission of Why Not Engineering.