Publications Details

Teaching engineers to be technical leaders

Cannon, T.

Engineers invest several years becoming skilled in the many disciplines necessary to effectively carry out analysis, design and development. This typically includes math, physics, computer science, and special study in their core area of expertise. However, once promoted into management, engineers use less and less of these hard-earned technical skills and find themselves operating in nontechnical arenas in which they have little or no formal training. (The formal training that they do get is often through company-sponsored courses, lacking both the rigor and cohesiveness that they have grown accustomed to in their engineering curriculum.) Often, what they are exposed to are continually varying management doctrines that resemble the flavor of the month, each laying claim to the true secrets of motivation, productivity, and organizational competitiveness. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for the neophyte manager to sort out fact from fancy, and help from hype. It therefore would be helpful to put such theories in perspective and present them in a form most easily digested by technical managers, i.e., from an analytical point of view. This paper attempts to do just that. There are many factors that influence a manager's career progression. One of the most rational factors is how the manager's actions affect the productivity of his or her group. This paper focuses on principles and techniques that a manager can, and should, employ to improve group productivity and enhance his or her opportunities for further advancement. 9 refs.