The Art of Leadership
Leadership is an art – not a science. I think this is precisely why so many engineers struggle with developing their leadership skills. Engineers are technical gurus – we’re very good at solving discrete, quantitative issues. By and large,...
3 Lessons Learned from the Production Floor
Part of my job involves providing engineering support for the people on the production floor. What makes my job distinct is that the product we’re building is a prototype. It demands a lot of time and attention, because nearly everything that we do is brand new...
4 Engineering Lessons I Learned from my Puppy
My wife and I recently bought our first dog. She’s a Goldendoodle we named Massey, as in Massey Ferguson tractors. My Agricultural Engineering readers can consider that a nod in their direction ;-)
In any case, this purchase was something that happened a little bit out of the blue. Don’t get me wrong – my wife and I had talked about buying a dog for ages. The opportunity to do so, however, just kind of came out of the blue.
Now that we’ve had her for a couple weeks, I’ve had a chance to learn some lessons from the family quadruped. The more I thought about it, the more I realized these lessons can be applied to any working engineer.
*** 4 Engineering Lessons From My Puppy
1. Take the plunge! Good things happen. Like I said before, my wife and I talked about this for ages. We knew what kind of dog we wanted. We had worked out who would come home at lunch to let her out. We had investigated obedience training. We had talked this thing to death, then finally an opportunity came up to buy our pup. It was scary as hell when we did, because all of a sudden our fun ideas became real. And you know what? Turns out everything is working out OK. Life is different to be sure, and we’re still not 100% settled into a new routine, but it’s good.
I like to think of opportunities for engineers as being similar. If you just jump into something, it tends to work out well. Just do it!
The Engineer’s Dilemma: How to do Nothing
I had a chat with my engineering manager the other day about a problem we were having with a component we had specified for a project. We were chatting about all the options we had on the table, and at the end of that list we added “Do Nothing”. Today, I want to talk about the “Do Nothing” option, and what the difference is between the decision to do nothing and doing nothing because “that’s just the way things are”.
*** Doing Nothing
My guess is that most of my readers would think that this topic is a bit strange. Most people on this blog are probably go-getters – people who like make things happen. You probably value bold action and taking risks. That’s awesome. I like to think of myself as the same kind of person. I believe that one of the most powerful things a young engineer can do to show their abilities as a leader is to take action.
All that being said, there’s an option that many of us ignore when trying to solve a problem: doing nothing.
*** The Engineer’s Dilemma
Engineers face tough problems every day. We’re paid to come up with innovative solutions to technical problems. That’s what gets us up in the morning and keeps us going throughout the day. We ask tend to be perfectionists. After all, during school, there was always a “right” answer to the quantitative questions we were given in assignments and tests. We carry that notion of there always being a right answer with us to work after we graduate. This, I would argue, is what fuels the engineer’s dilemma.
The engineer’s dilemma, as I see it, is that we work in a world where no solution is perfect, yet we are driven to find perfect solutions. This is why engineers don’t like “doing nothing”. Invariably, the current solution to any given problem has some holes in it. It’s not perfect. And that makes an engineer’s skin crawl.
How to Prepare For Site Work
Today, I want to share with you how to prepare for site work. When you’re ready for it, site work affords a young engineer huge growth opportunities. Showing up to site unprepared, though, is bound to be a pretty miserable time.
Site work is a critically important aspect of any young engineer’s development. There’s no better way to learn a system, product, or service than through seeing it in action. This goes for major construction projects to supporting mass production of a product, to software development and everything in between. Not only do you learn a lot from seeing the fruits of your labour, it’s actually better for your overall job satisfaction. Site work is still what I consider to be the best part of my job.
I consider site work (or field work) to be anything that takes you away from your desk, and isn’t strictly a business meeting. If you’re out on a construction site, touring a manufacturing facility, installing software on a client’s server, surveying, et cetera, I think of that as field work.
* Why You Need to Prepare
It’s critical that you prepare before you head out the back door of your office for site. Not being prepared can lead to any number of awkward situations that basically lead to you not being able to get the job done. This is bad. Especially if you work in an environment where you charge your time and mileage for travel. You don’t want to be that engineer who spends time and money to not get things done.
* How to Prepare for Site Work
When I’m asked to conduct some kind of site work, I try to make sure I understand a few key things:
-What exactly needs to be done?
– How do I do what I need to do?
– Who are the key players?
– What’s the big picture?
– Let me take each of these one at a time and flesh them out a little bit more…
* What exactly needs to be done?
You need to be able to succinctly explain what exactly you’re doing. Why are you going to site? Are you collecting data? Are you supervising a crew? What are the expectations for this trip. You need to know exactly what you’re being asked to do, and what you’re supposed to bring back from your trip. A good way to drill down to get an answer for this question is to ask what deliverables you’re responsible for, and in what format they’re required.
