Engineering Management Blog
Articles, guides, and white papers for engineering leaders and managers
The Engineering & Leadership Project regularly publishes blog posts, articles, and papers to help engineers become excellent engineering leaders.
We cover topics such as engineering project management, people management systems engineering, productivity, and more.
Scroll below to read our most recent work.
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My wife is a medical resident. In the US, she'd be called an intern. Basically what that means is that she graduated med school, and is now doing her practical training to specialize. In her case, she's becoming an anesthesiologist. Part of her training...
How to tell the difference between bad news and cheese
Bad news is a fact of life. Brutal, I know, but it's true. You're going to have to deal with it on a daily basis if you're basically a normal person. The world of engineering is no exception. We deal with incredibly complex systems, with too little information to...
67 ways to become your company’s top engineer
Are you the kind of engineer who isn't satisfied just cruising along? Are you looking to be one of your company's best? Here are 67 things that you can do today to become your company's top engineer. Start today by choosing just five and putting them into...
Play to where your career is going to be
My dad used to coach my younger brother and I in soccer when we were kids. One of my dad's soccer proverbs was that it was important to pass the ball not to where your team mates were, but to where they were going to be. Every play, in other words, should set the team...
5 Reasons Why You Need to Love Your Job
A friend of mine and I went out to one of my favourite pubs a few nights ago to talk about his career. He's considering making a move from his current employer to be able to pursue other interests, but wasn't sure if he should. You see, his...
The More Things Change The More You Need To Lead
It doesn’t matter what position you hold in life, the more things change, the more you need to lead. Or you can become irrelevant.
Why goals are bad for you
A colleague of mine, Christian Knutson, of the excellent and highly recommended The Engineer Leader blog, recently sent me an article by Leo Babauta. The title is "Achieving without goals". Leo, who's the master of all things Zen and living life simply, argues that...
Why You Need to Have Fun at Work
I'm a firm believer that you need to have fun at work. The way I see it, you spend more waking hours at the office and with your co-workers than you do with you do with your own family. If the majority of your life is spent not having fun... well, life would suck....
Urgent Vs. Important – Your Career Depends on the Difference
This is something that we've discussed quite a bit at work recently - the difference between urgent tasks and important tasks. I think that most people can intuitively tell you what the difference is between the two if you're discussing it over a cup of coffee....
The Goal of an Engineer – Part II
Back in Part I of this post, I talked about the goal of an engineer, and how to be truly productive. If your actions aren't bringing you closer to your goal, then you're not really being productive. Sure you might be getting things done, but you're not going anywhere....
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