ASEM Blog

by Teresa Jurgens-Kowal, PE, NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM

What images does the word “innovation” conjure for you?  For many people, innovation means a lone genius or mad scientist inventing something new on his own.  Many people believe innovation is spontaneous and relies on the creativity skills of a few.  These characteristics lead you to the conclusion that innovation is easy.

Of course, innovation is not the work of a lone genius, it requires diligence, and it is not easy.  In fact, innovation is a managed process with at least three important steps to build individual or corporate success.  Let’s take a look at these arenas.

Strategy

It’s rare when I have absolutely nothing scheduled on my calendar, even for weekends.  With completely open time and a blank sheet of paper, I often don’t know how to fill that time and I end up wasting precious hours staring at the television.  I certainly am not creative or innovative during unplanned time.

However, when I have a good problem facing me and I know how to tackle it, I can be extremely productive and creative.  This represents strategy.  Successful innovation requires a strategic approach to challenges, whether they are personal, professional, or corporate.  Strategy gives us a sense of direction and sets targets for achievement.  

The three core elements of strategy are vision, mission, and values.  Vision describes where we hope to be in the long run.  For a business seeking to improve its innovation capability, a vision statement describes what the future will look like, how the business will participate within its chosen industry, and where the business will operate.  

On the other hand, a mission statement describes how the company will get to the desired future state.  What are the tools, resources, and talent necessary to achieve goals?  The mission lays out a plan of attack, sometimes in bite-sized pieces, so that the company can reach its vision.

As an example, at its founding, Microsoft had a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home.  This vision framed the company’s mission, including how it would innovate and compete.  Building desktop computers became the goal as compared to improving the processing of giant, mainframe computers.  Having a vision statement clarifies the mission – a mainframe computer is a ridiculous idea for every desk or in every home.  

Finally, the values statement explains the expected behaviors of employees and the priorities of the company.  As a chemical engineer, I spent my early career in the petrochemical industry.  Every conference room at my employer and every customer’s conference room posted a shared value – SAFETY is our number one priority.  Safety, as a value, tells operators how to behave and teaches engineers how to design equipment.  Our behavior in a petrochemical plant was focused on ensuring that workers and the environment were protected from potential harm.  Values drive actions, and actions are how the mission is accomplished.

Customer Needs

In conjunction with the strategy, successful innovation requires understanding customer needs.  Even if the lone genius were to invent an incredibly awesome technology in her basement, the technology is only useful if someone buys it.  As engineers and engineering managers, we are at the forefront of transforming peoples’ lives.  But we must first understand the problems and challenges that consumers face.

Understanding customers’ needs informs the technologies we develop.  One innovation I love is heated seats in the car.  Automobile manufacturers could only develop this feature if they understood the needs of customers.  In the winter, cars are cold and thus, drivers are cold – whether the car was parked outside or in a garage.  It takes a while for the engine to warm up and thus, the interior of the car is often cold until the engine warms fully.  Electric heat is not sustainable for the whole car for an entire trip, but focused electric heat on just the seats (and steering wheel in luxury vehicles) can bridge the gap until the engine warms.  

The only way that we can find a match between interesting technologies and business growth is to understand market needs.  Engineers and engineering managers must jump at the opportunity to visit customers (B2B or B2C).  We can learn what problems our end-users face and we can identify better ways for consumers to accomplish their day-to-day tasks.  Get in the field and discover your customer needs!

Robust Decision-Making

I once heard a phrase that has stuck with me over the years: “Not making a decision is making a decision.”  This means that if we punt a decision or get mired in analysis paralysis, we really are making a decision to stick with the status quo.  Innovation can get stuck in the ideation stage, especially if you have a lot of creators on your team (see the ASEM post on Managing Innovation Teams).  Ideas are great, but action is necessary to reach the visionary goals articulated in the strategy.

There are many useful tools in decision-making:  simple pro/con analysis, SWOT analysis, and portfolio management.  For innovation and product development, I recommend a portfolio analysis approach.  This will include a cross-functional team, financial valuations of projects, and verifying that the new product aligns with your strategy and customer needs.  Contact me at teresa@globalnpsolutions.com if you’d like to learn more about product portfolio management.

Innovation might seem intimidating, relying on extraordinarily creative individuals with wild flashes of genius striking them as lightning.  Yet, successful innovation is a process.  We manage innovation by describing the organization’s strategy:  what are the vision, mission, and values that drive growth?  Next, we align market and technology opportunities with customer needs to design and develop new products.  Finally, because we often have more ideas than resources, we deploy robust decision-making tools.

Learn more about Innovation Management in this recorded webinar, courtesy of the German-American Chamber of Commerce (https://globalnpsolutions.com/events/).  I’d love to connect with you on LinkedIn to continue a discussion on innovation.

About the Author

by Oliver Hedgepeth, PhD

Engineering management has been hijacked by COVID-19 and not just the few months remaining in 2020. For the EM teacher, the student, and the practical practitioner, some of the rules of the game are gone. The learning objectives from the teacher’s courses need modification. The engineering economic analysis methods from such authors as Ted Eschenbach, Don Newman, and Jerome Lavelle are still the foundation of our ability to make sense of data. But, a few more new problems need to be added. Plus, one new chapter. The practical practitioner already knows what is missing from their set of tools for project management, Six Sigma analysis, every tool in their EM toolbox.

What is suspect is the data is awry; all that primary and secondary data that was so easy to collect, and so much fun to watch being made by faulty machines and faulty people. This new social distancing and wearing of coronavirus PPE impacts data collection. Workers are not at work or, if they are, the number is sparse, maybe only 25%. Cameras are recording manufacturing processes. Artificial intelligence and robotics are replacing humans in 2020 and planning for 2021 faster than ever. Humans are dying and the living ones are teaching and meeting by Zoom or other virtual reality systems. Live streaming social media communications has become common to include our very own ASEM meetings, still under way for viability.

Many businesses because of this 2020 pandemic, such as restaurants, are broken, according to Danny Meyer, one of New York City's restaurateurs. In mid-March, he closed all 20 of his restaurants and laid off nearly 2,100 employees. He stands by his belief that the restaurant business as we know it is gone. He is asking all of us to rethink what the term “restaurant” means for 2021 and beyond. What kinds of data are important and how do you collect such data? How can you, as an EM, as an analyst, help him define that term? What other businesses are undergoing redefinition and in need of our assistance?

Robots are becoming cooks in restaurants from colleges to hamburger joints. Colleges have programs and courses and apprentices for students to understand how robots will be working with them in the future.

For you– teachers, students and practical practitioners –ask how you know you can collect good data, or visualize process behavior, or avoid the man-made chaos. Identify those new assumptions needed to solve our current economic analysis problems, and redefine what deseasonalizing data means in this pandemic and economic crisis.

We need to be discussing these emerging issues at our online ASEM 2020 International Webinar Series and the upcoming ASEM 2020 International Annual Conference and 41st Annual Meeting.

A new normal in teaching has become weaponized by a different kind of social media and human factors experience. We need to be wary of what students need. Practitioners, help!

Are you listening? See this short video for more: https://youtu.be/rbETVpBy_38

About the Author

Dr. Oliver Hedgepeth is a full-time professor at American Public University (APU). He was program director of three academic programs: Reverse Logistics Management, Transportation and Logistics Management, and Government Contracting. He was Chair of the Logistics Department at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Dr. Hedgepeth was the founding Director of the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Center for Logistics from 1985 to 1990, Fort Lee, Virginia. His PhD in Engineering Management is from Old Dominion University.

I would like to welcome you to the July newsletter. As reported previously, we are currently preparing for the ASEM International Annual Conference to be held virtually this year. As such there is a significant amount of planning work being carried out by various people to ensure the event runs smoothly. The ASEM Town Hall Meeting held last Friday allowed initial details around the conference to be discussed and I am delighted we had so many engaged members attending the meeting. More details associated with the conference will be released over the coming weeks and months. Over the last month the new ASEM 2020 International Webinar Series commenced and I would like to thank Dr. Yesim Sireli (International Director) for coordinating the webinar series.

In this introduction I would also like to reflect on developments in the energy sector and how they relate to engineering management. The COVID-19 pandemic is clearly impacting almost every part of our lives. Indeed, the social distancing measures and working from home arrangements have recently led to a dramatic reduction in burning of hydrocarbons and it was reported in April that daily global CO2 emissions have decreased by around 15-20% when compared to corresponding figures from 2019. Unfortunately, the reduction in CO2 emissions is probably going to be a temporary situation and as economic activity will inevitably pick up at some point, CO2 emissions will likely return to previously unsustainable levels. But what are the options going forward if we are to limit CO2 emissions and address the situation of global warming caused by greenhouse gases?

Adopting renewable forms of energy have an important role to play, including harnessing solar, wind, hydro and tidal energy as well as biomass. All these forms of energy have the capacity to generate clean and sustainable power. In cases where such clean forms of energy are used to generate electricity that is used in electric vehicles, the overall life cycle emissions are potentially very low. Conversely, where an electric vehicle is charged with electricity generated from a coal fired power station, the overall emissions picture is not as good. Another option to move towards environmental sustainability is to adopt hydrogen as a fuel source (e.g. in hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles), although there is still a need to generate the hydrogen in the first place – this can be done either via natural gas reforming or via electrolysis of water (where the electricity can be provided via a further renewable source). The move to a so called ‘hydrogen economy’ offers much promise for supporting environmental sustainability and the implementation of supporting infrastructure and industrial supply chains to service the economy will also generate many challenges and opportunities.

Other developments to reduce CO2 emissions include a need for greater levels of energy efficiency – simply burning fuel in a more efficient manner reduces CO2 emissions. Also, moving from coal to natural gas fired power stations as an interim measure – eliminating coal burning and then in time eliminating natural gas burning through other alternatives. Moreover, nuclear power can have a role to play. Nuclear energy via the fission process is an option in regard to low levels of CO2 emissions as well as generating reliable base load power – however, there are the obvious undesirable outputs in terms of highly radioactive fission products. Looking ahead, nuclear fusion may have much to offer – it is after all the process that powers our own sun. Here there are different options, including magnetic confinement (including tokamak reactors), inertial confinement (e.g. laser-driven) as well as other approaches, such as via an electrically driven z-pinch. Many laboratories around the world are working on the physics associated with these different modes of fusion-driven nuclear power generation, but the engineering challenges remain immense and we are likely to have to wait for some time until the technology can be proven at a reliable and commercial industrial scale.

There are many different approaches for moving in the direction of environmental sustainability and reducing our dependence on the burning of fossil fuels. With such a dynamic and complex environment along with the need to steer scientific developments towards viable technologies and industrial application, the energy sector represents an ideal industrial application for the discipline of engineering management – where there are many opportunities to display the skills and knowledge associated with the management of people and projects in a technological or engineering systems context.

Dr. Simon Philbin
ASEM President

by Alexis Devenin, PMP

In engineering projects, not all the requirements are based in scientific or technical knowledge. Much of the technical constraints are just beliefs or opinions. An engineering manager could limit his task to recollect technical requirements, accepting all of them and then design a solution that satisfies all technical constraints. Nevertheless, the additional “false constraints” usually enforce to design complicated and over-sophisticated solutions, expensive and difficult to implement.

Ancient Greek philosophers identify several levels of knowledge. Doxa means belief or opinion. Episteme in contrast, means real knowledge, based on reasoning and scientific thinking. During the technical requirements elicitation of an engineering project, usually there are many doxa requirements, constraints or boundary conditions based on opinions instead of engineering analysis. It is important to investigate the validity of these constraints in order to arrive at simple and robust solutions for the system to be designed and to avoid complicated and dysfunctional designs.

Then the question is: How do you identify the 'doxa' requirements, disclose their nature, and convince the stakeholders?

The philosopher Socrates used to say that he did not have any specific knowledge, as he declares in his famous phrase, “I only know that I know nothing.” However, he believed to possess the ability to give birth to the truth, dialoguing with those who did have knowledge. He calls his method of inquiry maieutic. He said that he inherited this skill from his mother who was a midwife. Through inquiry, he was able to bring a person’s latent ideas into explicit insights. The “5 Whys” widely used in quality management could be considered a very simplistic version of the Socratic method.

The Socratic method of inquiry applied to engineering management demands certain soft skills. To question stakeholders or experts’ requirements can produce defensive responses. In the case of Socrates, his dialogues were done in public sites in Athens, under the watchful eye of the public. Once it becomes obvious that the supposed “expert” has no real knowledge about the topic, ego and prestige of the expert become damaged. Over time, this generated hatred towards Socrates, and finally he was accused of false crimes and condemned to death.

Socrates’ maieutic gives us an important insight: the engineering manager or the system engineer, is not necessarily the expert in the technology related to the system under design. However, they must be a person who has the skill to meet the experts, and through a methodic and disciplined approach, to arrive at appropriate technical solutions via the experts’ “know-how”.

About the Author

Alexis Devenin is a Mechanical Engineer with his MBA and PMP certification. He is an Engineering Project Manager with 20 years of experience in the Steel, Mining and Renewable Energy industries. Connect with Alexis on LinkedIn.

An important development over the last month has been the decision to move the 2020 ASEM International Annual Conference (IAC) to a virtual format. This action has been taken in response to the current and anticipated conditions prevalent in Denver and across the globe related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our plan is to have a comprehensive technical conference and we hope that the virtual event will still provide an excellent opportunity for sharing knowledge and learning on engineering management as well as staying updated on developments with ASEM. Further details on the conference will be released in due course.

I would also like to discuss how engineering management has the potential to help technical specialists to broaden their skills and knowledge base, thereby supporting career development in engineering and technology- based industries. In this regard, the term ‘T-shaped skills’ has its origins in the article by David Guest called “The Hunt is on for the Renaissance Man of Computing”, which appeared in The Independent (London) back in 1991. The term has been adopted by different organizations and it is basically a metaphor for the depth and breadth of a person’s skills. The vertical part of the T signifies the depth of skills along with the corresponding knowledge and proficiency in a single disciplinary area – including analytical thinking and problem solving associated with being deep in a given technical area. Whereas the horizontal bar of the T relates to a broader set of skills and knowledge and a corresponding ability to engage and work with people across different disciplines. We can further consider these skills as so called boundary crossing competencies, including teamwork, communication, decision-making, project working, managing complex situations and sense making. But how does this relate to engineering management? In order to answer this question, it is useful to apply the T-shaped skills model to an industrial sector and we can do this by considering the oil and gas industry and the case for a geological engineer.

In this illustrative example, the engineer benefits from having a deep specialism in geological engineering, including areas such as engineering mathematics, strength of materials, rock mechanics and geochemistry. Competence in these and related areas provides the engineer with an ability to solve technical problems as well as analytical thinking in geological engineering. However, to be effective in the oil and gas industry, there is also a need to work in project teams with other technical specialists (such as materials and mechanical engineers) as well as with colleagues from other functional areas (such as finance and commercial managers).

Consequently, it is important to have a good grasp of a wider set of skills and knowledge related to management but with a clear technological relevance. For example, the engineer may need to understand various areas, such as project management, team leadership, organizational management, technology management, economic development and planning, and systems modelling and analysis. Here the discipline of engineering management can support the geological engineer to be effective in multifunctional project teams as part of working in the oil and gas industry.

This simple case highlights the benefits of building on a solid technical education in a core engineering or scientific discipline, which is further enhanced with an education and understanding of engineering management – helping to prepare for a career in not just the oil and gas sector but in many other knowledge- based industries. The new 5th Edition of the Engineering Management Body of Knowledge Guide (EMBOK Guide) is an excellent source for such underpinning knowledge across the discipline of engineering management and should serve as the ideal resource to help us all maintain our T-shaped skills.

Dr. Simon Philbin
ASEM President

by Don Kennedy, Ph.D., P.Eng., IntPE, CPEM, FASEM

The concept I am talking about today is sometimes called the “more is better” fallacy, and I will pick accruals as an example of this.

You may have been in meetings discussing alternatives to address some hazard. One is simple and cheap - the other is complex and expensive. The top manager might say “you cannot put a price on safety.” The fallacy here is that the more expensive alternative is the better one. We know this is not necessarily true. Many times things are cheaper because they are better and the option most often chosen. The expensive option is expensive because it is unique and requires more custom labor.

Accruals, for those that do not know, are accounting entries used to cover expenses that are incurred but will not be paid for before the end of the current fiscal period. Accountants typically ask the managers for their estimates for these accruals. I call accruals “imaginary numbers that we make up and they go away at the first day of the next period.” I give them effort warranted by that view. I have provided accruals totaling more than $50 million for which I spent around 4 hours compiling. The company audited my numbers and found no irregularities.

Another manager spent a whole week (40 hours) on his numbers that totaled around $10 million. He was very thorough trying to identify every potential cost that could be incurred before the end of the year. He was very happy with his result and the effort expended to come up with those accruals.

Now for the difference between the two approaches. I knew how much my department was spending every month. Christmas and New Years Eve fall before the end of the year and spending is typically lower in December than other months as a result. Construction companies often take 2 weeks off at the end of the year in my area. I identified all activities I knew would happen and assumed things that might happen would not. Invoices often come in more than a month after the expense was incurred so there is a lag, especially at year end. I made sure my $50 million was not going to be more than the realized amount.

By trying to include as much as possible, the other manager produced a number higher than the normal monthly rate of spending of $6 million. Managers might be optimistic about all the work that might get done, especially if there is pressure to get things finished by the year end deadline. But things happen.

As I flippantly alluded to, accruals are reversed on the first day of the new accounting period. So my department had a -$50 million entry and the other had a -$10 million entry on January 1. My true numbers were $55 million in December but only $45 million in January, so the $50 million in January looked very normal. The other department had only $4 million actuals in December and $5 million in January. The total expenses in January for that department after the reversal entry was minus $1 million. This raised a lot of red flags for that manager to explain how there could be negative expenses. Trying to be very thorough and list every possible event, created a problematic number. Doing less was a better approach.

Less is often more.

I would like to welcome you to the monthly newsletter for May. I hope that you and your families are all well in these difficult times caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many others I have been working from home and trying my best to practice social distancing when outside. This somewhat unfortunate term seems like it will be with us for some time – or at least until a vaccine is discovered and found to be effective through passing clinical trials.

The COVID-19 situation is rapidly evolving and is causing not just a health crisis in many countries but also leading to potential major economic difficulties. This may result in many changes across different industries, including the university sector. The higher level of indebtedness combined with lower revenues is unfortunately a difficult combination for any organization to deal with – and this includes not just industrial companies and academic institutions, but also governments, and is something that will also be faced at the personal level by many people.

The pressure caused by the COVID-19 crisis is forcing organizations to work different – this of course includes virtual working (i.e. more videoconferences, teleconferences, etc.) but it also could potentially lead to an increased pace in the adoption of digital technologies, such as virtual reality and augmented reality. An example of a recent business-driven innovation is the rise of a new form of e-commerce, so called livestream e-commerce, which has become popular in China as a way for sellers and consumers to interact virtually during the pandemic. This has the potential to grow significantly and effectively combines a user experience of commerce with social media and entertainment. It seems that even during pandemics, new disruptive technologies and business models will continue to emerge.

As we look ahead it will be important for ASEM to remain relevant and competitive in such a changing landscape and therefore adopting new working practices alongside updating and enhancing the current products and services is important. An example of a new approach was in the last month where ASEM held a virtual Town Hall Meeting. This event was hosted by ASEM Headquarters and led by Gene Dixon (ASEM Executive Director Elect) and provided an excellent opportunity for the Society’s membership to be briefed on key developments being pursued by ASEM and also receive feedback directly from members. I was pleased to see that the meeting enabled interaction with a number of members and was clearly a success – I look forward to further meetings being held in the future.

I would also like to acknowledge the fantastic ASEM Practice Periodical issued this last month, which had the very timely theme of “This Crisis Will Not Go to Waste: Engineering Management’s Response to COVID-19”. Many thanks to Annmarie Uliano (ASEM Communications Director) for coordinating this issue of the Periodical as well as the excellent contributions by the authors: Woodrow Winchester III, Jesse Kamm, Teresa Jurgens-Kowal, Alexis Devenin, Harry Moser, Tanveer Naseer, Larry Mallak, and our former President, Frances Alston. Clearly engineering management has much to offer in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, I wanted to update you all that in the last month we held the ASEM Spring Board of Directors Meeting. The meeting was held virtually and not face-to-face due to the COVID-19 situation. But this did not stop us from having a whole day’s worth of excellent discussions. Indeed, I was delighted to lead the meeting and with the other members of the Board we discussed a number of important matters related to the operations and strategic development of ASEM. This included areas such as development of the Society’s portfolio of publications, strategies to support our certification program, preparations for the annual conference, international development of the society, marketing and development initiatives as well as other strategic projects. The meeting provided an excellent opportunity to discuss key issues to be addressed and for the Board of Directors to consider the priorities for the Society moving forward. In this regard, I look forward to working alongside members of the Board and others on these and other exciting initiatives for ASEM over the coming months.

Dr. Simon Philbin
ASEM President

by Frances Alston, PhD, CPEM

Engineering managers are faced with new challenges today due to the COVID-19 outbreak.  They face both strategic and tactical level challenges in preserving the viability of the enterprise.  In light of these challenges and the response opportunities provided by pandemic, many manufacturers are actively engaged in strategic teaming to pivot their operations in  producing the equipment and supplies such as personal protective equipment (PPE), laboratory testing supplies, and ventilators to support lifesaving activities.  In many instances’ development of these types of equipment were not a part of the company strategic plan thus the leadership team is required to change their business strategies, processes, equipment, retrain workers and more.   In such times, employees need to have belief in their leadership team to invoke the trust needed to accept that the changes that are being made are necessary.  Employees should be engaged in these changes as stakeholders in order to increase acceptance and teaming; thus, intrinsically the role of engineering managers becomes paramount and important.

Engineering managers are skilled in strategic planning activities that include planning, organizing, allocating resources, directing and controlling activities.   Here is a snapshot of how these skills can be and are employed by engineering management in helping provide real solutions to the equipment and PPE shortage faced by the world resulting from the COVID-19.

• Planning (strategic, tactic, and operational) – changing operations to add new processes and practices takes the use of a comprehensive planning approach to ensure success.

• Organizing – rearranging work and the organizations so that new processes can be efficiently accomplished while keeping in place their core product processes and procedures.  

• Allocating resources – resources include capital, equipment, and people which can be challenging in itself due to implementation of new processes and systems while ensuring the health & safety of workers.  

• Directing – in an effort to direct work it is necessary to motivate, supervise, and influence employees to accept the new processes and way of conducting business.

• Controlling activities – measuring performance to ensure that the new product line meets specified quality and technical specifications.

The role of an engineering manager is admittedly becoming more variable as the nation attempt to grapple with and irradiate the COVID-19 virus.  Engineering managers have the skills and training to adapt to and manage change, lead conceptual and product designs, configuration of production lines, new product introduction, and the capability to verify that products meet quality control standards.  Active engagement by engineering managers in assisting efforts focused on providing leadership and resolving technical issues that are presented by the COVID-19 can facilitate health and safety for workers, their families, and communities. 

About the Author

Dr. Frances Alston holds a B.S. degree in Industrial Hygiene and Safety, a M.S. degree in Hazardous and Waste Materials Management/Environmental Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering. She is a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Management, a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager and a Certified Professional Engineering Manager.

Dr. Alston has been effective in facilitating integration of Environment, Safety, Health, and Quality (ESH&Q) projects and programs as a core business function while leading a staff of business, scientific, engineering, and technical professionals. programs in diverse cultural environments. She has extensive experience in assessing programs and cultures and the development of improvement strategies achieving positive outcomes.

by Woodrow W. Winchester, III, PhD, CPEM

In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the capabilities of America’s industrial complex are truly being tested.  These tests and, often, demonstrations of both organizational limitations and resiliency (e.g. pivoting) are offering vital engineering management (EM) practice lessons.  And, in what is now being coined the era of “business as unusual” with anticipated disruptors on the horizon like responding to the impacts of climate change, these lessons must be learned and not lost.

While the scale and scope may differ, there have been other contemporary business disruptors that have offered valuable EM practice lessons.  However, in many instances, these lessons were merely observed and not engaged.  The question is why? For, some lessons, if they were fully embraced and sustained, may have enhanced organizational responsiveness to COVID-19.  Systems thinking, as an EM practice enabler, may offer an answer.   

Systems thinking, a discipline for examining wholes, interrelationships, and patterns, provides a valuable capability for engineering managers in enacting lessons offered by disruptors such as COVID-19.  From making visible the interconnectedness of manufacturing systems to further exposing the influence of structural issues such as racism in America; the COVID-19 pandemic is making clear that linear thinking and reductionist approaches to practice are not sufficient and can undermine needed change.  Thinking systemically, as an EM practice underpinning, is paramount.

In connecting with EM, systems thinking can be viewed as a meta-discipline; offering a language by which to guide the engineering manager’s thinking and action.  Echoing the EM Handbook:

“new tools, methods, and technologies will continue to be developed to assist engineering managers.  Although they may be useful, none will have the prolonged continuity provided by thinking that is philosophically grounded and principle driven.  This is the challenge faced by engineering managers:  To develop a sound philosophy, principles, and values that inform consistent decision, action, and interpretation in the face of increasing complexity.  Systems thinking offers a significant path forward to meet this challenge.”  

While systems thinking’s potential is great in creating the conditions for more robust EM practices and actions (See Figure 1), putting it into action can be challenging for the engineering manager.  

Figure 1:  Roles that Systems Thinking can Play in EM (Figure 18.1 EM Handbook)

The EM handbook offers insights around those core challenges and offers guidelines for the engineering manager to gain the advantages from applying systems thinking.  Tools such as the Habits of a Systems Thinker by the Waters Center for Systems Thinking and soft systems methods such as Rich Pictures can aid the EM in building their systems thinking competencies in practice contexts.  While outward focused development is important, equally of import; is inward or personal development.

Self-awareness and self-examination are critical in thinking systemically.; as, they “bring more attention to our mental models, which might be holding us back and keeping us from seeing the big picture in an unbiased way” (HumanCurrent).  Inward focused tools such as the Reflexivity Statement support the engineering manager in personally reflecting; elucidating insights (e.g. personal assumptions, mental models, and beliefs) that (1) may occlude the engineering manager’s ability to think systemically and (2) could be inadvertently reinforced in practice.

We can’t let this Pandemic be a waste.  COVID-19 is making even more clear the complex and interconnected world that we, as engineering managers, practice – the new or (next) normal.  Valuable EM lessons that will advance the practice are being presented (see:  Bringing Manufacturing Back to the U.S. is Easier Said Than Done).  Acting more systemically in both thought and action can prevent these lessons from being lost.  As discussed, disrupters to the level or exceeding what is being felt by COVID-19 will happen again and our ability and capacity to respond both as a profession and discipline cannot be compromised.

About the Author

Woodrow W. Winchester, III, PhD, CPEM is a Senior Lecturer and the Director of Engineering Management at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst.  A trained human factors engineer and Certified Professional in Engineering Management (CPEM), Dr. Woodrow W. Winchester, III is an advocate for more equitable, inclusive, and consequential approaches to technological design and deployment.  He is currently under contract with CRC Press to write Inclusion by Design: Future Thinking Approaches to New Product Development (ISBN: 978-0-367-41687-4).

by Jesse Kamm, PhD

COVID19 brought a variety of problems and reactions. If you’re a curious individual, you’ve read a plethora of articles, blogs, and social media posts. Many opined on the reliance of data, trusting science, models of impact and infection, and debates on policy making. Reporting on COVID19 public policy became a cacophony of noise. When it comes to noisy data, ASEM members and students are uniquely skilled to serve as the voice of calm and reason during trying times. As engineering managers, we know data can be messy and situations can be far more complex than we would like. But we also know that decisions need to be made in a timely fashion, no matter how imperfect, and we know how to deliver when pressed.

Many posts and articles argued for science, not politics, to guide decision making. What does it mean to let science decide policy? After all, engineering managers know that hard data doesn’t always tell the full story. There are issues around context and “soft” considerations. Even the way people feel emotionally can factor into a decision (Ugh! Feelings!... groans my inner engineer).

Engineering managers recognize that science and policy judgement are two separate things. How we translate the science, implement a plan, and tell the story of the decision is of utmost importance but that’s not science, it’s judgement. This makes us uniquely positioned to engage the public in the interpretation of data to inform sound decision making.

In most scientific research we look for two kinds of results (I concede others exist, but the two I cover encompass most scientific research). The results typically come in the form of descriptive and inferential statistics.

Descriptive results tell us what’s happening, in most often, numeric terms but might also simply tell the story of things as they exist. Inferential statistics leverage the central limit theorem to infer results on the population at large and use models to rule out random chance in our hypothesis.

Science is a system that says “Hey! This small slice of the pie that you’re looking at, well it isn’t random. This is what’s happening and it’s happening for a reason.”. What it doesn’t tell you is what you should do with that information. This is where judgement comes in.

Judgement is imperfect. Judgement attempts to use all data, even “soft'' imperfect data that might not be considered science at all. Things like economic effects, personal perspectives on social constructs like liberty and tyranny, even intuitive “gut” reactions can be valid inputs in judgement. (Remember the fight or flight story of the tiger shaped shadow in the grass…don’t wait for science on that one… trust your judgement and make the decision!). Nobel laureate Daniel Khaneman’s research in cognitive behaviors and decision making helps us understand human’s behavior and data. (See suggested readings below). Judgement comes from humans alone - not from science – messy, imperfect, full of cognitive bias humans.

Judgement via policy decisions can be rooted in science and yet have conflicting variables that lead towards opposite positions that are equally valid. That’s what I love about science. Where that data leads with regard to action is entirely subjective. This is what people misunderstand. Science is not a magic box that tells us the answer. It’s more like a game of Clue with partial answers that we come to understand more and more over time through a body of research. As EM’s we know that all models are wrong, yet when we couple them with probability, we get useful data.

As engineering managers, we know people are messy, imperfect, beings. We also know data, models, and the scientific method are very valuable tools to inform decision making. What makes us unique is our ability to translate the science, the data, and the models into something useful.

Suggested Books for Further Reading

Cooke, R. M. (1991). Environmental ethics and science policy series. Experts in uncertainty: Opinion and subjective probability in science. Oxford University Press.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

About the Author

Jesse D. Kamm, Ph.D., PMP is an imperfect, full of cognitive bias engineering manager with a passion for bridging the gap between industry and academics. His experience in themed environment projects, hospitality, retail, faith based and community partnership projects, medical centers, senior living, and work/live/play development projects coupled with his experience with academic journals, conferences, universities and industrial trade schools programs, and as a Co-PI on grants involving the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Labor provide a unique perspective on the scholar-practitioner. Connect with him on Linkedin or at jkammphd@gmail.com.