As a smart, young engineer, it may have crossed your mind, as you toiled away on projects, how things would be different if you were in charge. Perhaps these thoughts inspired you to pursue a management position. As a manager, you imagined, you would have more influence over how things got done.
You became a manager. You enjoyed the influence you now had over your group’s business. Your team performed well, and you were successful in the position. Yet, you remained unsatisfied. Business within the entire engineering group was not run as smoothly as you imagined it could be. And, again, you aspired to a position of overall engineering leadership.
You became the engineering leader that you imagined. Engineering runs well, and you have a great, productive team. Yet, you still remain unsatisfied. The overall product delivery engine still does not run as smoothly as it could. You speak to your peers, the leaders of marketing, sales, operations, in the company and they would agree. Ideas are bandied about. Few are tried, and fewer are seen to successful conclusion. The CEO asks you to figure it out and get the entire cross functional product delivery engine to work as well as your engineering group works. Now, what do you do?
Any engineer worth their salt loves tools. They maintain a full tool box. They are on the search for tools to better perform a task. When a tool does not exist to perform the task, they will fashion a new one. In the next few submissions, I will describe a tool that I fashioned to help solve organizational and operational issues both within an engineering group and within the cross functional organization as a whole.
_____________________
Matt Schlegel has held management positions in engineering, product development and program management at a number of Silicon Valley start up companies. Now, Matt enjoys consulting for companies in the areas of engineering leadership, product delivery, joint development with Japanese and Asian partners, and telecommunications. Before he started working on product delivery engines, he cut his teeth (and hands) on Chevrolet engines.
You became a manager. You enjoyed the influence you now had over your group’s business. Your team performed well, and you were successful in the position. Yet, you remained unsatisfied. Business within the entire engineering group was not run as smoothly as you imagined it could be. And, again, you aspired to a position of overall engineering leadership.
You became the engineering leader that you imagined. Engineering runs well, and you have a great, productive team. Yet, you still remain unsatisfied. The overall product delivery engine still does not run as smoothly as it could. You speak to your peers, the leaders of marketing, sales, operations, in the company and they would agree. Ideas are bandied about. Few are tried, and fewer are seen to successful conclusion. The CEO asks you to figure it out and get the entire cross functional product delivery engine to work as well as your engineering group works. Now, what do you do?
Any engineer worth their salt loves tools. They maintain a full tool box. They are on the search for tools to better perform a task. When a tool does not exist to perform the task, they will fashion a new one. In the next few submissions, I will describe a tool that I fashioned to help solve organizational and operational issues both within an engineering group and within the cross functional organization as a whole.
_____________________
Matt Schlegel has held management positions in engineering, product development and program management at a number of Silicon Valley start up companies. Now, Matt enjoys consulting for companies in the areas of engineering leadership, product delivery, joint development with Japanese and Asian partners, and telecommunications. Before he started working on product delivery engines, he cut his teeth (and hands) on Chevrolet engines.
No comments:
Post a Comment