Being an engineer does not mean just solving technical problems by applying scientific and mathematics knowledge. The profession of an engineer requires one to have a wide range of skills that will give him/her the opportunity to successfully cooperate with colleagues, generate decisions that will meet a customer’s needs, and perpetually advance in his/her proficiency. In this essay, I would like to outline the skills that I consider crucial for succeeding in subcontracting work, managing other engineers, and developing hardware and software, and would like to relate the discussion to our recent experience of working on a Robot project.
What will happen if you choose the way, but have no idea about a destination? Or, if you dream about the destination, but cannot find a way? Probably, in both cases, your walk will not be effective. The question arises: what does effectiveness mean in this case? To do an effective walk, you need to know well your destination and find the optimal way to reach it; using the notions of management, means to set a goal and find the optimal strategy to reach it.
I think that this skill is priceless for a person who wants to be successful in his/her career and life. Engineering is not an exception: being an engineer is all about setting goals and reaching them. Goals may appear differently: it may be a task that you are to fulfill as a subordinate, or it may be your desire to complete an idea that once flashed in your mind; however, without goal-orientation, you will not be able to find enough energy to formulate your destination and reach it. Thus, I think orientation on goals is one of the most important skills an engineer should have.
The second crucial skill an engineer should have is, no doubt, the ability to work in a team. Today, an engineer rarely has to work on his/her own: as a rule, technical problems are solved in small or large teams. Thus, each engineer needs to be not just a “team member”, but a “team worker”. How is this skill connected with that mentioned above? You may develop a goal or be given it, but be not able to reach it on your own. In turn, a team, due to the diversity of its members (as emphasized in Smith 37) and synergy effect, will manage to reach the goal successfully. Being a team worker is very important when both managing engineers and solving technical problems. When we worked on our Robot project, I have seen how effective teamwork is. We all were quite different, each of us had certain strengths, and we were willing to cooperate, and this helped us to cope with our goal.
At the same time, one may argue that the ability to work in team is a complex matter and includes a range of skills; for example, Smith (41) presents teamwork skills, one of the characteristics of the effective team, as a set of peculiar skills, and I completely agree with this definition. However, if we try to define which skill is the most important, I would emphasize the ability to listen (and, of course, to hear) in the broad sense of this word: no matter how much you have said if your interlocutor does not hear you.
You need to listen carefully to develop a correct goal or to understand a goal that you are given; you should be a good listener to understand a customer’s expectations and develop software that meets his/her requirements etc. Leadership and problem solving are also important, but what will be a result if a team does not hear a leader or misses effective problem solutions offered by a team member? When we were working on our project, it was sometimes a bit difficult for me to make other team members hear my suggestions, and I understood how important this skill is.
In his book, Smith provides a bright quotation by Harold K. Sperlich, the Former President of the Chrysler Corporation, which, in my opinion, emphasizes and “corroborates” the importance of skills mentioned above, “Everyone has to work together; if we can’t get everybody working toward common goals, nothing is going to happen” (31). To succeed, a team of engineers should set a goal and walk together towards reaching it.
Bibliography
Smith, Karl A. Teamwork and Project Management. Rose-Hulman.Edu. Web.