Motivation and Innovation in an Engineering Dept. 11

[prohammy]

What I think is a very interesting situation is happening in the Eng. Dept. where I am presently working (as a contractor, I am getting what feels like an outsider's view as it develops)

The team (excluding myself and other contractors) has just had their quarterly 'state-of-the-nation' meeting and one of the issues that has been addressed is the percieved de-motivation of the Eng. Dept.

Each engineer has been asked to detail what he thinks is the problem and present his opinions to the Eng. Manager.

All of this has made me begin to think about two questions...

1. How do you effectively motivate an Eng. Dept.?
&
2. How do you create an enviornment within an Eng. Dept. that will facilitate innovation and creativity?

It is the second question that interests me the most, but I think the first question will also provide some points of interest. Your thoughts and ideas would be most interesting to read.

(I do realise that some, if not all, of the above has been discussed before, but without a search facility its a bit difficult to find. )

Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[GregLocock]

1) Trust the engineers

2)see 1

That was easy!

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[zdas04]

Greg is right, if a bit brief. I see a lot of engineering departments in different companies and the ones that work have a culture of giving the enigneers clear direction on WHAT needs to be done and gives them a lot of latitude in HOW to do it. Without that no amount of HR BS or cute compensation schemes is effective.

Team building with micro-managed engineers is way less fun than you would hope.

David

 

[mechengdude]

The fact that the company had to have a "state of the Nation" to ask engineers to tell them the problem is a clear sign the management group is clueless.

Where are the front line supervisors that should be going around mentoring the engineers and filtering/feeding it to upper management?

How to motivate engineers.
1. Give them a task with requirements.
2. Stay out of their way.
3. Pay them well.

 

[PSE]

Along the same lines as mechengdude,

1. Communicate the priorities and requirements
2. Make sure they have the tools they need to do the job.
3. Remove obstacles to success. Don't be one yourself.
5. Reward successes. Evaluate failures and provide feedback.

In my experience most people are self motivated. External incentives (good or bad) will work only temporarily.

Regards,

 

[TheTick]

Most companies seem to treat engineering departments as a "necessary evil". They do not treat engineering as an asset, and have trouble seeing the value.

Engineering receives all the blame when things go wrong, and none of the credit when things are running smoothly. Many people take special delght in nitpicking engineering departments' performance, finding and magnifying any fault.

Engineers are typically overworked and undercompensated for the extra time they put in.

Engineering departments tend to collect extra worklads due to the inherent ability of engineers to adapt and perform a wide variety of tasks.

Managers are basicaly clueless. If they need to ask, they will never understand.

Honesty may be the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.

http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

-SolidWorks API VB programming help

 

[epoisses]

Greg
I have never seen this issue so well and briefly summarised as your #1. Everything else follows from it.

 

[epoisses]

(I just to refer to the engineering dept at my previous job as the youth hostel)

 

[JStephen]

"How do you create an enviornment within an Eng. Dept. that will facilitate innovation and creativity?"

One issue has to do with the overwork mentioned above. If you are overworked, you're likely to take the first possible solution and run with it, as opposed to finding the best solution. People spend more time thinking up the better mousetrap when they have time to think.

Secondly, consider what the reaction of the rest of the company is to anything innovative. If innovative ideas tend to get squashed because "we've always done it this way", you won't have much innovation after a while.

 

[epoisses]

Or in other words: trust engineers when they set priorities and when they come up with new ideas.

 

[csd72]

The overwork point is an important issue.

I interviewed at a company once and when I asked why they needed someone they said that the workload was getting a bit high and the quality was starting to drop.

It was a great place to work at with a real team spirit.

Also if you had an issue with one of their standard details they would listen and have a round table about it. They would never say 'that is the way we have always done it' but you would have to state your case well.

I will always use that place as a model for a well run engineering business.

 

[RAH1234]

Starting with Greg's abstraction of "Trust the Engineers", I'd condense it further yet. One word: Trust.

If there is a single untrustworthy element in the team, the performance and morale of all the individuals will suffer.

 

[MadMango]

Innovation and creativity can be helped along if you get a multi-disciplined group together. EEs have as much to contribute to a mechanical problem as MEs, and vice versa. Our Engineering Director has a nasty habit of also never being satisfied with the first design. A common phrase he likes to use is, "That's a great design, try to reduce the part count by 50%."

This gets everyone rethinking the design to optimize it. Getting out of your comfort zone and applying existing methods in new ways is innovation. Making sure its functional, servicable and cost effective is the creative aspect (at least as an OEM).

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[KENAT]

As well as setting requirments, priorities etc try to stick with them.

I realize requirements & priorities do sometimes change over time but this change should be minimized.

My place never defines the requirement well (a recipe for disaster) and the priorities either aren't given or are changed so often or so badly thought out that they are meaningless.

Infact some of the VPs are reluctant to put anything in writing or if my manager summarises his understanding of the VP instruction in written form it's either ignored or completely picked apart, though still without actually giving the requirement.

 

[kchayfie]

As well as trust, listen to the engineers. There's nothing more demoralising than when you've been given a problem and solved it by the deadline only to be told "oh we went ahead and did xxx instead". Or to design something and have them come back to you to fix it when it doesn't work because they didn't build it to your design. And for no reason other than it was easier to do it a different way.

 

[civilperson]

Money is the answer, what was the question?

 

[corus]

The survey being taken by your management is to be used to weed out the dissenters. Those that gripe the most will be seen as the cause of any de-motivation as it can't be any problem with management, surely?
In reality there's obviously a problem with communication, an 'us and them' situation, where management have no idea what people below them are thinking. If there's no communication, no reward in praise, no feedback, no team working from top to bottom, no open discussion without blame or derision, then there's no motivation, no innovation.

corus

 

[brauno3]

Motivate
1. Task Requirements
2. Pay

Innovate
1. Brainstorming with no restrictions(Don't go into meeting saying we have to use material xy or its been done like this for years) Ex. If developing a water bottle for a bike don't say Water bottle. Your automaticly constricting the thought to previous water bottle designs and stifling creativity. Go into the meeting saying your developing "Water transportation system)
2. Always follow number 1
3. Place all ideas on white boards or large sheets of sticky notes to keep track
4. Don't rule out any ideas
5. Help facilitate brainstorming by coming up with ideas or commenting on others. Nothing is worse than when your in a meeting and no one speaks cause they don't have ideas.
6. Good innovation/Brainstorming gets groups excited and leads to motivation

 

[PSE]

I just came across this and found it worth a posting. I kept thinking as I read through this "yep, been there"

http://humanresources.about.com/od/interpersonalcommunication/a/twentymistakes.htm

Regards

 

[SomptingGuy]

The solution to motivation issues:

http://www.despair.com/demotivation.html