Transitioning to management, what's your experience? 9

[alexmechie]

I'd like to hear your opinions about going from engineering into (non-engineering) management. I have an opportunity to pursue a project management position within my company right now. I'm assuming it's more money and would be good experience but I don't know if I'll enjoy it. I'm also not sure if it's better to stay in the same field and become more of an expert at what I do or if it's better to branch out and get experience in another field. Just curious what you guys think.

 

[cvg]

I'm sure this depends greatly on the industry you are in, however in my industry (civil, consulting) - project managers still do a lot of engineering. It's a little more money and a lot more responsibility. It does require a lot more people skills and you will be required to leave your cube from time to time.

 

[trey25624]

I am not a project manager by title, although I have the responsibilities. So you can take what i say with a grain of salt. Like a lot of people in your position you have two main paths you can take in your career. One is to become a techincal expert, continue doing design work for instance, and not deal with the overall mangagement of a project. The other is to become a manager.

The managers responsibilties vary from company to company depending on things like size of the company. If you want to be a good manager I think you need to learn how to do a number of things, the most important I think is the ability to delegate. You will mangage the project's budget, manage your project team, deal with clients (if you are a consultant), and a whole host of other issues that affect the success of the project. The more time you spend doing the engineering the less time you are able to focus on the success of the project.

Bottom line, if you really like doing engineering work and design then managment may not be for you. However, I would suggest you try it out. Mangaging people, budgets, clients etc. can be challenging and presents new opportunities for growth.

I continuely see engineers bash managers on these boards and I think part of it is they don't really understand what a manager does. In my experience it is more challenging than engineering. Like anything it can have it's headaches, but for some it's rewarding. Plus if you want to climb the ladder in your company it is likely the only way to do so. If anything it will force you to develop skills that you may not currently have, or show you potential that you never realized before. And if it doesn't work out, just go back to engineering. No shame in that.

 

[Latexman]

My opinion on management:

"beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.”

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[MikeHalloran]

Assume nothing; _negotiate_ for more money.

The money serves as an anesthetic,
because unlike engineering,
the work itself is not that much fun.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[alexmechie]

Thanks everyone. Yeah, if it's not a decent raise I don't think I'd take the position just for the experience. I think I've decided to at least apply at this point and see where it goes.

 

[DRWeig]

Go to the bookstore and buy every collection of Dilbert cartoons they have. Study them thoroughly. You will morph into the pointy-haired guy, there is no alternative.

Some folks enjoy it though!

Good luck to you!

Goober Dave

 

[KENAT]

When I was doing serious project management I did anything I could to get back to doing some engineering.

That said, my projects were generally on time or early, and on or under budget. Plus I was the guy with the best project folders who got offered up for ISO & Customer Audits and the like.

It seems to me that the project management is a popular path for folks that aren't technically that strong but want big $ any way.

I'm certainly not saying all project managers are like that. I suppose two that even if they are like that it isn't' necessarily bad, they may be weaker technically but perhaps are better at other aspects project managers need.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[trey25624]

I was curious to see what people posted on this. I don't think this is probably the best place to get a fair unbiased opinion on management ha ha. That being said I don't particularly like it, but I'm not like everyone else. I think you're doing the right thing to follow up on the opporutunity.

 

[mauricestoker]

Transitioning back to engineering was much more fun than transitioning to management. Had too many management colleagues get stabbed with shrimp forks when the undeducated did not recognize the characteristic absence of spine and weak knees. If you are serious about being a success in management, I would recommend buying oversize shirts so that you can keep the hanger in and hook over the back of your chair.

 

[tygerdawg]

Yeah, the "not the place for an unbiased opinion" comment sure works here.

Management by its nature is a people task, even of the "project" flavor. Most engineers I know would make notoriously bad managers because if they had people skills they would have gone into Psychology or Elementary Education or something. Surviving 4-5 years or more of an engineering curriculum pretty much screws up your neurons, too. I suggest you have a good long talk with yourself to determine if you would enjoy dealing on a daily basis with personality quirks, random acts of heroism and cowardice, high character and scant ethics, happy lies and unpleasant truths, immovable deadlines, unreasonable company officers, loyal troops whom you must send to their career deaths, and everything in between.

Someone once told me about his tenure at "Company X". When an en-guh-neer decided he wanted to be a Manager, they sent him away for a series of classes. The classes essentially de-programmed him from being an engineer and turned him into a touchy-feely company management hack drone whose sole purpose to herd a bunch of tempermental cats around, never to touch "hard engineering" again. So it is in a lot of places, but without the company support of re-training.

Some folks take a shine to the crazy dynamic game of dealing with chaos and human nature rather than the hard numbers and acceptable compromise of many flavors of engineering. Something to think about.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[MikeHalloran]

>>>loyal troops whom you must send to their career deaths,<<<

Been there, done that.

Been there, been that.

Beautifully said.


Star for TygerDawg.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[TenPenny]

Funny thing, I just happened to be reading the old classic 'Working with Emotional Intelligence', which I find pretty thin on real content, but touches on this exact subject.

Management takes a differnt skill set than does engineering. Some people have both sets of skills, some have one or the other.

The one point that is emphasized is that all engineers have a certain level of intelligence, that's a given in order to reach this point. For management and in many ways for career advancement, the important skills are the people skills.

 

[grimmy65]

Not sure if you have read the thread below but you might give it a once over to get an idea of what you might be getting into. This is a nasty generalization and I know nothing of your personal or technical skills but forgive me for attempting to dissuade you from going to the dark side as latexman so well put it. Worst case: you become the lying, spineless guy who people post about in the forum below...(so much for unbiased)

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=263643

 

[Hoagie]

Say goodbye to 9-to-5, and hello to 5-to-9.

It’s a different job, entirely. Balancing the priorities fulcrum, particularly the schedule-budget vs. quality one.

Find a mentor.

Don't let 'em see you sweat.


Keywords: Contact, Budget, Ethics, Change Order, Exclusionary Services, Additional Services, Crisis Negotiation, Indemnity, Betterment, Not-to-Exceed, Cost-Plus, Execution, Termination, Estoppels, Caveat, Rider, Lump Sum, Acceptable Write-Offs...and, Vodka

 

[trainguy]

trey25624,

Your line about:

"The more time you spend doing the engineering the less time you are able to focus on the success of the project."

has really hit home for me. It's very true, and a large reason why several of my projects go over budget...


tg

 

[trey25624]

trainguy,

I think that is the most difficult thing for a lot of engineers who are getting into management, letting go of the engineering duties. You have to trust the engineers that are working for you and understand they will approach problems differently than you do.

I have had many managers / superiors that want to check engineering calcs and get involved in the nuts and bolt engineering duties when it is a complete waste of their time. They should only get involved when someone asks for their guidance.

If the people doing the engineering work are really doing a poor job (and by that I don't mean they aren't doing it "your way") then you need to correct them. It may seem more difficult to correct someone than to just do it yourself. But if you teach people it will help you in the long run as a manger. You have to have faith in people and give them responsiblity.

And if someone isn't doing the job to the level needed for that position, despite your best attempts to help them, then you need to get them off the project. The "dark side of managment".

 

[MedicineEng]

I am on the dark side and I do rather enjoy it. Sometimes I miss the nuts and bolts and I time to time I reserve some of my time to check some projects, but basically what I do is management.
I would recommend you to have a try but you have to be honest enough with yourself to realize if you are loosing a good engineer to get a lousy manager. I've seen this happen in the past and it is a loose-loose situation.

"Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more."
The Matrix

Good luck with your choice.

 

[IRstuff]

I agree that letting go is typically a difficult thing for even experience managers to handle. I've seen even division general managers arguing fine point about acoustics and radars with working engineers during their design reviews. Extremely poor form; who's minding the story while they're playing in the sandbox?

Nonetheless, until you try doing it, you'll never know whether a) you can do it, or b) you'll like. I've had small managerial positions early on, which solidified my desire to never touch them again. As others have said, there are those that thrive on being the coordinator and expediter of successful projects.

The basic task of a manager is to manage, keep out of the way of their engineers, and to make things happen for their engineers. Unfortunately, too few managers ever achieve those goals. However, much of that is due to differences in job expectations, and requirements imposed on managers vs. engineers. In management, as well as engineering, arbitration of competing requirements and conditions is a pre-requisite of achieving any sort of completion. But, the requirements and conditions that a manager must trade and balance are completely different, and often, contrary to those of the engineers. Also, often, survival means making decisions that are completely contrary and detrimental to the rest of the troops.

As an example, I offer this scenario.

A new general manager is promoted from within our division. Our division has been losing gobs of money, along with the rest of the company, for nearly 6 years. We've had 7 GMs in the prior 4 years at the division already, including nearly a 75% RIF. So the new GM's first acts are to cancel all IR&D projects. We engineers are thinking "logic inverter" about the GM.

We have these metal-gate PMOS devices that we pretty much sub out everything, including the printing of our part numbers and logos, and still make something like 80% gross margin; they're our cash cows. Our new GM starts issuing last-buy notices to our customers, basically telling them that we're no longer going to stop production on these cash cows. We're now thinking "criminally insane" about the GM.

So, what's his story?

[white]This GM is actually the smartest one of the lot. He recognizes that his tenure at the division is measured in months, not years, and regardless of what he does, his tenure will not exceed about 6 months (7 GM/4 yr). He can do the "right" thing and work as if the division will survive and sink with the ship, or he can generate a profit and get promoted. Rightly or wrongly, he chooses to survive, so elimination of IR&D helps the bottom line, and he won't be around to deal with the lack of future products. Forcing last-buys gooses the bottom line from ~$20K/month/product to ~$300K for each product killed. By staging the last-buys, he can goose bottomline for several months. Sure enough, at month 6, he manages to be profitable for 2 months, and he's promoted. The next GM comes in, completely unaware of what had previously transpired, and is seen crying a river over the doomed ship that he's now the captain of, but that's another story. [/white]

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[mauricestoker]

IRStuff,

What you describe as a manager is pretty much what I did for 11 years. Most of the people I had to shield my engineers, architects and construction rep's was other management. I never tried to be touchy-feely as that was the architect's job. We increased our annual workload from a typical $10M to over $110M by eliminating a middle level of management. Any manager approaching my resources was an invitation for offense, and the working peeple appreciated not having to deal with the bloviation. Went from there to an organization that emphasized management over deliverables and every project had to have a Project Intensive Mangement Plan. Of course, the overhead went up about 60%, business went out the door, and all technical staff got tired of being PIMP'd.

Back in engineering, over management objection, lower pay, and not regretting it.