Round out your technical engineering abilities with the business know-how you need to succeed
Technical competency, the "hard side" of engineering and other technical professions, is necessary but not sufficient for success in business. Young engineers must also develop nontechnical or "soft-side" competencies like communication, marketing, ethics, business accounting, and law and management in order to fully realize their potential in the workplace.
This updated edition of Engineering Your Future is the go-to resource on the nontechnical aspects of professional practice for engineering students and young technical professionals alike. The content is explicitly linked to current efforts in the reform of engineering education including ABET's Engineering Criteria 2000, ASCE's Body of Knowledge, and those being undertaken by AAEE, AIChE and ASME. The book treats essential nontechnical topics you'll encounter in your career, like self-management, interpersonal relationships, teamwork, project and total quality management, design, construction, manufacturing, engineering economics, organizational structures, business accounting, and much more. Features new to this revised edition include:
- A stronger emphasis on management and leadership
- A focus on personal growth and developing relationships
- Expanded treatment of project management
- Coverage of how to develop a quality culture and ways to encourage creative and innovative thinking
- A discussion of how the results of design, the root of engineering, come to fruition in constructing and manufacturing, the fruit of engineering
- New information on accounting principles that can be used in your career-long financial planning
- An in-depth treatment of how engineering students and young practitioners can and should anticipate, participate in, and ultimately effect change
If you're a student or young practitioner starting your engineering career, Engineering Your Future is essential reading.
Table of Contents:
Preface to the Third Edition xix
Acknowledgments xxvii
List of Abbreviations xxix
Chapter 1 Introduction: Engineering and the Engineer 1
The Playing Field 1
Definitions of Engineering 3
The Seven Qualities of Effective Leaders 8
The Engineer as Builder 19
Concluding Thoughts: Common Sense, Common Practice, and Good Habits 20
Cited Sources 22
Annotated Bibliography 23
Exercises 24
Chapter 2 Leading and Managing: Getting Your Personal House in Order 27
Start with You 27
Employment or Graduate School? 46
The New Work Environment: Culture Shock? 49
The First Few Months of Practice: Make or Break Time 51
Managing Personal Professional Assets: Building Individual Equity 59
Concluding Thoughts: Getting Your Personal House in Order 67
Cited Sources 68
Annotated Bibliography 69
Exercises 70
Chapter 3 Communicating to Make Things Happen 73
Five Forms of Communication 73
Three Distinctions between Writing and Speaking 75
Listening: Using Ears and Eyes 77
Writing Tips: How to Write to Make Things Happen 80
Speaking Tips: How to Speak to Make Things Happen 97
Concluding Thoughts about Writing and Speaking 118
Cited Sources 118
Annotated Bibliography 120
Exercises 121
Chapter 4 Developing Relationships 123
Taking the Next Career Step 123
Personality Profiles 124
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 125
Theories X and Y 127
Delegation: Why Put Off Until Tomorrow What Someone Else Can Do Today? 129
Orchestrating Meetings 135
Working with Technologists, Technicians, and Other Team Members 145
Selecting Co-Workers and “Managing Your Boss” 150
Caring Isn’t Coddling 151
Coaching 152
Teamwork 153
Effective Professional Meeting and Conference Attendance 158
Concluding Thoughts about Developing Relationships 163
Cited Sources 164
Annotated Bibliography 165
Exercises 166
Chapter 5 Project Management: Planning, Executing, and Closing 167
Project Broadly Defined 167
Project Management Defined 168
The Centrality of Project Management 169
Relevance of Project Management to the Student and Entry-Level Technical Person 172
Planning the Project 173
Executing the Project 188
Closing the Project 190
Closure: Common Sense and Self Discipline 192
Cited Sources 192
Annotated Bibliography 193
Exercises 194
Chapter 6 Project Management: Critical Path Method and Scope Creep 195
This Chapter Relative to the Preceding Chapter 195
The Critical Path Method 196
Scope Creep 210
Cited Sources 227
Annotated Bibliography 228
Exercises 228
Chapter 7 Quality: What Is It and How Do We Achieve It? 231
Everyone Is for It! 231
Quality Defined 232
A Caution for Engineers and Other Technical Personnel 235
Quality Control and Quality Assurance 236
Suggestions for Developing a Quality Seeking Culture 237
Tools and Techniques for Stimulating Creative and Innovative Thinking 250
Closure: Commit to Quality 264
Cited Sources 264
Annotated Bibliography 266
Exercises 267
Chapter 8 Design: To Engineer Is to Create 269
The Root of Engineering 269
This Chapter’s Approach 270
Design in the Context of Major Engineering Functions 271
The Disproportionate Impact of the Design Function 274
Design in Terms of Deliverables 274
Design as Risky Business 278
Design as a Personally-Satisfying and People-Serving Process 279
The Words “Engineer” and “Create” 280
Closing Thoughts About Design 281
Cited Sources 281
Annotated Bibliography 282
Exercises 282
Chapter 9 Building: Constructing and Manufacturing 283
The Engineer as Builder 283
Constructing 285
Manufacturing 290
Differences between Constructing and Manufacturing 294
Closing Thoughts about Constructing and Manufacturing 294
Cited Sources 295
Annotated Bibliography 295
Exercises 296
Chapter 10 Basic Accounting: Tracking the Past and Planning the Future 299
Relevance of Accounting to the Engineer 299
The Balance Sheet: How Much Is It Worth? 300
The Income Statement: Inflow and Outflow 304
Personal Income Statement 305
Business Income Statement 306
Relationship between the Balance Sheet and the Income Statement 308
Accounting for Your Future 309
The Impact of Time Utilization Rate and Expense Ratio on Profitability in the Consulting Business 314
The Multiplier 319
The Income Statement as Part of the Business Plan for a Consulting Firm 320
Project Overruns: Implications for Profitability and Personnel 321
Concluding Thoughts about You and Accounting 324
Cited Sources 324
Annotated Bibliography 325
Exercises 325
Chapter 11 Legal Framework 329
Why Law for Engineers? 329
Legal Terminology 332
Changing Attitudes: Forewarned is Forearmed 334
Liability: Incurring It 334
Liability: Failures and Learning from Them 336
Liability: Minimizing It 339
Maintaining Perspective on Liability Minimization 344
Legal Forms of Business Ownership 344
Concluding Comments about the Legal Framework 347
Cited Sources 347
Annotated Bibliography 349
Exercises 349
Chapter 12 Ethics: Dealing with Dilemmas 353
Inevitable Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions 353
Defining Ethics 355
Teaching and Learning Ethics 356
Legal and Ethical Domain 359
Codes of Ethics 362
Dealing with Ethical Dilemmas: Using Codes and Other Resources 370
Ethics Codes 371
Case Study: Discovering a Major Design Error after Construction Is Complete 374
Concluding Thoughts: Seeing Sermons 376
Cited Sources 377
Annotated Bibliography 378
Exercises 379
Chapter 13 Role and Selection of Consultants 381
Consultant Defined and Why You Should Care 381
Why Retain a Consultant? Let’s Do It Ourselves! 383
Characteristics of Successful Consultants 385
Consultant Selection Process 387
Price-Based Selection: Three Costs to the Consultant 397
Conclusions about the Role and Selection of Consultants 400
Cited Sources 401
Annotated Bibliography 401
Exercises 402
Chapter 14 Marketing: A Mutually-Beneficial Process 403
Consider Your View of Marketing: Are You Carrying Some Baggage? 403
Chapter’s Scope 404
The Economic Motivation for Marketing Professional
Services 405
Marketing and Selling: Different but Related 406
Marketing Techniques and Tools 412
What Works and What Doesn’t Work 426
Marketing Concluding Comments 427
Cited Sources 428
Annotated Bibliography 429
Exercises 429
Chapter 15 The Future and You 431
What Does the Future Hold? 431
The World You Will Work In: Same Role but New Stage 432
How to Lead Change 438
Concluding Thoughts about You and the Future 451
Cited Sources 452
Annotated Bibliography 453
Exercises 454
Appendix A: Engineering your Future Supports ABET Basic Level Criterion 3 455
Appendix B: Engineering Your Future Supports ABET Program Criteria for Civil and Similarly-Named Engineering Programs 457
Appendix C: Engineering Your Future Supports the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge 459
Index 461
About the Author 469
