Book review: Developing managerial skills in engineers and scientists: succeeding as a technical manager
✍ Scribed by W.L. Scheller II
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 8 KB
- Volume
- 8
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1090-8471
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Michael Badawy is to be commended for writing an honest textbook on management. His overall approach is practical, which gives him some important things in common with authors such as Elyahu Goldratt. He does not pontificate about management theories the way many other management texts are apt to do. Instead he defines and suggests solutions to the problems of technical management.
In his first chapter Badawy defines technical management and the manager. This is followed in Chapter 2 with an extensive discussion on avoiding management failure. Any student of Dilbert or anyone working in one of thousands of organizations today is aware of the failures of managers and management as a whole. Badawy is to be commended for addressing this problem by presenting a series of twelve common problems faced by technical managers and then following up with a discussion of the ingredients of managerial competency.
Fully four chapters in the book are devoted to the transition from technologist to manager. This an important and often neglected area of discussion. How does one take a person trained in engineering or science and make them a manager? Badawy certainly pokes some holes in the MBA. Indeed, some of the fundamental assumptions that have emanated from the Harvard Business School are fair game. Badawy cites problems with curriculum, faculty, and the differences between professors and practitioners as significant parts of the overall problem. There is a lengthy discussion about a possible alternative to the MBA (i.e., the Master's in Engineering Management).
A considerable discussion is given of the formal and informal organization. This is specifically addressed as something the manager must understand for his or her own organization. More often than not it will be the informal organization that can get things done. Matrix organizations are tackled and the problem of managing without a great deal of formal authority is handled.
The middle of the book is devoted to more classical management topics, including project management and cross-functional teams. Later development of the individual's decision-making and problem-solving skills are addressed. The book also discusses methods for developing control and evaluation skills.
In the final chapter, Badawy goes after the quality revolution. He unabashedly tells the reader that this is no panacea for the organization's ills. He describes many of the tech-