How can problem solving skills make you a standout Engineering Manager?

It's really important to involve your team with open questions to let them define the problem. You should avoid declaring problem by yourself because it will move you away from a team.

Tout à fait, un problème bien compris est à moitié résolu, aller voir où s’est produit? quand? essayant de simuler le comment, afin d’identifier la cause racine du problème, tout en servant avec par les outils d’analyse appropriés, définir les actions, les contremesures et faire le suivi pour confirmer l efficacité. Bien évidemment en impliquant les éléments concernés entourés sur le même objectif.

In my experience, people often jump to solutions without fully identifying or clarifying the problem they are trying to solve. With the rise of ‘continuous improvement’ and the promotion of ‘improvement’ initiatives in the workplace in the last decade, there is sometimes a misplaced focus created. Instead of motivating the resolution of the most valuable problems, these drivers can incorrectly prioritize the delivery of solutions or improvements. I agree with the general process recommended above, diversity in the team can only provide benefits.

I couldn't agree more with this article. Adopting a participative management approach is indeed the best solution to accurately identify the root causes of each problem. It is crucial to gather relevant information, ask the right questions, and define the scope and impact of the problem in order to effectively resolve it. Involving not only the engineering team, but also team members, clients, and other stakeholders in problem definition can provide various perspectives and insights. By correctly identifying the root cause, we can avoid wasting time and resources on irrelevant or incomplete solutions.

I've found it very important to insure everyone involved that we are just seeking the truth and not trying to blame. I believe if people feel safe they will express what happened and things can be solved otherwise nothing gets resolved.

Key problem solving skills that I observe are not sufficiently common and need coaching: (1) decomposing the problem into manageable chunks and logical steps, (2) making progress in the face of dealing with limited information and uncertainty

During analysis phase, data driven and fact finding are very important. Besides use Ishikawa diagram, 5 Why, process flowchart, etc, gemba and brainstorming by involve the person who operate the process is important. Understand the problem at the right place with right person, in many cases will disclose potential hidden cause that unseen by simulation or data recorded.

This is commonly overlooked/underestimated in engineering teams and is often the source of scheduling issues. Try breaking up the scope into a preliminary statement of work outlining the time required to develop the architecture of the problem statement. At that point you can provide a thorough work breakdown structure that identifies functional and integration requirements, pseudo code, manufacturing considerations, and most importantly risk identification. The risk identification is the most challenging step for a couple reasons. Naturally our instinct is to use success based planning, and risk identification is heavily reliant on prior experiences. This is the time to reach across the isle and see what other colleagues have come across.

In my experience , defining the actual pinpoint route cause is one of the challenging actions in the process and what will make the difference in all the flow down problem solving chain by coherently gathering all the team resources, The real challenge is to train your team to excel on the skills required.

Some useful methods that I"ve sistematically used along my carreer of Engineering Manager for problem/fault analysis: 1) Ishikawa's Fishbone Diagram (multiple factors analysis) 2) 5 Whys (to find the root cause) 3) FMEA (to treat potential causes) Certainly, these methods are more effective if carried out by skilled engineers who have a deep understanding of the product (hardware and software)/processes/equipment.

In my experience it is people handling skills that resolves most issues. Asking the right questions is always required. How you ask them will resolve the issue in the most efficient way. Soft skills like listening and empathy goes a large way in helping you and others quickly and efficiently.

Well said @sunmuga Kanaratnam ji. In my opinion, Various solutions are available for most of the problems, However, with empathy we can standout as an engineering manager. Like its said in the detail in the book 'One Minute Manager' that a small tap on the junior's shoulder, when he/she does a good work will extremely motivate them to do much better.

It is amazing how creative a group of people can be. When facing problems, brainstorming can be such a simple and powerful technique. What’s for Brainstorming? In principle, Brainstorming is a technique that works quite well to liaise with specific problems. It promotes lateral thinking by generating similar, complementary, and opposed ideas. It can be used for: - Identifying potential causes of an issue. - Generating innovative solutions. - Cultivating a pool of ideas. - Discussing novel concepts. - Facilitating the decision-making process. My tip: as you go through your brainstorming sessions, remember to adapt the process to align with your personality and organizational culture. Just as with any skill, practice makes perfect.

It is important to to listen to different ideas from different people and different POV, many managers tends to trust their own instincts and or their close circle This kind of unconscious bias makes you reject or resist ideas not from these circle

Commmincation is the key , number 2 you have to know your limits and capability the rest easily can be managed. Finally you have to have backup plans and be transparent about the facts

Engineering science is a well defined knowledge area with plenty methodologies, techniques and design tools with incredible capability to complement development of solutions. However, the challenge lies in that the best solutions are not cheap, given this challenge we need engineering managers who are not only technically astute but have sound business appreciation and marketing skills. Top most will be an engineering manager who creates a collaborative and mutually strong end to end supply chain environment to support solutions. Some good engineering solutions are never implemented because these solutions are developed independently and later fed into some standard, inaccurate assumption based economic evaluation models for ranking.

Every time problems are defined as the knowledge gap between Current Conditions and Desired Future State. Problems are successfully solved by running simple trials and instantly implement everything that has impact on closing the gap. Typically no problems get solved by applying one master solution. Rather a combination of several countermeasures close gaps/ solve problems.

Understanding your environment is very crucial when evaluating your solution and for decision making. Some engineering solutions are good, tried and tested but not suitable for certain environments. Deciding on the best solution often require detailed research, review of industry trends, benchmarking with similar entities/operations and involving the end user of the solution you want to deploy. Reviewing and analyzing constructability and or ease of implementation for the solution is important.

Alongside typical assessment criteria, a top level FMEA of basic concepts can be useful in assessing risk within potential designs. The top level nature allows for broad thinking about risk without getting bogged down into details of a solution that ultimately may not be used.

Get the team talking and make the most of their diverse perspectives. Keep the communication flowing. Check out each solution's feasibility. Think about resources, time, and what kind of impact and rank the solutions. What's most effective, feasible, and impactful? Pinpoint the winners that line up with our organizational goals.

It's always a good idea to choose some metric which transparently could show the quality of a solution and look at it regularly.

After solution is implemented come back and very effectiveness of the solution, refining, if necessary, and standardizing as best practice.

In this current era, an imperative need exists for realistic and pragmatic solutions. Additionally, a strong preference is given to cost-effective measures. However, it is evident that some organizations and leaders prioritize cost-effectiveness over sustainability. Placing excessive emphasis on cost parameters can lead to significantly higher expenses in the long run.

Now you need to put your ear to the rail. Listen carefully for early feedback. If you hear nothing then you may have found the perfect solution. More often than not, you may need to correct the direction. Hopefully just slightly. Let’s call it a tweak. Sometimes it’s just improved communication of the solution. Waiting for data to prove the solution was the right one can take an agonizingly long period of time but if you made the correct decision it will prove you did your job.

While implementing solutions desired outcomes should be kept in mind and actuals should be measured and tracked against it. Solutions may not bring all desired outcomes in one shot, so an agile approach is needed with continuous feedback incorporation and adaptability based on changing needs. Solutions may need to be fine-tuned for continuous improvement. It is recommended to test solution implementation for scalability and extensibility.

When it comes to "reviewing solutions," consider implementing the following approaches: 1. Root Cause Analysis 2. Risk Assessment 3. Benchmarking 4. Cross functional/ department collaboration 5. Feedback loop etc.

In my experience we need to monitor solutions over time to measure their impact and robustness as well as ensure no collateral damage… solved one issue, but created another. Document lessons learned, update best practices and ensure they are incorporated into future designs.

Thorough documentation of the Root Cause Corrective Action (RCCA) is imperative to mitigate the risk of recurring issues in the future.

There is a sweet spot on the timeline where you start evaluating the solutions, not to early and not to late too You have to keep an eye the progress ave the time factor, don’t wait too much for inappropriate solutions

Conclude the process by reflecting on and learning from the implemented solutions. Evaluate results, identify strengths, weaknesses, and improvements. Encourage feedback, celebrate successes, and document lessons learned for continuous improvement as an engineering manager.

I like pace of perfection. It’s about containing the problem to buy time for a permanent fix. Repeated failures will cause a massive loss in confidence and harm validation programmes for other components or systems masking other potential problems which will appear later on further delaying the programme. Use small teams to target problem resolution with high focus on the issues. Never assume, find the data and the evidence of the problem, consider experiments to prove theories, never assume the design is right and the issue lies elsewhere, turn every stone to find the answer. There is no such thing as a one off - it’s only a one off until the next time so don’t ignore issues or convince yourself that all is ok - find the evidence.

By breaking down problems into manageable parts and approaching them with a creative yet methodical mindset, I lead my team through uncertainties with confidence. This skill not only ensures project efficiency but also inspires my team, as they see problems not as roadblocks, but as chances to excel and innovate. It's this ability to navigate through challenges smoothly that makes an Engineering Manager truly stand out and drive projects to success.

Too many times have I seen problem solving taking not only weeks but months because someone in the organization required a team to undertake unnecessary analysis or because the problem solving team was overburdened with problems and could not provide the necessary focus. Set timescales that are realistic but fast. Solution implementation may take some time, depending on the things to get fixed. If, however, the understanding of the problem takes too long, the organization looses confidence in the process ability and will most likely not see the benefits in a structured approach. Also, make the solutions stick! At times, this requires true leadership backing. Lastly and highly importantly, highlight the teams efforts and provide recognition.

This may fall into the implement solutions section but it is critical to put in place a feedback loop with a measurement approach to monitor the effectiveness of the chosen solution - and iterate on it if not fully effective, or even be willing to scrap it and use another alternative if the solution is not addressing the problem. Worrying about sunk effort and cost is a relevant concern, but that cannot be a roadblock to changing course if it is called for based on results.

Prevention is better than cure. For being successful in Engineering Management, anticipating issues and preventing it from happening by way of good Governance is necessary.