Meeting the ECSA Outcomes: A Consulting Structural Engineer’s View - Outcome 9

By Kim Timm

Outcome 9 – Exercise sound judgement in the course of complex/broadly-defined engineering activities

?Disclaimer: I am not a representative of ECSA (beyond being a registered professional), nor am I in any way involved in their review committees. My observations stem from guiding technologists and engineers in navigating the registration process. Some points may apply to technicians, but I have not yet assisted any technicians with registration so I cannot confirm this. The following is freely shared advice and you are welcome to use it or disregard it within your registration application as best suits you. My experience is primarily with the consulting structural engineering side so naturally my observations are skewed in this direction. Now, onto the topic itself…

Outcomes 8, 9 and 10 represent some of the most nuanced aspects of professional conduct. They discuss your behaviour, which can be incredibly complex to define and demonstrate appropriately. ?

Outcome 9: Exercise sound judgement in the course of complex/broadly-defined engineering activities

?In my opinion, Outcome 9 is the easiest of the three Group D Outcomes. If you're at the stage of considering registration, chances are you're already accustomed to making daily judgment calls across various aspects of your work. Outcome 9 is about pulling together diverse facts, perspectives and concepts, identifying the consequences and risks of the different options and making an informed decision. Typically the difficulties I’ve seen people have with this outcome is how to phrase it in a way that is appropriate and addresses what the reviewers want to know.

The process I’d suggest is as follows:

1. Pick a few examples where you have recently had to make a judgement call or a decision in your work e.g. Do you knock down or repair that column? Do you redirect the electrical routing or the wet services in that clash? Do you cancel the concrete pour today because the weather is too hot? Find something unique to you where you have made a decision.
2. Test if it is a complex / broadly-defined engineering problem or part of a complex / broadly-defined engineering activity. (Table 2 R-08-PE / Table 4 R-08-PT)
3. Consider what information you needed to gather to make the decision. The best examples are if you had to talk to other disciplines/fields to gain this information. This shows you can appreciate and integrate different perspectives.
4. Evaluate the consequences or risks of the options you considered – time / cost / quality / health and safety etc.

Then you put them all together so your example can demonstrate your judgement e.g.:

“On House XYZ, hairline surface cracking was evident on the surface bed. I evaluated the client's requirements, researched the likely cause of cracking (plastic shrinkage) and considered the impacts to the programme, project costs and eventual build quality. As the potential risks caused by the damage were minor and the timeline was critical for the client, I elected to repair the damage rather than demolish and recast the slab.”

Note: While this example leans towards a broadly-defined problem, a similar scenario with a vague problem definition could easily qualify as a complex problems.

Try and do this process for a few examples where you have needed to use your judgement and then you can evaluate the best ones to use. You will probably find you are using this process without even realizing that it is what you are doing: Identifying the problem – gathering the information – identifying the risks and consequences – making the decision.

The ability to use engineering judgment when necessary is a critical engineering skill. The caution I would add to this is that it is just as important, as a professional, to be able to understand the limits of one's expertise and when something is beyond your ability to make a judgment call on. ?This is why Outcome 9 ties in so well with Ethics (Outcome 8) and Being Responsible (Outcome 10).

Good luck with the writing!