Lessons Learned From Developing New Engineering Managers at JPL

Engineers who become managers must acquire essential knowledge about management to be successful. Major aerospace projects are complex organizations with three or four levels of management, and often have over a hundred cost account managers. Management skills are critical to the planning and implementation of these projects, especially in today´s cost-conscious world. Aerospace organizations must address the gaps between excellent engineering educations and excellent knowledge about engineering management if they hope to succeed with major aerospace projects. Essential engineering management knowledge includes how to: plan work, estimate cost, prepare schedules, manage performance under normal circumstances, manage performance under adverse circumstances, and handle people. While some engineering students learn about cost estimation in their university education, many do not. Few engineering students get significant training on the other management skills mentioned above. However, the best and brightest engineers often become cost account managers within several years after they graduate, and many of these move on to higher levels of management within several more years. Their management skills, or lack thereof, lead directly to the success or failure of complex aerospace projects. There are at least four approaches for developing engineering managers: (1) let them watch other managers perform on real jobs; (2) active mentoring; (3) self-directed study of books and journal articles on management; (4) formal training sponsored by the employer. Formal training is the foundation for sound development of engineering managers. All of the other approaches can be helpful, but are seriously undermined if formal training is absent or otherwise inadequate. Bad habits and inconsistent practices can be learned, until the organization gets itself into serious trouble. This paper describes successful practices at JPL in developing engineering managers through formal training. T- he author has been engaged in project and proposal work for over thirty years at JPL, and in formal training over the last ten years. Over the last decade he has addressed the needs of approximately 1,500 students.