Bulldozer00's Blog

Expert Number 1 sez:

Engineers don’t make good technical project leaders because they lack business acumen. Thus, they’ll blow the budget and schedule.

Expert Number 2 sez:

Generic managers don’t make good technical project leaders because they don’t understand the work. Thus, they’ll blow the budget and schedule.

Non-expert BD00, who likes to make stuff up and fabricate his own truths, sez:

Yeah, that dilemma sux, but assuming that it can be done, it’s less costly in time and dollars to train an engineer in business skills than it is to train a generic manager in engineering skills.

Of course, if you assume that successful engineer-to-manager or manager-to-engineer cross training is unrealistic (and not many “mainstream” people would fault you for thinking that), then you won’t have to dirty your manicured nails or reach into your pocketbook to, as your fellow managers like to say, “get it done“. The result of this irresponsible, hands off approach is that you will continue to get what you deserve: all of your non-routine, technically challenging development (but not production) projects will blow the budget and schedule more than they normally would if you had put a mangineer or enginanager in charge. Whoo Hoo! Way to go Mr. and Mrs. FOSTMA. Stay the course.