5 management issues faced by engineering firms

5 management issues faced by engineering firms

Paul Guitou--Berlion - Mar 7, 2018 1:36:13 PM

Management engineering

The complexity faced by engineering firms on a daily basis gives rise to management issues that are no less complex, and that must be addressed if their impact is to be minimized. Here are the top 5 challenges, and suggestions for strategies to tackle them.

Communication problems within the team

In each organization, bad communication sows the seeds for a number of other problems. Even if it's more likely to happen in larger organizations, issues can begin at smaller sizes, and warrant attention from management as early as possible.

Challenging responsibilities, misunderstanding project scoping or delivery deadlines are some examples of the types of risks that can be aggravated by your communication problem, and could even lead to the failure of your projects.

Without accumulating needless processes that would cause overhead, communication must nevertheless be based on rigorous procedures. That includes clear policies around information sharing, stakeholder involvement, and management style. 

Misperception of the specifications

Here is an example of a risk with a high potential impact. An error or a misunderstanding on the specifications can have many devastating consequences on a given project.

It can jeopardize the output quality of a project which will not live up to your customer's expectations. Since competition makes customer loyalty paramount, you can't afford to repeat such mistakes, and all must be done to prevent them, even if the error's impact on your resource utilization and deadlines is kept minimal.

To overcome this challenge, there is a need for consistency in the tools used to plan your projects. The best practice will be to set up verification processes, for all important aspects of your projects, using features such as custom fields. In that regard, creating thorough project templates can facilitate the implementation of best practices.