Through the Lenses of Strategy Execution: Obstacles in Engineering Management

Abstract

The aim of the research described in this paper was to ascertain the obstacles engineering managers face in executing organizational objectives, to identify differences between engineering managers and managers in general in the obstacles they face, and to map clusters of obstacles. The author conducted a survey of 26 engineering managers in a Canadian engineering company employing about 250 engineers and compared the results with a database of 322 managers in general. The study examined obstacles corresponding to five drivers of performance: rules, emotions, initiative, immediate action, and integrity. In contrast with managers in general, engineering managers faced a greater need to clarify rules, a greater lack of initiative among their employees, and less difficulty in taking immediate action. For the drivers of emotions and integrity, there were no significant differences between the engineering managers and managers in general. The obstacles the engineering managers faced when executing their management strategy could be clustered in five groups.