For quite some time, I’ve been mildly horrified at little time engineers actually get to engineer products. There are a billion and one distractions, all very real distractions, but ones that could be avoided. The folks at Cadalyst reached out to be to see if I’d be willing to write an article that talked to that. I was glad to oblige. Here’s a quick excerpt from the start of the article.

Fwlap!

Recognize that? It’s the sound of yet another request, form, or other project-management task hitting your desk. Managing an engineering organization today is an unrelenting job. Every project is understaffed. Every day brings a new fire drill. Every product is getting more complex. You and your team end up working nights and weekends to stay on schedule. Now maybe you don’t mind long hours. Heck, everyone’s working hard nowadays. But you have to admit, there’s one part of this reality that is frustratingly ironic: Most of your time isn’t spent on engineering work.

It’s not exploring options, performing calculations, or even validating designs. Most of your team’s time is spent tracking down the shop floor guy to get his feedback. It’s showing the folks from procurement that a specific part is required. It’s proving to the people in the service organization that yes, in fact, that maintenance procedure does work. Is this why you went into engineering?

The full article can be found over at the Cadalyst site here.