11.1 Introduction

The emphasis of the previous chapters has been on the processes for developing new technologies or new products and it has covered such topics as:

• Engineering as a process
• Assessing the maturity of technology
• Aligning product development work with business and manufacturing strategy
• Planning and managing work
• Developing new concepts
• Identifying and managing risks
• Validating new products
• Delivering the final product information
• Obtaining funding

It is tempting to think of these processes as being largely mechanistic and therefore capable of being ‘installed’ in an organisation, as if they were pieces of software. The reality is that they are no more than guidelines or frameworks within which to operate. As has been said previously, technology and product development are iterative, learning activities where there are no black‐and‐white solutions. There is always some uncertainty about the best way forward, compounded by the fact that choices may have to be made with imperfect information.

On a day‐to‐day basis, the work will be handled by creative but fallible people, and the best processes are only as good as their interpretation by the people leading and running them. The work will also invariably be a team effort. The early stages of a new innovation may require a handful of people, no more than half‐a‐dozen perhaps. At the other extreme, a new aircraft with several million parts will clearly require thousands of people, who will be spread around the globe. Either way, collaboration and cooperation are integral to the process, which is therefore subject to the vagaries of human behaviour.

This chapter is concerned, then, with human dynamics in the context of innovation, technology development, and product development. Most of the topics covered here are the subjects of lengthy books and have been researched in depth by social scientists. This chapter can give no more than a superficial overview of what might be relevant to the development of new technology and products. It is a rather important topic and one whose importance can be underestimated, as the wrong human dynamics can completely de‐rail what might otherwise be a successful endeavour.

11.2 Working Collaboratively

The team, rather than the individual, is the basic building block of technology and product development – very little can be achieved by one person working on his or her own. It might be just one small, self‐contained team developing a new idea or it might be a team, which is one of many on a much larger international project. The team is likely to be a mixture of full‐ and part‐time members and is likely to comprise a core and then an extended range of participants, when all potential contributors are taken into account. Team dynamics will be a key determinant of the effectiveness of that team. So what does drive the success or otherwise of a team?

Starting on a slightly negative note, the work of the American writer Patrick Lencioni in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Ref. 1) has identified where things can typically go wrong in a team environment. In particular, he showed how the team can descend into a nonproductive, or at worst destructive, cycle of behaviours where one problem builds on another. The five areas he draws attention to are:

1. Absence of trust. Resulting in an unwillingness to be open and honest in the group
2. Fear of conflict. Ducking the confrontation of real issues, in an attempt to preserve an artificial sense of harmony
3. Lack of commitment. Half‐hearted support of the group's work, resulting from the above
4. Avoidance of accountability. Not calling team members to account for nonproductive behaviours
5. Inattention to results. Paying more attention to position of the individual and the avoidance of blame, rather than the success of the group

The author's experience of positive attempts at team‐building, where, for example, a facilitator is employed to help a team develop and become more effective, places the focus on the opposite of these points:

1. Developing trust between the individuals and emphasising that team success brings personal success
2. Clarifying the roles of team members
3. Building on the strengths of team members (see also below under ‘Team Composition’)
4. Agreeing an overall purpose, strategy and approach to the team's work
5. Setting goals or tackling problems
6. Encouraging team members to bring issues out into the open but doing so in a way that is constructive and not seen as attacking other team members
7. Helping team members who are having difficulty with issues
8. Defining what constitutes success for the team and raising the commitment to get there

Motivated individuals can definitely be led towards better performance through these means and under‐performing teams can be helped to overcome their difficulties.

11.3 Team Composition

Team effectiveness has also been very much helped by the work of Meredith Belbin, derived from his observations of the performance of teams working on management projects at Henley Management College. His work is used widely in the United Kingdom as a basis for developing team performance.

He observed that effective teams contained a balanced mixture of a number of different roles. The individuals on the team had a propensity to adopt those roles naturally (and one individual could adopt several of them). The nine roles now identified are:

1. Plant. A creator of new ideas and thus a useful contributor in the early stages of projects but less so in the latter stages.
2. Resource investigator. The investigator is good for networking and pursuing contacts and opportunities outside the team.
3. Coordinator. Originally named ‘chairman’, a coordinator is good at maintaining a balanced overview and helping decision‐making.
4. Shaper. A shaper provides energy and drive, particularly when obstacles appear, and is prepared to challenge the team and shake it out of any complacency.
5. Monitor evaluator. These are relatively detached individuals who can see the facts of a situation and come to logical conclusions about the best way forward
6. Team‐worker. As the name implies, team‐workers are concerned with the smooth running of the team and have diplomatic skills that can defuse tricky situations.
7. Implementer. This individual gets things done on time and can be relied on to tackle even the most difficult of tasks.
8. Completer finisher. The completer finisher ties up the loose ends and makes sure that tasks are undertaken properly to the required standard.
9. Specialist. As the name implies, specialists bring detailed, expert knowledge, within a defined field, to a project and are prepared to acquire new knowledge from the project, but again within their defined field.

Each of the roles above also has known downsides. For example, ‘plants’ often come up with new ideas in the late stages of projects when all is done and dusted; ‘shapers’ can become rather aggressive; and ‘completer‐finishers’ can be irritatingly obsessed with detail. The team needs also depend on the stage of development of a specific project. For example, early‐stage work benefits from plants whilst latter‐stage work needs completer‐finishers. Figure 11.1 suggests what roles are required as a function of project phase.

Whilst no framework is perfect, the Belbin structure does provide a basis for understanding and discussion. There is some academic criticism of the structure and the work behind it. However, it is a fact that it has helped many teams to understand themselves and to gain a practical understanding of how they may improve their functioning in a work environment.

11.4 Team Development

Even with the foregoing knowledge, teams do not suddenly come into being in an effective state; they need to work together to become so. Many people are familiar with the ‘forming‐storming‐norming‐performing’ model developed by Bruce Tuckman as long ago as 1965 (Ref. 2). This model does seem to replicate the states that teams in real life have to go through to perform effectively. These states follow a pattern that appeals to common‐sense and experience:

• Forming. The team begins to understand the task and the team members, where people might fit in, where they might contribute, and something of the likely team dynamics.
• Storming. This concerns, as the name implies, a potentially difficult phase where conflicts and misunderstandings can arise, usually about individual roles or contributions and the extent to which they are acceptable to people as individuals. Sometimes these conflicts aren't fully resolved, bubbling away under the surface only to reappear later.
• Norming. The members of the group accept each other and their roles, perhaps understanding better the strengths of their colleagues and the collective strength of the group; there is at least a hint that the task can be achieved.
• Performing. The team gets on with the job with a sense of harmony and collective purpose, confronting issues in a constructive manner and feeling that results are being achieved, instilling a sense of pride in membership of the team.

Teams can, of course, become stuck in their early stages, never progressing, for example, beyond the tensions of the storming stage. Or, they can regress from the latter two states as a result of problems arising and disagreements over the way forward. A background awareness of this model is useful in guiding a newly formed team into becoming an effective unit.

11.5 Working with Partners

Almost without exception, engineering products consist of a mixture of in‐house and externally sourced components. The proportion will vary, depending on the nature of the product. Those made from relatively basic materials may purchase 20–30% of the value externally and create the rest of the value in‐house. More complex products such as aircraft or trains may buy 70% or more of the value and concentrate on system integration and final assembly, as well as post‐delivery services.

The general trend is towards outsourcing an increasing proportion of a product's value, driven by increasing specialisation and capital intensity in the supply chain. Contrast, for example, Apple's current outsourcing of most of its iPhone manufacturing with Ford's famous River Rouge plant in Michigan, built between 1917 and 1928, which was set up to process iron ore at one end of the site and produce finished vehicles at the other. Whilst outsourcing may be presented as a relatively new concept, in reality, it is a continuation of the principles of specialisation, division of labour and comparative advantage identified some 200 years ago by the economists Adam Smith (1723–1790) and David Ricardo (1772–1823).

The point is that engineering companies place an increasing reliance on external suppliers whose efforts need to be integrated into the wider product development teams. Their contribution will vary, depending on the nature of the material they are providing. In some instances, it may just be basic raw material with limited design input. In other instances, there could be substantial design input. Different categories of supply, and the form of relationship that is implied, are indicated in Figure 11.2.

The issues and principles discussed earlier in the context of internal teams still apply but are brought into sharper focus by the legal, commercial, and organisational barriers that will exist with separate organisations.

However, there is nothing to stop external suppliers being built into teams in the ways described above. In particular, the points described under ‘positive attempts at team‐building’ are relevant: developing trust, clarifying roles, building on strengths, agreeing overall purpose, setting goals, encouraging team members, helping team members having difficulties, defining what constitutes success, and raising the commitment.

Most team‐building or development seems to be internally focussed, but the principles could and should be applied elsewhere.

11.6 Working Internationally

A further dimension comes into play when cooperating organisations or individuals are of different nationalities. Unexpected social, behavioural, and commercial norms can create confusion and misunderstanding where none is intended and where everyone is genuinely seeking cooperation. It is therefore helpful to be, at least, aware of the issues that could arise in this situation and seek to avoid them.

The seminal work in this field (Ref. 3) is by Geert Hofstede, a Dutch engineer and social psychologist. In his more recent work, he identifies six dimensions of international culture, and he has profiled some 70 countries against these dimensions. The six are outlined in Figure 11.3.

The country profiles show that the United Kingdom and United States score highly in terms of individualism, masculinity, and indulgence but have low scores for power distance and uncertainty avoidance. France, on the other hand, scores somewhat lower on individualism (but still relatively high), masculinity, and indulgence, but higher on power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Germany is lower than the United Kingdom and United States on individualism and indulgence but higher on uncertainty avoidance and long‐term orientation.

To an extent, these results correspond to national stereotypes, but they do provide some useful pointers in terms of what different nationalities might see as important when planning and running technology programmes. Some caution has to be exercised in that the data refer to nations as a whole, whilst particular individuals may have characteristics that depart from the national norm.

This work has now been extended and, to a degree, reinterpreted by Professor Erin Meyer of INSEAD. Her work (Ref. 4) is based on eight separate dimensions of national culture and is typically plotted in a way that enables easy visual comparison of the characteristics of different nations.

11.7 Working Virtually

The use of ‘virtual’ teams is becoming more widespread in a number of disciplines, including software and engineering, as is the topic of leading and managing teams in a cross‐border, multicultural environment. Business school papers and personal development courses are readily available in both subjects. Arguably, engineering teams have always had elements of both, deriving in particular from the contributions made by international suppliers to large projects. A possible exception is small, early‐stage teams, which tend to be single, co‐located entities relying heavily on personal interaction to develop and refine new ideas.

The idea of virtual teams, where a large proportion of effort is located away from the central, co‐ordinating group, has been made possible by two developments:

1. Low‐cost communications technology such as email and teleconferencing which overcome, in part, lack of team co‐location
2. Central, master databases of engineering information available in real time and capable of rapid updating so everyone can use current data

The potential advantages of this approach include the possibility of access to a wider pool of experts, lower development costs, and round‐the‐clock working. Set against these advantages are the reduction or loss of face‐to‐face discussion and the rapid iteration of new ideas that are typical of early‐stage projects.

Research (Ref. 5) has suggested that, to make virtual teams work depends on the following:

• Having very clear definitions of the work required and the roles expected of those undertaking the work
• Investing effort in building trust between a project's participants, including some face‐to‐face meetings
• Having clear decision‐making processes that respect the cultures of the participants
• Practising the skills of effective teleconferencing, backed up by frequent one‐to‐one support by the project leaders

These points suggest that virtual teams are most effective in the later, more detailed stages of engineering programmes when the direction has been set and there is more opportunity to subdivide interdependent tasks.

However, situations are never entirely black‐and‐white with virtual teams being one extreme of collaborative working, involving a high level of dispersion of activity, versus other projects where the bulk of participants are located closely but where there will inevitably be partners or suppliers on different premises. These points underpin the challenges of leading technology and product development projects.

11.8 Leadership of Technology and Product Development Projects

The leadership of technology and product development projects is a surprisingly multifacetted but potentially very satisfying and rewarding role. Most importantly, the leader is the holder and champion of the high‐level vision for the new development; he or she is the ‘master architect’. This in itself needs the person to operate with conviction and determination so that the team, small or large, can work towards the end goal with that same conviction. This aspect of the role needs a high level of personal integrity.

At the working level, the leader must be able to give guidance to junior staff and to specialists, who might be highly experienced but rather prickly characters who will probably believe that the leader lacks proper, in‐depth technical knowledge. This aspect of the role needs good overall knowledge and understanding of the technology and its application. It is particularly important when problems arise, when solutions are needed, and therefore when choices must be made. Finding solutions is not easy, and they often emerge from debate, which the leader must be able to encourage. The role is very much one of an internal integrator, able to exert influence across a range of disciplines, always with the end goal and high‐level vision in mind. It requires some humility and professionalism; conversely, it is not one that suits large egos.

Planning, coordination, and delivery are also important so that results are achieved within the agreed timescales and costs. This requires discipline of thought, planning and action. At the same time, the leader must instil a culture of freedom and responsibility.

Developing people and choosing potential successors is a critical aspect of the leadership role.

From an external point of view, the leader acts as the link to the outside world and the end customer. The role is often that of the internal voice of the customer. He or she must therefore be able to put themselves in the customers' shoes to act as their advocate.

There is also a very important role outside the team but within the wider internal organisation. This may be necessary to maintain financial support, to ensure support for progress beyond early‐stage development, and to ensure ‘fit’ with broader organisational plans. The credibility of the leader is important with this group, and ideally the leader should have had business, marketing, manufacturing, or profit‐making responsibilities in the past, i.e. ‘real‐world’ experience.

The role requires a proactive, out‐and‐about attitude, meeting people at their desks, reacting quickly, and being highly communicative. Red‐flag issues arise with some frequency and they must be dealt with competently and quickly. Hence, the role is not one where the person concerned can hide in an office looking at paperwork and reports or sending emails, although some of that is required (outside normal hours!).

11.9 Personality Traits

A further consideration is the personality traits that might or might not be most suitable for work in the field of technology and product development. There is clearly no one ideal mix of personality characteristics, just as there is no single type of role – different roles will be better suited to different personality characteristics and there is a wide variety of roles in this field. In terms of describing personality, there are several models which can be used. For example, the Myers−Briggs model, with 16 different combinations of characteristics, is used quite widely. As a start point for considering this topic further, the five‐factor model described in Figure 11.4 is a straightforward starting point. The model has been developed independently by a number of research groups over a long period and is relatively easy to understand.

In terms of the traits which best match the needs of technology roles, it is fair to say that a high‐level of conscientiousness is needed for all tasks in this field. The importance of team work would suggest higher levels of agreeableness and lower levels of neuroticism would be appropriate, although some level of neuroticism might be helpful where safety is involved. Beyond that, there are places for those with high or low levels of extraversion and openness to experience.

The critical question, though, is the extent to which these traits might correlate with, or predict, job performance and this is still very much a matter of debate. However, some knowledge of personality is undoubtedly helpful in understanding how individuals and groups function in a work environment. It at least reduces the possibility of putting square pegs in round holes.

11.10 Selecting People

Selecting people is arguably the most important role of any engineering manager − it will determine the success or otherwise of a team or department. The effects of selection are long‐lasting and are difficult to unwind.

Choosing people for technology and product development roles is, in principle, no different to selection in any other field. The starting point is clarity over the purpose of the roles to be filled and the broad attributes that candidates need to bring. Any role to be filled should be viewed from two angles: first, the basic description of the role, which may not change much over time, and second the nature of the assignment currently. The latter will depend very much on current circumstances and could vary from delivery of new technologies, building a team, improving existing products, to supporting new business models. Each of these requires different attributes and experience.

It should be appreciated, also, that there is a wider variety of roles than might be expected in the technology field, which is sometimes perceived as the domain of the introverted analyst. Whilst there is a place for deep analytical and technological skills, most engineering roles have more to them than that.

For example, this book has continued to emphasise the strong interconnection between technology work and business issues, on the basis that the only real purpose of technology development is to create something that can be sold as a product or service. Increasingly, therefore, engineers will require broader business, marketing, and manufacturing awareness. This translates into the need for interpersonal skills to facilitate work with customers, suppliers, and manufacturers. The same could be said of influencing skills in the sense that all developments have to be communicated and ‘sold’ to managers or investors. Leadership skills are a key need at the more senior levels, both to lead engineering teams and to influence, more widely, organisations, customers and investors.

It is not the intention of this book to describe how recruitment processes or interviews should be conducted. There are many excellent books already in this field. However, it is important to be clear about the needs of particular roles and how candidates should be judged against those needs.

In terms of the process for selecting people, there is clearly a requirement in all technology roles for a high level of numerical, verbal, and spatial reasoning for which a number of established psychometric test methods exist. It is always as well to confirm that candidates are sufficiently strong in this respect, although degree‐level qualification in a technically related subject should give sufficient confidence.

As far as selection interviews are concerned, a straightforward and effective approach for a process, with some pitfalls, comes from a rather unlikely source. The approach is outlined by Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner in economics, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow (Ref. 6), which is more about psychology than economics. He developed the approach originally for the Israeli Defence Force for assessing the suitability of potential new recruits (and he followed up the process by confirming whether the recruits had developed into good soldiers). The basis of the process is that answers to a modest number of factual questions, pursued with some rigour, is more effective than relying on the ‘expert’ judgement of the interviewer, which proved to be ‘almost useless for predicting the future success of recruits’. Other studies have shown that interviews are poor predictors of job performance.

He advocates constructing a list of six characteristics that are relevant to the role in question. As an example, in the previous section, the characteristics of a successful leader of technology projects was discussed and reference was made, as it happens, to six key attributes or roles for a leader:

1. Master architect
2. Internal technical integrator
3. Planner
4. Voice of the external customer
5. Organisational champion
6. Proactive but not egotistic style

For each requirement, a series of factual questions should then be compiled and worked through in the interview to evaluate objectively, on a 1–5 scale, how that person measures up. (This will obviously have to be done discreetly – not just working overtly and mechanistically through a prepared list.)

Selection is then made on the basis of this objective information, which is intended to establish whether the strengths of candidates match the needs of the job. The overriding thought is that ‘normal’ interview techniques are too easily swayed by subjective factors – first impressions, halo effects, horns effects, general confidence, and coincidental connections between the candidate and the interviewer. Ideally, this approach should be supplemented by discussions with those who have worked with candidates before.

It is often remarked that firm opinions about candidates are formed in the first 20–30 seconds, on the basis of appearance, dress, tone of voice, or body language – see Ref. 7. Subsequent interactions then seek to confirm this early view. There is also a natural human tendency to generalise one particular success to overall success (halo effect), or the opposite of generalising one failure into overall underperformance (horns effect). The wider point is that human beings are naturally ‘programmed’ to make rapid judgements, and this works against an objective assessment of who will perform best in a job, which is the ultimate purpose of a selection process.

At the same time as judging the basic competence to undertake a role, an assessment is needed of the social skills of candidates and of their underlying values, which need to align with those of the organisation. The latter can be built into, or derived from, the core questions whilst the latter is something that will come across in an interview (social skill probably wasn't a major consideration in the military example quoted above!).

Competition is fierce for high‐calibre candidates for technology and product development roles, and these points will help to identify the best candidates. Those candidates will also become aware of the process and be more likely to accept positions with organisations that have an obviously professional selection process.

11.11 Developing People

The core processes described in this book depend critically on the skill, judgement, and experience of the people leading and participating in those processes. These capabilities are not developed overnight. As has been said elsewhere, a full engineering cycle takes several years, at least, and may even extend to decades in some instances. Long‐term internal development of staff is therefore likely to be more effective than a wholesale reliance on external recruitment.

The primary means of personal development is through the work itself, not through an endless succession of training courses. Given that young recruits into engineering will be well‐armed with analytical and theoretical skills when they enter the profession, the aim should then be to broaden people's capabilities in areas such as programme management, solution design and practical development, customer/partner/supplier relationships, manufacturing introduction, and team leadership.

The speed of personal development can be accelerated by providing the right opportunities to acquire these skills, supported by guidance and mentoring. Finding the right opportunities does, of course, depend on the circumstances of each particular organisation. It also depends critically on the organisation to identify these opportunities and advocacy in putting people forward for work where they may not have the full set of skills. These are not issues where the individual can easily make his or her own way – the organisation should take the lead, and it is in its own interests to do so because the future of technology and product development organisations depends on its future talent.

There is a part to be played by formal training, but it is likely to be only a small role. Beyond ‘on the job’ development, exposure to the following can be helpful:

• International technical conferences where there is opportunity to meet like‐minded people in related fields
• Training in specific technical topics
• Professional society activities, which also provide opportunities for meeting other professionals and may include the chance to visit other firms or countries
• Personal development workshops in the ‘softer’, human skills
• Business education in specific topics such as marketing or more widely up to MBA level

A broader question, then, is who should take responsibility for personal development. At one time, engineers could, if they wished, look forward to a lifetime's work with one company. In this case, the company would often take responsibility for that person's development. Companies now have much shorter lifespans, so responsibility therefore must rest with the individual. The individual would benefit, however, from professional help in areas such as personal strengths and values, where one can contribute most, assessing one's own performance and one's learning style.

In his book on this topic (Ref. 8), Peter Drucker makes the point:

Now, most of us… will have to learn to manage ourselves. We will have to learn to develop ourselves. We will have to place ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution. And we will have to stay mentally alert and engaged during a 50‐year working life.

11.12 Concluding Points

The main message of this chapter has been that human dynamics plays an important part in the running of engineering activities. This should come as no surprise, as these activities are often complex endeavours, undertaken by groups varying in size from a small handful to several thousands, using well‐educated and opinionated engineers. Whilst classic, technical work might be the core of the activity itself, its successful execution requires organisation, as well as constructive interaction with customers, investors, and other stakeholders. Some understanding of human dynamics is therefore an essential part of the armoury of anyone in a leadership position in this field.

This chapter has introduced some models and ways of thinking that might be helpful in guiding how people are selected and developed, and how activities are organised. It provides no more than a practical introduction to a range of complex subjects, which are themselves deeply researched and where there is often controversy about what is right or wrong. As always, the technology leader has to take a pragmatic view of how to develop and use an understanding of these topics.

References

There is a plethora of literature on the social science of organisations of which this is just a small, but relevant sample. All are specifically referenced in the main text.

1. 1 Lencioni, P.M. (2002). The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass/Wiley.
2. 2 Tuckman, B.W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin 63: 384–399.
3. 3 Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G.J., and Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York: McGraw Hill.
4. 4 Meyer, E. (2014). The Culture Map: Breaking through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business. New York: PublicAffairs Books.
5. 5 Watkins, M.D. (2013). Making Virtual Teams Work: Ten Basic Principles. Boston: Harvard Business Review.
6. 6 Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Penguin Books.
7. 7 Dale, M. (2006). The Essential Guide to Recruitment. Kogan Page.
8. 8 Drucker, P.F. (1999 and 2005). Managing Oneself. Boston: Harvard Business Press.