Engineering management: Abstractions,analysis, and clones do not a manager make

In this paper we argue that a loss in American technological competitiveness and inventiveness has resulted, in part, from an excessive reliance on widely publicized managerial practices and control. These managerial practices tend to be based on analysis, technique, and other abstractions of reality. Individually such practices are valuable tools for the manager, but applied universally and in mass they have become counterproductive. Such dysfunctions are especially true in engineering and research management where the tangle of requirements, procedures and reports interferes with innovation. Managers who rely to excess on such approaches tend to create bureaucratic climates which are hostile to innovation. Insulated by the very techniques they practice, they lose any sense or feel of the richness of organizational functioning and become overly concerned with risk avoidance. The proposed alternative management style is one which balances managerial control with autonomy for technical professionals while encouraging high levels of information-sharing.