pls can anyone tell me the difference between engineering management and engineering project management and which would be better for a masters program
Currently where I work, the project managers are responsible for running the schedule and budget for particular products. They do not directly manage the staff involved or assigned to the project. Engineering managers are responsible for the staff provided to those projects and hence are less involved with the daily technical detail.
How can they manage the schedule and cost if they have no control over the work and assignments? That seems really OLD SCHOOL. That extra layer of management would be the first subject of a project management class. We used to do things like that, but the functional managers always got their "skim" and there was no cohesive actions at the project level.
In PM terms you have a weak matrix. A strong matrix is where the different disciplines work for the PM. Pro's con's either way.
Here's what I see. CAUTION, just my opinion and experience and since I turned in my PMP, I'm no longer a professional? (I'm a PE).
Todays Project Managers do not have to know anything about the product, they just analyze the info from the different disciplines and keep mamagement appraised. They are trained book keepers that know all the control tools.
Managers over a disicpline have really know whats going on. They need to know everything the PM does, plus the nuts and bolts. They have to hire and fire people. Create the budget. They are or should be paid more than the PM. Thats how it worked at the last place I worked.
In my part of the world a PM is just that. Someone that is responsible for running the schedule and budget and oversees the construction/development for a particular project (or more than one). He will make decisions on the fly depending on his engineering knowledge, experience, expertise and capabilities. He is the one dealing with the construction manager and contractors.
The engineering manager does not oversee a project, takes care of the designs, scopes, conceptuals and such.
The engineering manager manages engineers (consultants or staff) and the project manager manages contractors. Both roles have a point of interaction when the design for construction is passed from the engineering manager to the PM.
What is common is to have Engineering Managers (Process, Civil, Mechanical, Pipeline, etc.) who are baiscally functional managers that provide resources to the projects based on the needs and the available resources.
Each project, if it is any size at all, then has a PM, a CM, and an EM - which are staffed by the functional organization.
Functional organizations like this are pretty common on the oil & gas project world.
Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website:
Been there, done that, matrix, project-aligned, IPT, etc. The big problem with matrix is that the functional managers don't really work for the PM, so there's not as much accountability for everything, technical, schedule, and cost.
I would dispute the notion that a PM can be completely untechnical. That can only work if the engineering manager is absolutely onboard with the PM, otherwise, a litany of minor overruns on minor tasks results in the "Costco Effect," lots of little things adding up to a big bill.
The functional engineering managers are very neccessary in an EPC type environment - they staff plan, recruit for their departments, keep their engineers up to date on courses, products, processes, software, etc. And most importatnly make the decisions of which engineers are assigned to which projects. Without them you would have a free for all when it came to assignments to projects. So the distinction between eng mgrs & proj eng mgrs is very marked - compltetely different philosophies, goals, skills required, etc.
The functional managers are responsible to the division mgr, Operations Mgr, what ever you want to call the guy in charge of all the projects. They will (or should ) have metrics to determine their effectiveness. Once an eng is assigned to a project, he is responsible to that PM and/or Eng PM, and has a dotted line at most to the functional mgr.
Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website:
We have functional engineering managers that all engineers ostensibly report to, and who report to the VP of engineering. We have chief engineers for each project, who report to the program manager, and are only dotted line to the VP of engineering.
