Oh gosh yes, having helped quite a number of borderline IEng / CEng applicants recently I couldn't agree more that this is a challenge. You have someone who is taking final approval on systems where, if they've made the wrong technical judgement, hundreds of people will be killed or millions of pound lost, but how do you show they had the required "master's level" knowledge to make that judgement?


Frankly, very often my personal opinion (but not necessarily that of the assessment panels!) is that if they work for a large responsible body then actually that judgement will have already been made - they wouldn't be allowed to be in that position if they weren't seen to be having a good, structured, thoughtful approach to their work with an up to date knowledge of the specific technical fields required. Which is why I always emphasise that candidates must emphasise their level of personal responsibility - the difference between advising on a technical approach, and being the person who says "we are doing this, and I will take full responsibility for the technical risk".


The biggest problem I tend to find is finding technical judgements that such candidates have made, the irony is that the more senior the applicant, the more it can often seem that they're not doing any actual engineering. It's important that they can show examples that demonstrate they are not just rubber-stamping their teams' work. The mental test I always have in my head is that if everything went wrong and this person was in the dock defending their company they could say "I made this decision, and the reason I believed this to be the right decision was because of these technical arguments...". NOT  "I believe this was the right decision because I employed competent staff to make it, and I am prepared to stand by them" - that's still a perfectly reasonable defence, but it's a defence presented by an IEng rather than a CEng. (But Andy, surely there are cases where an IEng could also make the first defence? Yes, in which case it's probably time they started their CEng application!)


Where I find big challenges is where the applicant is the senior technical member of a small organisation, or sometimes a remote outpost of a large organisation, or may be in a largely non-technical organisation (e.g. as head of facilities). They may be there because of their Masters' level knowledge, or they may be there because life happened to take them that way - plenty of engineers have had the chance to grow and develop because they had a straightforward EngTech role in a small organisation, and as the organisation mushroomed so did their role. This gets very interesting, because this is where I feel we can add real value - at all registration levels - because the organisation they work for simply doesn't have the competence to know what a good engineer looks like, it's not their expertise. So we can help both the engineer and the organisation. BUT I must admit I find these types of cases quite challenging: possibly 90% of the time the candidate is doing "business as usual" work, but 10% of the time the ball is totally in their court to make significant decisions, e.g. when moving to another site or adding an additional facility. I tend to advise them to literally use the techniques I was taught in my Master's -  show you've evaluated a range of options, show the rationale for choosing the option you chose, and show that you made sure you had evidence for everything. And also make clear what the consequences would have been if you'd made the wrong technical judgement.


But on such cases, like Richard, I'm sure any other advice posted here would be appreciated by candidates (and me!).



On the other sub-thread - my feeling on the progression question is that it should be another red herring, if through their career an IEng has gained the experience and judgement that allows them to fulfil the CEng A2 / B2 criteria then I'd hope they can just apply and get it if they want it. (And indeed EngTech to IEng or Ceng). I definitely don't believe it should be automatic, they're different accreditations, and indeed I feel like I've spent a lot of my career trying to persuade experienced engineers to take significant technical responsibility for technical systems with a significant level of risk (because I've considered them perfectly competent to do so) which they have determinedly refused to do! Whilst at the same time we probably all know engineers who happily sign things off at a leadership level (or indeed refuse to sign things off) based on their past experience without also considering whether the world and technology have moved on. I do feel very strongly that none of the registration levels should be a long service badge, if they are going to be taken seriously they must reflect the attributes of that person against the standard. But of course experience is a great teacher (if treated thoughtfully) and a great confidence builder towards being able to make such judgement calls, and I absolutely wouldn't knock it.



Absolutely strictly speaking I can imagine a world where people move in all directions between all three registration levels, and that would be absolutely fine, but I appreciate I may be in a minority of one there! The human brain does seem to love to make hierarchies, and can only cope with the idea of "upward" movement through them, whatever the reality is. I used to have great fun working with an ex-RN Commander and an ex-RN Chief Petty Officer. It was hilarious. The ex-Commander insisted that he must be treated with due respect at all times and in all matters by the ex-CPO, which I'm delighted to say the ex-CPO completely refused to do! Although the ex-chief did openly respect his colleague's engineering skills. But if the Commander wanted a new pack of Post-It notes he could bloomin' well get them himself ?



This is a really good discussion!!!!!


Thanks,


Andy



 

Oh gosh yes, having helped quite a number of borderline IEng / CEng applicants recently I couldn't agree more that this is a challenge. You have someone who is taking final approval on systems where, if they've made the wrong technical judgement, hundreds of people will be killed or millions of pound lost, but how do you show they had the required "master's level" knowledge to make that judgement?


Frankly, very often my personal opinion (but not necessarily that of the assessment panels!) is that if they work for a large responsible body then actually that judgement will have already been made - they wouldn't be allowed to be in that position if they weren't seen to be having a good, structured, thoughtful approach to their work with an up to date knowledge of the specific technical fields required. Which is why I always emphasise that candidates must emphasise their level of personal responsibility - the difference between advising on a technical approach, and being the person who says "we are doing this, and I will take full responsibility for the technical risk".


The biggest problem I tend to find is finding technical judgements that such candidates have made, the irony is that the more senior the applicant, the more it can often seem that they're not doing any actual engineering. It's important that they can show examples that demonstrate they are not just rubber-stamping their teams' work. The mental test I always have in my head is that if everything went wrong and this person was in the dock defending their company they could say "I made this decision, and the reason I believed this to be the right decision was because of these technical arguments...". NOT  "I believe this was the right decision because I employed competent staff to make it, and I am prepared to stand by them" - that's still a perfectly reasonable defence, but it's a defence presented by an IEng rather than a CEng. (But Andy, surely there are cases where an IEng could also make the first defence? Yes, in which case it's probably time they started their CEng application!)


Where I find big challenges is where the applicant is the senior technical member of a small organisation, or sometimes a remote outpost of a large organisation, or may be in a largely non-technical organisation (e.g. as head of facilities). They may be there because of their Masters' level knowledge, or they may be there because life happened to take them that way - plenty of engineers have had the chance to grow and develop because they had a straightforward EngTech role in a small organisation, and as the organisation mushroomed so did their role. This gets very interesting, because this is where I feel we can add real value - at all registration levels - because the organisation they work for simply doesn't have the competence to know what a good engineer looks like, it's not their expertise. So we can help both the engineer and the organisation. BUT I must admit I find these types of cases quite challenging: possibly 90% of the time the candidate is doing "business as usual" work, but 10% of the time the ball is totally in their court to make significant decisions, e.g. when moving to another site or adding an additional facility. I tend to advise them to literally use the techniques I was taught in my Master's -  show you've evaluated a range of options, show the rationale for choosing the option you chose, and show that you made sure you had evidence for everything. And also make clear what the consequences would have been if you'd made the wrong technical judgement.


But on such cases, like Richard, I'm sure any other advice posted here would be appreciated by candidates (and me!).



On the other sub-thread - my feeling on the progression question is that it should be another red herring, if through their career an IEng has gained the experience and judgement that allows them to fulfil the CEng A2 / B2 criteria then I'd hope they can just apply and get it if they want it. (And indeed EngTech to IEng or Ceng). I definitely don't believe it should be automatic, they're different accreditations, and indeed I feel like I've spent a lot of my career trying to persuade experienced engineers to take significant technical responsibility for technical systems with a significant level of risk (because I've considered them perfectly competent to do so) which they have determinedly refused to do! Whilst at the same time we probably all know engineers who happily sign things off at a leadership level (or indeed refuse to sign things off) based on their past experience without also considering whether the world and technology have moved on. I do feel very strongly that none of the registration levels should be a long service badge, if they are going to be taken seriously they must reflect the attributes of that person against the standard. But of course experience is a great teacher (if treated thoughtfully) and a great confidence builder towards being able to make such judgement calls, and I absolutely wouldn't knock it.



Absolutely strictly speaking I can imagine a world where people move in all directions between all three registration levels, and that would be absolutely fine, but I appreciate I may be in a minority of one there! The human brain does seem to love to make hierarchies, and can only cope with the idea of "upward" movement through them, whatever the reality is. I used to have great fun working with an ex-RN Commander and an ex-RN Chief Petty Officer. It was hilarious. The ex-Commander insisted that he must be treated with due respect at all times and in all matters by the ex-CPO, which I'm delighted to say the ex-CPO completely refused to do! Although the ex-chief did openly respect his colleague's engineering skills. But if the Commander wanted a new pack of Post-It notes he could bloomin' well get them himself ?



This is a really good discussion!!!!!


Thanks,


Andy