Is Car Maintenance CPD?

I'm still not sure, it's my (very) specialist subject so I'm not learning anything other than possibly presentation skills (which I do anyway). It's a bit like putting my model engineering down as CPD. it's certainly a form of engineering, but is it relevant?

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Best regards

Roger

Roger,

Well, maybe. That's the real point is that you have to do your own reflection on wherewh it had developed you in any way. Improved presentation skills would certainly be a form of development, so you have to ask yourself whether they Jane improved as a result? 


​​​​​​But, regarding the actual topic matter, when you say it's a presentation on your (very) specialist skills, the question here is, is your presentation just a series of facts, or a presentation of the findings or outcomes of something you've done, or have you gone on to add to it in some way - that could include giving specific thought to what your audience will get from it, and how you can enhance that, or what lessons can be learnt from what you did, what's next, or even a commentary on what you think engineering (or the business, or operation that you were supporting, or the world at large) has gained from what you've done, whatwha can gain in the future, etc. ?


If your presentation didn't do any of that, if it was just a plain and simple delivery of facts, then I'll be bold and ask you why? Why not add something that yout it a step beyond a bald statement of facts? I'd be hard put to thint of any subject matterr that couldn't gain from that additional thought and attention. And by doing so, both only does it into worthwhile CPD for you but also more interesting for your audience.


And finally, if it really didn't add anything for you, then why did you do o?

This is a little complicated. My employer is probably the world leader in this field so I am limited by company confidentiality in what I can say at the conference. I was asked to give these presentations as the opening for a couple of sections of the conference and intend to give some history, some facts and some questions to think about for those intending to move into this field. An amount will be based around a white paper I co-authored a few years ago so there isn't really anything new for me. I will see what I think after the presentations.


Best regards

Roger

Roger,

You will at least need to ascertain where the rest of the field are (or how else will you know what you can and can't say) and at the very least what you will be doing is refreshing your knowledge of the background to where things are today. It may not be much in terms of development, but don't write it off.

Alasdair

Just going slightly off topic, but keeping in the car maintenance field. I'm sure there are fans here of Formula 1 racing.  There is a certain team with orange livery cars, regarded as one of the best in the world; achieving numerous world drivers, and construction championships.


However, in the last few years, they have performed poorly; finishing practically last in races. This year, with engines from a different manufacturer, they've slightly improved; finishing 2nd to last (slight exaguration there). 


Since other cars using same engines, are doing much better, the problem appears to be with the aerodynamics. Now it seems the previous year's problems were probably not engine related, and that buying out from the engine manufacturer reported at £100m to switch to new supplier was fool hardy.


Given that F1 teams are multimillion pound companies; using the latest cutting edge technology and facilities; and employing the best and highest qualified engineers, who's CPD's are probably well above most engineer's CPD.


The question is what use is doing your CPD for personal goal, when it doesn't show real world achievement, as the orange F1 team's failures have demonstrated??

Yes Roger, that does suggest that the presentation in itself may not really contribute to your development, but, if there are some intelligent q&a that provide food for thought, or which cause you to expand on the original content, that works be a form of development for you. You will have to judge whether that's the case, and whether it is sufficient to warrant you considering it as part of your CPD. Of course, you may well get something out of other speakers contributions, and I suspect, in the role you describe, you are highly likely you be one of the key contributors to q&a on their presentations.

Alasdair,

absolutely - I think we are on the same page in our responses.

And anyway, just getting practice/ experience in presenting is CPD!


 I’ll come onto Mehmood’s interesting (and not off topic at all post) when I’m on a more comfortable train - Heathrow Express at the moment

Andy, thinking more on what I'd said (or should that be written?); if I look at the recent success from the England football team, then It appears to be largely down to the quality of the manager.


Some football pundits have pointed out that previous failures must therefore be blamed on the managment style; and that the difference between success and failure is on whether the manager is inspiring and open to sharing the responsibility with the team; as opposed to being authoritarian and treating the team as children who do what they're told.


Therefore, perhaps the same analogy could apply to the F1 team in question. It's all down to the management style and whether that style is one that inspires the team to success or not.


I think the Williams team is in the same situation, but only worst. They've got the best engine in Mercedes, but the management is just not competent enough to drive the team to success. It's a PLC company, but can the shareholders get rid of the current management team in place of a new one? Is it time for Frank Williams to call it a day?

Hi Mehmood,


I think what this shows is that (as you sort of suggest in your second post) CPD is essential for everybody in the organisation. Just as there's an old fashioned idea in some areas of UK engineering that you don't need education, training and development, you just learn on the job, so the same an equally old fashioned idea exists in some areas of management. There are additional problems unfortunately in management: whereas there are not a lot of bad (i.e. actually destructive) ideas in engineering CPD there are a lot in management - mixed in with, and sometimes hard to distinguish from,  the really good stuff. Clients (generally) demand a good track record from their engineering consultants, whereas management consultants can get away with flash and arrogance. (For anyone without first hand experience yet of this, "Rip-Off!: The scandalous inside story of the Management Consulting Money Machine" by  David Craig is a slightly biased, and not brilliantly written, but very interesting read.)


So as engineers turn to managers they need to battle if necessary to make sure that they are given the opportunities to get high quality CPD (not just the latest fad) in that field such that they can motivate, inspire, and lead in an appropriate direction. The strange thing I've often found is that very few engineers actually need encouragement to do CPD in engineering, most I've known wouldn't have gone into the profession if they weren't interested in it. And yet very many of them appear to stop feeling that they need to keep learning if they become managers...as your post suggests, excellence in management is as complex, if not more so in many ways, than engineering! And absolutely can make or break engineering projects.


Whether anyone writes any of this down on any CPD record is the least of the problem...


Sport is a very interesting example here. Just as massive developments in computing technology in recent years were developed in the gaming industry, so too massive developments in management knowledge have been developed in the fields of various sports. Some companies will no doubt ignore this as trivial (just as I believe some computing companies ignored the advances from gaming machines as trivial) - which is good news for their competitors!


And a final thought - competent managers will recruit and retain competent engineers, and subtly remove the incompetent ones. Whereas there's not much engineers can do to improve the management competence in their organisations. Which, I suppose, is why I feel that for any particular organisation management competence has to come first. But we do have a responsibility in the IET to try to help those competent managers have a big enough pool of competent engineers to draw from!


Cheers,


Andy


(Actually written at home, the (recently refurbished) GWR train I got on to at Paddington was so quiet and comfortable I fell asleep! Phew, the last few Paddington to Tiverton Parkway journeys I'd had weren't like that at all...)