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How does IET define Innovation to meet CEng Standards

Shijo Joseph Vadakkekunnel
I am hoping that the senior PRAs can guide me to better understand the definiton of Innovation and what is expected to meet CEng Standards. My personal interpretation is that Innovation is any new product, new process or new idea.


As a person working as a Construction Manager building critical infrastructure projects, i dont make complex calculations or use complex softwares for analysis apart from using Planning tools like MS Project or Primavera . Hence it is important for me to understand what constitutes Innovation to meet the CEng standard. I have plenty of examples to demonstrate innovation but for this particular instance I am using an example where I developed a planning tool (Excel sheet) where it estimates the optimal utilisation of construction resources by extrapolating data from the characteristics that i analysed in the project life cycle and evaluated each projects. I am not giving full detail here for confidetiality. This innovation could be seen in the eyes of a Rocket Scientist as trivial since it does not do complex calculations or no patents involved. However, in the eyes of my business or working in my sector could be seen as Innovation as this is a new product which improves efficiency in working.


By textbook defintion of the UKSPEC A2 competency, they have made it ambigous by choosing very few scenarios and saying "could include an ability " rather than "should include an ability " leaving it to the reviewer for subjective interpretation.

Engage in the creative and innovative development of engineering technology and continuous improvement systems.


This could include an ability to: 

' Assess market needs and contribute to marketing strategies

' Identify constraints and exploit opportunities for the development and transfer of technology within own chosen field

' Promote new applications when appropriate

' Secure the necessary intellectual property (IP) rights

' Develop and evaluate continuous improvement systems.


I spoken to PRA on this and receieved his response that contradicted the PRI conclusion. Since i have already been told by IET Professional Registration Team that the PRA is only to advice and their advice does not mean this can be accepted by the review committee, I believe that this is the right forum to raise the query as it makes clearer for everyone similar to my position where the definition is vague.
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    Shijo,

    I can't deny that the IET guidance is at times a bit vague, but it is complicated by them having to make the guidance fit a far greater range of candidates (in terms of their engineering) than probably any other Institute. The ICE can afford to be precise since all their candidates will have roughly similar backgrounds, but trying put together advice to fit anything from someone like yourself dealing with Civil Engineering projects to someone doing computer modelling of fluid dynamics is, to say the least, a challenge.

    Precise guidance can also be a drawback, as it removes the ability of interviewers like Roy to be able to use their own judgement and accept candidates who might not meet a rigidly defined criterion.

    From the final paragraph of your first post it appears that you have been through an interview and been rejected on A2 due to lack of innovation but your post result discussion with a PRA has come to a different conclusion. As a PRA myself I can say that I have seen a good number of 'rejections' and quite often the grounds have been 'lack of innovation' which on discussion with the candidate has generally seemed to me to be a bit harsh, but you must remember that you not only need to meet Competences A1 & A2, but you need to convince the interviewers that you meet them. With candidates I am advising up to interview I often suggest certain aspects of a project they have been involved in that they need to make sure they cover in their discussions with the interviewers. In your case it would have been your planning tool, the fact that there was lack of a suitable tool previously, and the impact it had on the project (not much different to what Roy has said, but if you mention the tool without explaining the context, the interviewers will not realise its importance).

    One more thing I will say as a PRA having had failed candidates referred, the decision has been arrived at by the interviewers based on what was said at the interview. There are only three people who know what was said in the room, the two interviewers and the candidate, so any advice from the PRA can only be based on the information he has been provided by the IET and yourself and I am sure that even you will have trouble remembering exactly what was said. It is therefore impossible for the PRA to be in a position to say for certain that "the interviewers got it wrong" on the day. All he/she can say is the competence appears to have been met and you ought to have been able to demonstrate this to the interviewers.

    Alasdair
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    Shijo,

    I can't deny that the IET guidance is at times a bit vague, but it is complicated by them having to make the guidance fit a far greater range of candidates (in terms of their engineering) than probably any other Institute. The ICE can afford to be precise since all their candidates will have roughly similar backgrounds, but trying put together advice to fit anything from someone like yourself dealing with Civil Engineering projects to someone doing computer modelling of fluid dynamics is, to say the least, a challenge.

    Precise guidance can also be a drawback, as it removes the ability of interviewers like Roy to be able to use their own judgement and accept candidates who might not meet a rigidly defined criterion.

    From the final paragraph of your first post it appears that you have been through an interview and been rejected on A2 due to lack of innovation but your post result discussion with a PRA has come to a different conclusion. As a PRA myself I can say that I have seen a good number of 'rejections' and quite often the grounds have been 'lack of innovation' which on discussion with the candidate has generally seemed to me to be a bit harsh, but you must remember that you not only need to meet Competences A1 & A2, but you need to convince the interviewers that you meet them. With candidates I am advising up to interview I often suggest certain aspects of a project they have been involved in that they need to make sure they cover in their discussions with the interviewers. In your case it would have been your planning tool, the fact that there was lack of a suitable tool previously, and the impact it had on the project (not much different to what Roy has said, but if you mention the tool without explaining the context, the interviewers will not realise its importance).

    One more thing I will say as a PRA having had failed candidates referred, the decision has been arrived at by the interviewers based on what was said at the interview. There are only three people who know what was said in the room, the two interviewers and the candidate, so any advice from the PRA can only be based on the information he has been provided by the IET and yourself and I am sure that even you will have trouble remembering exactly what was said. It is therefore impossible for the PRA to be in a position to say for certain that "the interviewers got it wrong" on the day. All he/she can say is the competence appears to have been met and you ought to have been able to demonstrate this to the interviewers.

    Alasdair
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