How does IET define Innovation to meet CEng Standards

Couple of (for me) last points directed at different contributors:


Firstly, Simon,  yes,  I did guess that having exchanged views previously,  but I felt it important to clarify it for Shijo's benefit and others in his position


Secondly,  James,  excellent deeper detail on the pre interview assessment process,  I'd not previously been sure of that detail. 


But finally,  and most importantly,  for Shijo,  I think that James ' information underlines a big part of what I'm trying to convey to you - we do all work really hard between us to give everybody every opportunity to present their evidence of competence,  helping to draw it out when it isn't immediately apparent and with cross checks to avoid the possibility of individual bias or lack of appreciation of your situation.  In fairness,  though we are always allocated to you to be from your industry and discipline,  subtleties such as design v construction are not always reflected,  but,  as I said previously,  most of us have a broad brush experience.  Believe me,  however much you may feel otherwise,  we're all rooting for you and the checks and balances usually minimise the possibility of a bad decision.  


Whilst I don't want to diminish your suitability one jot,  I simply don't have the detail to do so and it wouldn't be appropriate to do so on here,  even if I did,  I'm pretty convinced that,  regardless of what your PRA thought,  for the assessors to not progress you to interview,  there must have been some evidence they felt was missing.  It almost certainly won't be that they don't understand the innovative nature of the processes or tool that you developed, or that developing and implementing a tool to optimise the construction process isn't considered innovative,  they will almost certainly have felt there was inadequate evidence.  As I said previously,  we can all only go on the evidence provided,  much as we may try our best to tease it out,  and I'm afraid,  ultimately,  however much we all want to help you,  presenting your evidence is ultimately down to you.  Sorry if that sounds harsh,  but it's the reality. After all,  presenting compelling cases is part of the communication competencies required by UKSPEC, and moreover, importantly a crucial part of professional engineering. 


I must also stress that, though. PRAs are there to help you as they can,  they cannot be considered to be part of a prequalification stage,  nor can they be considered an arbiter when you don't get the result both of you thought likely.  


Regarding your repeated point about feeling that the requirements should be more prescriptive,  Alasdair explained the down side of that,  too prescriptive and our hands are tied.  As i mentioned,  i understand that the forthcoming update to UKSPEC does seek to improve the clarity,  but we - and I assure you that includes you - don't want it too prescriptive or our hands will be tied and we'll have to make decisions that may well be highly unpopular as we will be denied that judgement that allows us to deal with the less black and white cases. 


After all,  let's compare it to what we deal with as engineers every day.  We have standards - company standards,  British Standards,  European Standards,  International Standards,  and legislation.  They are very rarely prescriptive,  they are written to define essential parameters and requirements but provide freedom,  within the confines of minimum levels of quality, safety,  etc. for us to make engineering judgements- if they didn't,  our hands would be tied and anybody who could read would be able to do our job.  It's no different when it comes to the standard for a Chartered or Incorporated Engineer.  We need the ability to form a judgement or applications could be dealt with by an algorithm. 


So I suggest you give some critical thought to why the innovative nature of what you did failed to be apparent to your assessors and maybe hold on to see what the forthcoming new issue of UKSPEC comes out with, though I believe that,  as you said,  between us I think we've given you some strong pointers. 


I wish you the best next time round.

Couple of (for me) last points directed at different contributors:


Firstly, Simon,  yes,  I did guess that having exchanged views previously,  but I felt it important to clarify it for Shijo's benefit and others in his position


Secondly,  James,  excellent deeper detail on the pre interview assessment process,  I'd not previously been sure of that detail. 


But finally,  and most importantly,  for Shijo,  I think that James ' information underlines a big part of what I'm trying to convey to you - we do all work really hard between us to give everybody every opportunity to present their evidence of competence,  helping to draw it out when it isn't immediately apparent and with cross checks to avoid the possibility of individual bias or lack of appreciation of your situation.  In fairness,  though we are always allocated to you to be from your industry and discipline,  subtleties such as design v construction are not always reflected,  but,  as I said previously,  most of us have a broad brush experience.  Believe me,  however much you may feel otherwise,  we're all rooting for you and the checks and balances usually minimise the possibility of a bad decision.  


Whilst I don't want to diminish your suitability one jot,  I simply don't have the detail to do so and it wouldn't be appropriate to do so on here,  even if I did,  I'm pretty convinced that,  regardless of what your PRA thought,  for the assessors to not progress you to interview,  there must have been some evidence they felt was missing.  It almost certainly won't be that they don't understand the innovative nature of the processes or tool that you developed, or that developing and implementing a tool to optimise the construction process isn't considered innovative,  they will almost certainly have felt there was inadequate evidence.  As I said previously,  we can all only go on the evidence provided,  much as we may try our best to tease it out,  and I'm afraid,  ultimately,  however much we all want to help you,  presenting your evidence is ultimately down to you.  Sorry if that sounds harsh,  but it's the reality. After all,  presenting compelling cases is part of the communication competencies required by UKSPEC, and moreover, importantly a crucial part of professional engineering. 


I must also stress that, though. PRAs are there to help you as they can,  they cannot be considered to be part of a prequalification stage,  nor can they be considered an arbiter when you don't get the result both of you thought likely.  


Regarding your repeated point about feeling that the requirements should be more prescriptive,  Alasdair explained the down side of that,  too prescriptive and our hands are tied.  As i mentioned,  i understand that the forthcoming update to UKSPEC does seek to improve the clarity,  but we - and I assure you that includes you - don't want it too prescriptive or our hands will be tied and we'll have to make decisions that may well be highly unpopular as we will be denied that judgement that allows us to deal with the less black and white cases. 


After all,  let's compare it to what we deal with as engineers every day.  We have standards - company standards,  British Standards,  European Standards,  International Standards,  and legislation.  They are very rarely prescriptive,  they are written to define essential parameters and requirements but provide freedom,  within the confines of minimum levels of quality, safety,  etc. for us to make engineering judgements- if they didn't,  our hands would be tied and anybody who could read would be able to do our job.  It's no different when it comes to the standard for a Chartered or Incorporated Engineer.  We need the ability to form a judgement or applications could be dealt with by an algorithm. 


So I suggest you give some critical thought to why the innovative nature of what you did failed to be apparent to your assessors and maybe hold on to see what the forthcoming new issue of UKSPEC comes out with, though I believe that,  as you said,  between us I think we've given you some strong pointers. 


I wish you the best next time round.