IEEE-USA InFocus

Perspectives on the Management of Technology

By Georgia C. Stelluto

Why should technology professional s and engineering technology managers be interested in the concept, Management of Technology (MOT)?

 

Retired GM executive and author Gus Gaynor asks this question, and explores MOT in his e-book, Perspectives on the Management of Technology.  In this e-book, Gaynor’s objective is to provide some general background information, report on the current status of MOT, identify what needs to be done to develop MOT as a recognized academic discipline, and provide a positive impact on industry operations.

 

Technology professionals and technology managers have heard much over the years about managing technology specialists.  Gaynor uses the term technology professionals to include the complete technology family that includes engineers, scientists, software developers, support personnel, and others responsible for creating new products and processes.

 

He says that managing technology professionals is an oxymoron, or that managing any professional is an oxymoron. Why? “Because it’s difficult,” he notes, “if not impossible, to manage knowledge workers (in the classical sense) who are hired to demonstrate their thinking, their creativity, and their dedication in developing new products, new services and new processes.”   Gaynor contends that the best any manager can do is to manage the “activities” of technology professionals, and to manage “the interaction” with other professionals, in meeting organizational objectives.  

 

The author offers that technology managers must differentiate between managing technology professionals and managing their activities. What does this technology manager and technology professional relationship have to do with managing technology? Managing technology goes far beyond managing engineering operations, Gaynor says, it requires a change in the mindset of the technology professionals and their managers; both need to expand their roles in meeting organizational results.

 

From 1-30 April, IEEE members may download: Perspectives on the Management of Technology  for free, as a member service from IEEE-USA. 

And for the remainder of March, IEEE members may download the March E-Book offering from IEEE-USA:  Launching Your Career-Book 3:  A Practioner’s Guide to Leadership.

IEEE members can purchase the other three books in the Launching Your Career, four-book series, and other IEEE-USA E-Books, at deeply discounted prices, by going to IEEE-USA E-Books.  To purchase IEEE members-only products, and to receive the member discount on eligible products, members must log in with their IEEE Web Account.

 

 

Call for Authors

IEEE-USA E-Books seeks authors to write an individual e-book, or a series of e-books, on career guidance and development topics.

In particular, we are looking for authors for our new and ongoing series on Shaping an Engineering Career.   This series is about the personal journeys of engineers in their careers. Shaping an Engineering Career e-books will include personal recollections by engineers and managers who can demonstrate through life experiences the satisfaction from being immersed in their careers.

We want to know what you learned during your career that you wish to pass on to your colleagues. What were your experiences? Who provided guidance? Why did you take the route you did? What were the obstacles, if any?

We want the e-books in this special series to stir the imagination of younger engineers by showing how experienced engineers and managers built their careers, and the issues they confronted. While we have listed specific areas of engineering below, keep in mind there are many types of engineering. E-books should be between eight and ten thousand words:

Book 1:   Introduction to the Series (Gus Gaynor)

Book 2:   Technological Leadership

Book 3    Engineering Environment:  Management’s Expectations

Book 4:   Digital Technology: Hardware Engineering

Book 5:   Digital Technology: Software Engineering

Book 6:   Research

Book 7:   Product Development

Book 8:   Manufacturing Engineering

Book 9:   Equipment Design

Book 10: Systems Engineering

Book 11: Engineers as Innovators and Entrepreneurs

Book 12: Advancing to Management

 

 If you have an idea for an e-book that will educate other IEEE members on a particular topic of expertise, email your e-book proposal to E-Book Chair Gus Gaynor and IEEE-USA Publishing Manager, Georgia C. Stelluto.

________________________

Georgia C. Stelluto is IEEE-USA’s publishing manager, editor-in-chief of IEEE-USA in ACTION, and manager/editor of IEEE-USA E-Books.

 

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Guest Contributor

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE), created in 1973 to support the career and public policy interests of IEEE’s U.S. members. IEEE-USA is primarily supported by an annual assessment paid by U.S. IEEE Members.

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