SUDO SpeakSudo (su "do") allows an administrator to give users the ability to run commands as root.

Sudo Speak is the paradigm of understanding engineers’ needs and inner workings, enabling managers to enhance communication with them in order to increase productivity and engagement.

So now to the final discussion in my series.  About Great engineers!  I have been pondering this one, because, for some reason it’s the hardest to provide valuable information about.  Great engineers/employees in general are hard-working, deadline-meeting, project-churning machines that bring value to your organization consistently with a smile on their faces.  What could be wrong with that?!  I’ll guess that nothing is wrong with that, though there is the matter of keeping them as great engineers.  Lack of motivation, disinterest in doing the same ol’ thing, frustration with other engineers, and many more daily occurrences can push their productivity down.  So for a manager, your job is to ensure that they are happy and able to do their duty!

Without further ado:

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• What Makes a Great Engineer?
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Ineptitude is a difficult issue to combat because there are, obviously, different levels of ineptitude.  They range from someone who is selectively disinterested in a specific task (I would argue this is the most frequent), all the way to completely dysfunctional.  In the case of the latter, expedient dismissal is the best option.  That being said, dismissal is a difficult issue to work with based upon your own organization’s policies regarding termination, and so, I won’t go into detail beyond documentation and getting them out as soon as is practical.

In the case of selective disinterest in certain pieces, however, there are some things you can do to help them to integrate more effectively into the team.

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• Treat Great Engineers Like Gold
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Update: If YOU are a shy individual and want to get more outgoing, check out this post from Upgrade Reality.

Now that I’ve described the main types of engineers, I’m going to gear some advice in how to work with them.  First on the chopping block is those shy and quiet engineers who don’t need, or even want to get noticed, or even talk to others.  I think that this category is one of the hardest to deal with because by virtue of their nature, they don’t want to talk to you about problems, improvements, questions, etc.

Throughout high-school, I was constantly berated by my classmates behind the backs of our teachers.  I was called many names that I don’t even care to think about to this day, and as a result, I was extremely introverted.  I had a close-knit group of 5-7 friends who I would hang out with in my spare time, but for the most part, I would stay at home with my family and watch TV or play on the computer.  That all changed when I moved out after high-school with my friend Ryan.  He was a jock (baseball player) and therefore had many friends who I had never met and had no interest in meeting.  They would come to our apartment and watch TV, play video games, and go off-roading with the group.  At first, I felt like my friend was being taken away from me, but as time went on, I realized that these people actually CARED What I had to say!  The names never came, and the more I spoke, the more intently I was received.  In fact, some of my best friends now, are those who came from his friend-pool and hung out with me!  I owe my extroverted nature to that experience. I’m not sure who I’d be if it weren’t for the short 9 months living with him.

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Related Posts:

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So here I’ve been sitting, contemplating how to write this post, and not having any epiphanies as to how to go about it. Shy engineers are easy to discuss, assholes are equally easy.  Ineptitude was a bit ranty, though in my defense, those engineers tend to rant of their own accord, so it seemed to fit.  Now comes the one that should be easiest to write, but is hard to really come up with something intriguing and useful.  So I’m just going to throw it out there for the record, because this is the category in which MOST engineers sit, and the reason engineering actually works in companies.  I’m going to refer to them as A+ Engineers because if they were in school, I’d tend to give them all A pluses for grades.

So, without further ado, here is a list of common traits to good, A+ engineers: (more…)

Related Posts:

• Treat Great Engineers Like Gold
• How to Handle Ineptitude
• 5 Tips for Managing Shy People
• Should You Really Be A Manager?
• How To Get Your Ideas Heard