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Engineering and Leadership Podcast

The Engineering and Leadership Podcast is here to help engineers at any level thrive. Host Pat Sweet discusses management, leadership, productivity, and professional development, specifically as they apply to engineers and engineering teams.
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Now displaying: May, 2021
May 24, 2021
For anyone who has lead an engineering project or a technical team before, you know how important it is to manage performance. Whether it's widgets per hour, the percentage of work complete, or the number of requirements derived, knowing your project by the numbers is critical to understanding how things are going.
 
Luckily enough, we as engineers love our numbers. We're more than comfortable making sense of charts and graphs and thinking about the world around us in quantitative terms.
 
And that is why it's so perplexing to me that technical projects have such trouble with their metrics.
 
Regardless of what project I work on, regardless of industry, there is a near universal appetite for metrics, and a nearly matched propensity to misuse and abuse metrics.
 
Today, I'm going to share five common issues I see in professional practice, and how to address them on your projects.
 
See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode29
 
Download our free guide to leadership for engineers - Engineering Leadership 101: Practical Insights for Becoming an Engineering Leader at Any Stage https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/leadership101
May 17, 2021
Many of us dream of going it alone one day - of shedding the 9 to 5 and trading in your cubicle for a desk in a garage. Society lionizes the likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, and it's incredibly tempting to imagine what life might be like as a successful entrepreneur.
 
But what's it really like to be an entrepreneur? How do you even get started? And how do you know you have a good idea in the first place?
 
In today's episode, I speak with Brett Fox, a seasoned high-tech executive and entrepreneur who has made a career of launching successful businesses and turning around foundering ones. He answers all the most important questions about launching a successful startup, and shares particular insight into the importance of having a fantastic founding team, why clarity of thought is critical, and why the COVID-19 pandemic might just be the perfect time to launch a new venture.
 
See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode28
 
Download our free guide to leadership for engineers - Engineering Leadership 101: Practical Insights for Becoming an Engineering Leader at Any Stage https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/leadership101
May 10, 2021

One of the hallmarks of a great leader is the ability to draw people together in the name of something greater than themselves. They establish bold missions for their teams and paint a vivid picture of what a better future could look like if they were to succeed.

For Vivian Shen, CEO and co-founder of Juni Learning, that mission is to provide kids with world-class computer science, math and english eduction no matter where they live. That mission has carried Juni to incredible heights in the past few years, leading to remarkable growth and substantial investments from well-known investors.

In today's episode, Vivian and I discuss the importance of mission in leading a team, why she decided to move on from her "dream job" at McKinsey, how she's successfully building a remote technical team, and what the future holds for Juni.

See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode27

Download our free guide to leadership for engineers - Engineering Leadership 101: Practical Insights for Becoming an Engineering Leader at Any Stage

https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/leadership101

May 3, 2021

Many of us think of our lives in  as though they move between discrete phases. First we get educated, then we work, then we enjoy life in retirement. My guest in today's show turns that notion on its head by combining work, education, and a zest for life all at the same time.

Dr. Lucas Marino is a principal life cycle engineer for the COLUMBIA submarine program,  engineering manager, educator,  small business owner, and family man. In today's episode, we discuss the importance of learning and teaching for practicing engineers, pursuing passions, and keeping it all in balance.

See the full show notes at https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/episode26

Download our free guide to leadership for engineers - Engineering Leadership 101: Practical Insights for Becoming an Engineering Leader at Any Stage

https://www.engineeringandleadership.com/leadership101

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