When you think about engineering projects, they often look neat on paper. There are tasks to complete, resources to allocate, milestones to hit, and a path that seems clear from start to finish. The sort of thing they teach you about in your degree and in things like the project body of knowledge. This is one kind of project. It is the idealised project where the uncertainty is limited, the risks can be calculated, and the outcomes can be predicted with reasonable confidence. Build a standard bridge over a short span, design a stationary gearbox to transmit a set amount of power, or create an electrical filter to cut out unwanted frequencies. These kinds of projects are about precision, planning, and execution. Tools like Gantt charts and resource allocation models work perfectly here. A well run project of this kind moves like a finely tuned machine, and can finish on time and under budget.

The other kind of project is very different. This is where uncertainty dominates, not just in terms of probability but also in terms of what the risks even are. You cannot easily predict the path because the terrain ahead is unknown. Think about developing a new type of bridge to cover a much larger span before you even know what kind of foundations the soil can handle. Or designing a gearbox that needs to be lightweight but still work with a motor and duty cycle that have yet to be defined. Or an electrical filter circuit that must limit radiation exposure to other circuits that are themselves still evolving. In these projects the list of tasks changes as quickly as your understanding of the challenge. Engineers in these projects often complain that documenting takes time away from the work itself, because doing the work is how they discover what needs to be done next. This is coevolution, where your grasp of the problem grows alongside your grasp of the solution. Sometimes all you can do is have a list of tasks - as I mentioned in my book The Global Engineer.

In truth, most projects sit somewhere between these two extremes. Which is why, if you are managing a project, one of the first things you should do is place it along this spectrum. Is it closer to the predictable side where documentation and resource planning make sense, or is it closer to the exploratory side where constant adaptation is needed? If you get this wrong, you risk either over-controlling work that requires flexibility or under-managing work that needs tight coordination. You might even find that different aspects of the one project sit in different points on the spectrum, and need different approaches.

For the global engineer this becomes even more important. What seems routine in one place can be uncertain in another. An engineering team that has solved a problem many times before might treat it as predictable, while in a different environment the same problem requires exploration and discovery. Your role is to see where the project really sits, not just from your perspective but from the perspective of the team you are working with. Only then can you match the way you manage to the kind of project you actually face.

What techniques have you learned when managing projects; have you ever felt let down by the standard tools of project management and not known why?

Meetings can be powerful. When they are run well, they create shared situational awareness, bring every concern to the surface, build an action plan, and leave the team aligned and moving forward together.
When they are not, the best they can do is make a few people feel important while everyone else leaves frustrated, convinced they have wasted time and slipped further behind.

The Manager’s Tool
A well-run meeting is one of the best tools available to any engineering manager, global or not. It creates shared awareness. It builds trust. It keeps everyone moving together.
If you want to explore this further, you may also want to read my earlier article on what makes a great engineering manager.
Because if you want to lead engineers well, you need to master the meeting.

So what makes the difference?

Lessons From Student Politics - of all places
I was lucky to be involved in student politics during my engineering studies. Meetings there followed strict rules and procedures. Everyone had a chance to contribute. Everyone left knowing exactly what had been agreed and who was responsible for what.
To this day, I have never seen a business meeting run as well as the ones I attended as a student. I have seen some better than others, but not that good.

The Global Engineer’s Challenge
In the global engineering context, meetings come with added complexity. Teams bring different cultures, different expectations, and different habits to the table.
Erin Meyer, in her book The Culture Map, describes how cultures approach meetings differently. My take on this is that there are three broad types:

• Romantic meetings – common in parts of Western Europe, rooted in the Roman tradition. They focus on ideas and concepts. Creative, yes, but often without a clear outcome.
• Pragmatic meetings – common in Anglo-Saxon cultures. These aim to produce concrete decisions and action plans.
• Bureaucratic meetings – more common in Asian contexts. Here, the meeting is often the place where decisions are officially signed off, rather than debated.

Each has its place. The job of the global engineer is to recognise which type is best suited to the moment, and to make sure everyone else in the room knows what kind of meeting they are walking into.

How to Get It Right Every Time
No matter how diverse your team is, there is a process you can follow to get the most out of your meetings:

1. Decide on the type of meeting you want. Is it about generating ideas? Aligning on the current situation and next steps? Officially signing off?
2. Write an agenda. Be clear and specific.
3. Send invitations with purpose. Tell people why they are needed and what you expect from them. Include any pre-reading.
4. Remind participants beforehand. Make sure they come prepared.
5. Nominate someone to take minutes. With today’s tools, these can be done live so everyone can agree on the record as it develops.
6. End with agreement. Confirm together what was decided: the ideas generated, the tasks assigned, or the decisions signed off.

And remember: in many contexts, much of what is said in the meeting has already been agreed beforehand. That can be a strength. Use it when it helps you reach clarity faster.

Why Expectations Matter
The quality of meetings varies not only across countries but also across companies. Never assume your team’s prior experiences will align with yours.
Some people may think you are wasting their time if they do not understand the purpose. Others may feel insulted if they expected one type of meeting and you delivered another.
That is why you need to set expectations clearly before the meeting begins. Tell people what kind of meeting it will be, what you need from them, and what success will look like.

Do you have any experience running meetings that other engineers can learn from?

In 2016, during the Syrian Civil War, statistics about the conflict were everywhere. Thousands of people had been killed. The numbers were reported regularly. And yet, most people barely reacted.

Then a single photo changed everything.

It was the image of Omran Daqneesh, a young boy sitting dazed in an ambulance, face bloody and covered in dust. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even seriously injured. But because it was a child, and because it was visual, the world suddenly cared.

You might recall it. Can you also recall if it changed your thoughts about the war?

I remember being annoyed. People had been told about the deaths for months. They knew the scale of the suffering - including children. But they only seemed to care when the image hit their emotions.

This was not a new phenomenon. During the late 1800s, Belgian authorities were brutalising the people of the Congo. Reports were published. Descriptions were circulated. But global outrage only came when photographs appeared. One in particular, showing a father looking at the severed hands and feet of his child, triggered a wave of action. Words and statistics alone had not been enough.
The lesson is clear. If you want people to understand, sometimes you need imagery.

What this means for engineers
At first glance, this might feel like a very human failing that has little to do with engineering. But engineers face the same limitation. Numbers, tables, and percentages do not always trigger our full understanding. We often need to convert them into something more tangible to see their significance.
Good engineers learn to paint those pictures in their mind’s eye.

• What does it actually sound like when the SPL reaches that decibel level at that frequency?
• How would it smell if sewage of concentration x% entered the floodwaters?
• What tissue damage would be done if that voltage caused an electric shock to human skin?

In each case, data is only the starting point. Real understanding comes when you can translate the data into sensory and physical implications.

The challenge for the global engineer
We cannot always wait for the real image, the real sound, or the real smell. Our work depends on imagining those consequences before they occur. That’s how we prevent failure and design better systems.
So here is the challenge: next time you are presented with data, don’t just note the numbers. Take the extra step. Convert them into their physical impact. Hear it, smell it, feel it in your imagination.

If you do, you will have overcome one of the limitations of being human. And you will be closer to becoming a truly global engineer.

And you just might start to sense tragedy well before others.

Give thought now to how often you have only understood the seriousness of a situation after you experienced it in some way. And, based on that, think about if you need to put more conscious effort into using numbers to paint a picture in your mind's eye.  

“Growth is permanent everything else is temporary.” This is, for me at least, a very motivating quote. Thanks Dharmesh Kodwani for sharing that with me. It got me reflecting on the things we can do to improve our engineering capability as a global engineer. There is no substitute for a clear focus on improving how you work as an engineer. However, reflecting upon insights from others can sometimes be that little bit extra that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. And reading the right books provides the best way to do this.

Therefore, I have collated a list of the books that I think are ideal for anyone who wants to be a global engineer.

These are also books that you don’t want to just read once. They are worth coming back to time and time again. Sometimes we forget the great insights we have read. We can recall some of the details and where we read it, but we forget the important stuff. So these are books you should also pick up from time to time to either re-read or flick through to keep yourself as amazing as possible.

Hitting the Brakes: Engineering Design and the Production of Knowledge  by Ann Johnson. This book is fascinating. It is written by an historian and uses the development of antilock braking to understand how engineering communities develop. It provides great insight into how knowledge in engineering is developed and shared. As you read this book you will notice how and why your understanding of different technologies you work on changes over time. Ideal for engineers involved in a rapidly changing industry/technology.

What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History by Walter G. Vincenti. This book was a bit slow to get started for me. However, it was fascinating to see how engineers tackled different problems throughout history. It uses the aeronautical industry as a case study, but much of the content is applicable to all engineering. At the end of this book, you will start to think about what kind of an engineer you are and if perhaps there are some things you could do a little differently.

The View from Here (Optimize Your Engineering Career from The Start) by Reece Lumsden. This is a book like one I have not come across before. It is the only book on engineering that starts at choosing a place to study engineering and then considers how to manage your engineering career. It does not talk much about the unique characteristics of engineering, the way other books do. Still, no matter the stage of your career, this book can likely help. This is a book that will make you reflect upon your past as an engineer and think more about what you should do next in your career.

Engineering Philosophy by Louis L. Bucciarelli. It talks about a thing called the object world (the world engineers work in), but it also goes into much more detail about the nature of engineering. It talks about the social nature of engineering; how we, as engineers, can sometimes think we know something and do not; and how engineers learn. At the end of it, you will probably think twice before ever reaching any engineering conclusions.

Engineering and the mind’s eye by Eugene Ferguson. This is one of the most visually rich books on engineering. Because the book essentially argues that visualisation is the key to engineering, this makes sense. The book argues convincingly that engineering requires mostly visualisation, but still a tactile understanding. It cites many other sources to support its contention and was the first book that I read that finally explained the link between art and engineering. If you want to gain a better understanding of how engineering has developed as practice, from beginning to what it is today, then this is an excellent book. After reading it you will probably start thinking about how you can improve your engineering ability through the senses you use when confronting a problem and how you choose to represent that problem.

The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution by Edward W. Constant II. This book focuses, as the title suggests, upon the development of the turbojet. It deals substantially with how ideas of a revolutionary nature often come from people outside of the respective industry. How revolutions can push some companies and their engineers to the sideline and raise others. These revolutions are rare, and a book about one, written by an historian, is a useful insight into the engineering tasks and attributes essential for such revolutions. What I found most interesting about the book was that it also covers the development of the antecedent technologies like the water turbine and supercharger.

How we Got to Now by Steven Johnson. This book tracks the development of 6 major inventions that significantly changed our world. This is done from the perspective of how they came to be – through interactions with other technologies and societal events. If you need to work on your ability to understand how and why the time can be right for a new idea, then read this book.

The Saturn V F-1 Engine: Powering Apollo into History by Anthony Young. This traces the history of the titular engine and the mission to the moon. Along with coverage of the technology and its development, there is also much in here about engineering behaviour and management for success. Ideal if you want to know what it takes to pull off a large engineering project (or even a smaller one).

Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono. This is certainly no longer a new book. However, it is an excellent book that helps you consciously look at problems from multiple perspectives, and be more certain that you understand it. This will also help you outside of engineering as well.

Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoffrey Colvin. If you thought engineers were born and not trained, then this book will make you think otherwise. If you need more convincing that you can improve your engineering, then this is the book you want. It’s also ideal for anything else you want to improve.

How to measure anything by Douglas W. Hubbard. This is almost an engineering book, but it’s also a business book. The reason why I put it in the list is because of how unique it is. There are few books out there that help you deal with uncertainty the way this book does. Given how many things can seem uncertain at the start of an engineering project, this ability is an ideal for all engineers to have. By being able to put a measure to those things you do not yet fully understand, you can better assess ideas in their nascent stages.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This book provides great insights into how our initial thoughts can often be wrong. Essential for good engineering – especially when you are working with something new. It also provides insights into when you can rely upon your intuition – something that can bring an engineer undone if not done right.

The Global Engineer by Clint Steele (yes – me). I am obviously bias, but if you are going to read only one of these books, then I would recommend this one. Why, well, as I noted, I am biased, however, I did pull the essence out of each of the other books above to write this one. So it will provide you with most of the good stuff. Still, if you read the other books, then you could find something you need that did not influence what I wrote. Regardless – get this book!
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I am always looking for more to read and learn. If you have anything you think should be added to the list, then please let me know in the comments.