No engineers means no submarines!!

Or: A lesson on the importance of engineering management from the AUKUS program

You might have heard of the AUKUS program. Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. are cooperating to produce a fleet of common submarines to be shared among them so that they can better coordinate their military efforts globally. If you have, then you likely also know how controversial it has proven to be. Most of which have been political, but one of the latest controversies has a decidedly engineering aspect to it – and makes for a great and timely demonstration of a key lesson for global engineers.
You can read about it here in The Age. But the key points are:

1. Funding has been increased considerably.
2. Production rates have still stayed at around 1.2 per year.
3. This is not enough, and the production capacity has become the major impediment to the success of this program.
4. Austin Dahmer, a senior policy official at the US Department of Defence, has said “Any recommendations that consist of more money without a mechanism to materially compress those timelines will not change the outlook.”
5. Arthur “Trip” Barber, who sits on the National Commission on the Future of the Navy said the idea of AUKUS is a good one, but the issue is production caused by an inability to keep workers.

Many engineers will read the above and be able to think of similar situations that they have been in. There is a strong desire to make this happen – this desire leads to effort on the part of those in leadership, but nothing seems to improve. This is despite throwing money at the problem. In fact, it is probably because money is thrown at the problem. This is congruent with a mindset that comes from ignorance – there is no real understanding of the challenge so the instinct is to allocate more funds to keep doing more of the same instead of doing things better. More money flows, but it goes into the same wasteful efforts.
You possibly recall the story of Ford Motor Company taking over production of bombers in WWII. It was in the hands of the generals, but they simply did not know how production worked. We are seeing history repeat.
This phenomenon, though, is not unique to government and the military. I have seen it happen in industry as well. Managers, who, instead of asking how to support those who had the knowledge and were trying to get the job done, would allocate more leaders (leaders who were just as ignorant). This then resulted in even less progress as these extra leaders spent more time distracting those trying to do the job than they did supporting them. Why did management do this? They lacked the engineering knowledge to understand what was actually happening.
Think about this notion of how a lack of engineering management can be so problematic, and now ask yourself these questions:

• Who do you think would make a good leader of the AUKUS program?
• What would you do if you were leading it?

This reflection will help consolidate your understanding of engineering management and the knowledge you might want to acquire.
The above shows how important it is to have an understanding of engineering fundamentals (not just first principles, but the fundamentals of the art of engineering and its practice) when managing any program with a large engineering element to it.
The reason why this is important for the global engineer is because different parts of the world have different attitudes to the role of engineering in government. China is famous for having around 80% technocrats in its government. President Xi studied chemical engineering. In the West the classic backgrounds are law, economics, and political science. And then some countries are more likely to have military leaders (Myanmar, Thailand, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel). This can mean that in different countries, there is a different assumption of what knowledge a leader should have. And it will not always align with an understanding or an appreciation of engineering, but sometimes it will.
This is something to be aware of if you ever plan a significant change of workplace. Keep an eye open for situations where management keeps throwing resources at a problem, but things do not get better. It could be an opportunity for you; or a warning: do not get involved.