From Heroism To Teamwork Heroism does not scale, as it prevents effective team work. It is a downward spiral that needs to be broken. In order to double the speed, it may first need to be halved for a moment. Engineers are brilliant in teamwork - once they are encouraged to it. Expertise Embedded Systems “Martin is an exceptionally skillful product development engineer. He is the driving force behind projects, as he knows the related products and technologies thoroughly." When a client, salesman or the colleague asks for something, Martin just replies ”can do” without hesitation. And Martin usually ends up doing a spectacular job. Which then leads to even more work to do, eventually all too much, resulting in stress. Important projects get jammed because Martin is too busy or he has a flu, and Martin happens to be the only one who knows what to do.” ”This phenomenon, heroism, is extremely common. It appears every now and then, especially in demanding projects. However, this positive resource could be better benefited”, tells Senior Consultant Pasi Pihlajaniemi. He works within Etteplan’s Solution Sales. Pasi Pihlajaniemi has a long experience from managinging product development and leading account based projects. Problems of heroism ”Heroism does not scale, as it prevents effective team work. When the downward spiral gets worse, Martin - The Super Engineer - has no time to document or communicate what he’s doing, which prevents the tasks from being distributed to other people”, reminds Pasi Pihlajaniemi. A design engineer may accept a change requested by the customer without further consideration, but he may forget to tell him the implications on the time schedule and costs. And he neither remembers to consider or specifically communicate the technical risks involved with the change. Costs and time schedules escalate quickly if the risks are realized. In the worst case Martin gets tired and burns out. ”It is of utmost importance to recognize the phenomenon and the situation. How do individuals act as part of a project, how does the project manager view the total project, and do the designers share this view? A remedy for this problem is, of course, well-functioning team work”, points out Pasi Pihlajaniemi. Distributing tasks ”People feel a lot better if they are allowed to work in teams”, Pasi Pihlajaniemi summarizes. ”Martin – just like the any other engineer is pragmatic and objective. He is not selfish; he does not want to keep back information. Once being consulted, he is happy to assist. He likes to give advice to his colleagues if only he has the time for it. For him, as well as to all the others, a ”team” means well-functioning dialogue. One can ask questions and receive answers. The stress levels of the hero fall”, lists Pasi Pihlajaniemi. ”In order to double the speed, it may first need to be halved for a moment”, sums up Pasi Pihlajaniemi. In order to distribute an individual designer's workload also to other team members, his challenges and tasks need to be described and divided into smaller pieces. ”You have completed the design of this part, is it possible to describe its interfaces? - Why not, I’ll do it right away.” Tasks can be divided, once the necessary information exists. Harness the power of team work Creating a good team culture is a far more multi-dimensional task than just removing heroism. ”It is important to get the team committed and engaged towards the goals. When it comes to handling problems and targets, certain barriers are unavoidable - why can this or that not be done. The barriers are tackled one by one, and the whole team is guided to solve the problems together. This is fun, and makes the team committed to the result already while working on it”, describes Pasi Pihlajaniemi the tactic he has found useful. ”Nevertheless, a third party is needed to facilitate and capture the solutions invented by the team. Communication and documentation are of utmost significance”, highlights Pasi Pihlajaniemi. ”There is a lot of energy within the organisation, once involved in a change process”, reminds Pasi Pihlajaniemi. ”People in some cultures or professions possess strong team work and verbalism by nature. But to the same extent, also lower pragmatism and objectivity. We are surely capable of combining pragmatism with functioning communications and team work – with slightly less objectivity if needed. Now, that is an interesting resource we have”, ponders Pasi Pihlajaniemi.
VTT and Etteplan Partnership Paves the Way for Finnish MedTech Innovation VTT is one of Europe’s leading science and technology organization. We are owned by the Finnish state. We advance the utilisation and commercialisation of research and technology in commerce and society. Through scientific and technological means, we turn large global challenges into sustainable growth for businesses and society. We bring together people, business, science and technology to solve the biggest challenges of our time.
Balancing the energy grid with Fortum Spring Fortum is a European energy company with activities in more than 40 countries. Fortum provides their customers with electricity, gas, heating and cooling as well as smart solutions to improve resource efficiency. Fortum wants to engage their customers and society to join the change for a cleaner world. Fortum is the third largest producer of CO2-free electricity in Europe. With approximately 19,000 professionals and a combined balance sheet of approximately EUR 69 billion, Fortum has the scale, competence and resources to grow and to drive the energy transition forward.
Development of precise positioning accelerates Kalmar’s research project – Etteplan Rugged Evaluation Platform in action Kalmar offers the widest range of cargo handling solutions and services to ports, terminals, distribution centers, and to heavy industry. Kalmar is the industry forerunner in terminal automation and in energy-efficient container handling, with one in four container movements around the globe being handled by a Kalmar solution.
Creating a digital era dental robot Rayo 3DToothfill aims to improve the lives of billions of people with affordable, high-quality dental health. Their solution provides the best results with comparable costs for the dentist and for the patients. To ensure their solution is usable in different surroundings, it is simple and easy-to use.
EOT 2021 (Electronics of Tomorrow) TekPartner exhibits at EOT 2021 and becomes officially Etteplan from September 1st, 2021 Read more about EOT 2021 (Electronics of Tomorrow)
