Engineering Project Management

5How Do Engineering Projects Get Created?

When we get our first job, we are likely to be assigned to work on an existing engineering project; we are not troubled by the question of how this engineering project came into existence. Who created it? Why? How is it being paid for? How did it come to pass that it is our company that is doing the work? But as we progress in our careers, we come to realize that these aspects matter a lot. In fact, understanding them, so that you can help your company win new projects, is an important path for you to achieve attractive assignments and career success. In this chapter, I will therefore teach you the basics about winning engineering projects for your company, which centers around something called the “proposal.”

5.1 Engineering Projects are Created in Response to a Need, or a Vision

Somewhere out there in the world is a group of users who need something; let us imagine a scenario wherein they decide that they can best obtain it by buying it from someone outside of their own organization, rather than making it themselves. Let's say that what they need is a loaf of bread.

First of all, they need to talk among themselves, and reach agreement on exactly what is it that they want to buy. White or whole wheat? Non‐GMO flour? Gluten free? Sliced? What kind of packaging? As you can see, even to buy a simple loaf of bread, there are a set of decisions to be made.

Probably, they will decide at some point to commit the decisions that result from ...