The Unwritten Laws Of Engineering By James G. Skakoon

The Unwritten Laws of Engineering was first published in 1944 in three separate articles in the periodical Mechanical Engineering by W. J. King. The current edition was edited by James G. Skakoon in 2001. The three original articles are combined as three chapters in the book. James G. Skakoon notes in the preface that the laws still hold true after all this time. The book focuses on different phases in the career of many engineers in the first two chapters. The final chapter deals with personal issues and advice that pertains to both engineers and engineering managers
Chapter one is titled “What the Beginner Needs to Learn at Once”. The first section of chapter one deals with a young engineer’s relationship with his job. Personally I

The law that speaks to me from my past is delegation of tasks and duties. In my first engineering management position I could have used the law, “Do not try to do it all yourself”, because I was a poor delegator. Transitioning from engineer to manager I was slow to realize I had to change my work mindset from a sole contributing engineer to manager and did not delegate well in the beginning. I also had some inexperience in the department and I had to learn to teach. The laws noted in this section range from truthful performance reviews to showing interest in employee’s family. These are valuable laws to practice and I find most employees want to know expectations, boundaries and be informed of the bigger picture. I understood that if they know the reason for their tasks and the department’s direction they were always more willing to support the cause. A small thing I did was to remember the name of the spouses of my employees. I admit sometimes when I asked about the spouses the story was not always good but the impact of my interest always had a positive impact on my relationship to the