With 2024 in the twilight, we are now ready to tackle a new year.  A New Year brings new challenges for the enterprising  manager.  Let’s explore ideas that you may wish to focus upon as you begin 2025.

1.Technical skill development—This is probably one of the most important tasks that the engineering manager needs to explore in 2025.  The key focus is artificial intelligence and machine learning.  It makes no difference if you are working in healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, software development, information technology or any other domain, having a better knowledge of what artificial intelligence is, how it applies to your specific area of knowledge and work is paramount.  There are many ways to learn about this technology—and other technologies—web based courses, seminars, community college classes are just some ways that should help you better understand this technology and how to apply it in your domain.

2.Leadership skill development—Leadership is the key in any job or task. As an engineering manager, motivating your team, improve productivity, decrease waste and increase profitability are all elements which you are responsible for.  Employee turnover is critical—your greater churn in staffing, the longer and harder it is to achieve any realistic goal attainment.  The “Return to Office (RTO) dilemma is one facing many managers today.  You may not be able to turn this around, however, that does not mean that you should not try—especially if you have young, newly minted engineers.  Some younger engineers want the mentoring, guidance and support that is only attained in an in office environment.  Other, more senior staff are perfectly happy working remotely.  Hybrid work, i.e., in the office 2 days a week, working at home 3 days a week is a great compromise.  Now, I understand that you may not have the authority to be able to pull this off, however, does not mean that you should not try—not only for your teams sake, but for that of the company.

3.Project management skill development– Cost, schedule and performance are the 3 key factors in project management.  Now is the right time to burnish your skills in each area, even if you think that you are good at each, there is always more to learn.  This may be a good time to earn the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.  This certification is highly desired by many companies in the information technology space, however, the skills and learning that you acquire preparing for the examination are valuable for project management overall.

These are all skills that need constant reinforcement, but now is the time to do so.  Lifelong learning is required today to not only retain skills, but also stay abreast of new technologies that are upcoming.

This article was also posted in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Society for Engineering Management Winter 2025 Newsletter.