Datasheet

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CHAPTER 1: WHAT’S INVOLVED: DEFINING THE POSITION ■
There’s probably no one right answer to what upper management’s perspective
on the CAD manager’s role should be, but I’ve noticed that the following views are
widely held by corporate management:
• The CAD manager should enable CAD-related productivity.
• The CAD manager should strive for user efficiency and more profitable opera-
tion of the company.
• The CAD manager should remove complexity and make things simple, because
making things simple usually makes things go better.
• The CAD manager must keep CAD technology on budget and realize that there
are no blank checks for software or hardware.
In my 17 years of CAD management experience, I’ve found that CAD managers
who don’t subscribe to these views have rocky relationships with their management
teams. Conversely, if you live these ideals on a daily basis, your management probably
has a great opinion of you—and your users probably like you as well! When people
work efficiently and you don’t spend too much money, everybody is happy.
You’re Never Done, Though
One glaring difference between the perspectives of your users and your management
is that management expects constantly improving efficiency—what I like to call the
“good enough isn’t” mentality. If you do a great job facilitating productivity, making
things simple, and staying on budget as you go, you’re just setting the bar that much
higher for next year.
So what types of questions does your management ask about improving efficiency?
Here are some examples:
• How can we get the same work done in less time?
• How can we get more jobs done with the same number of people?
• What’s our CAD manager doing to make CAD processes work better six months
from now? A year from now? Two years from now?
Although your users may achieve a state of satisfaction when their hardware and
software systems are harmonized and productive, management feels no such satisfaction.
Whenever you feel particularly good about the state of your CAD environment, pat
yourself on the back and savor the feeling for a little while. But don’t pause for too
long, because management expects more from you.
In today’s hypercompetitive business environments, the effective CAD manager
must embrace a longer-term view. How do you balance management’s longer-term view
with your users’ shorter-term view? We’ll get into that in a moment.
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