Overview

A man was walking across the moor when a balloon appeared and hovered close by him. The balloonist leaned over and said to him, 'Could you possibly help me. I am aiming to meet a friend for lunch in this area but have got absolutely lost. Could you tell me where I am?' The walker looked at his map and after a long pause and several calculations replied, 'You are degrees latitude and degrees longitude.' The balloonist became agitated at this point, saying, 'You must be an engineer.' 'You're right,' came the reply 'but how did you know?' 'Well,' said the balloonist, 'You have given me a lot of information that I can't understand. I still have no idea about what I am going to do, and now you have made me even later.'

The walker replied, 'You must be a manager.' 'Yes', replied the balloonist, 'but how did you know that?'

'Well', said the engineer, 'you don't know where you are, where you are going or how you are going to get there. You have got to where you are through a great deal of hot air. And now that it has all gone wrong, somehow it's somebody else's fault.'

Introduction

Up to this point we have focused on professional ethics, reflecting on the purpose and responsibilities of the engineer. However, as we noted in the Challenger case, today's engineer does not always function simply in a consultancy role or in a purely professional...