I believe that managers and the engineers that work under them need to have their roles down completely to make sure they can work together and execute the project efficiently. An issue that comes to mind is the Space Shuttle Challenger incident in 1986. This incident caused the death of all the astronauts on board because a manager did not forwards a mechanism issue memo (from an engineer) to “apparently” have the joints ready for flight by the deadline. This can be avoided if the relationship between a manager and engineer is more transparent; where the engineer’s job is to be direct with all the technical issue and the manager to provide that balance of executive deadlines and what is best for the project and the overall safety of the users.

As students and professionals we have all worked in a team, What sort of team dynamic do you believe is best for a medical device project?