To revive this discussion, I believe the roles of managers and engineers in a project fit a Venn Diagram. One circle is strictly managerial/business tasks and the other is purely design and build tasks. In the overlap are the skills that both managers and engineers should be versed in. The overlapping skills are technical knowledge of the task, consequence foresight, feasibility foresight, and motivation. All personnel on a project need to have these skills in order for the project to run smoothly. Managers have some tasks, such as planning and organizing the project, setting deadlines, allocating resources, and keeping up to date with the ever-changing customer needs. Engineers concern themselves with task completion and the technical side of completing the task. A good manager is 80% manager and 20% engineer. A good engineer is 80% engineer and 20% worker.