Engineering Effectiveness is a Part of Holistic Effectiveness
In my many years at various executive and management levels is R&D, technology development, product and service engineering, manufacturing, operations, and completely life cycle support encompassing consumer, industrial, aerospace and defense companies in the Best-in-Class Fortune 500 and also SMB, I have practiced measurement, analysis, bench marking, standards, developing improvement schema, implementing and validating, with great success. Companies have included Bell Labs (R&D), AT&T, GE, and NASA. I have implemented practices with similar goals in very early stage and SMBs.
As a Professor in reputed universities, and teaching in workshops in international conferences in many disciplines, I have taught corporate business effectiveness, that includes engineering effectiveness, among other functions.
I have set up and led ISO and supply chain standards in companies of which engineering processes are part of a holistic implementation.
Even though the key word or area may be called "Engineering", the measurement and interface should address and incorporate interface effectiveness with other functions of the company, many times including multiple locations and facilities spanning different countries.
In the modern corporation, off-shoring and off-site locations or even subcontracting will make a big difference in engineering effectiveness, of which time differences and cultural differences surely have to be taken into account.
General template approach to engineering effectiveness will not yield optimized results, in engineering or economic value. Each company, company location and departments involved in the engineering function may require customized modeling, measurement and improvement.
Many tools and techniques have to be mastered by the engineering management, at different levels.
Information sharing, engineering quality circles, training and orientation are imperative to not only new hires, and also experienced members of the engineering teams.
Each industry vertical needs a specialized and customized approach to engineering effectiveness.
Effectiveness in engineering alone will not suffice, as other functional departments would also need effectiveness approach, for the project and company to be successful.
