Automating Engineering’s Ideal Manager

Engineering is a collaborative practice, but effective teamwork can take many different forms. For some projects, teamwork means accomplishing all tasks as a group; for other projects, it is better for everyone to work individually before connecting their pieces like a puzzle. Jon Cagan , a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering , and Chris McComb , an associate professor of mechanical engineering at CMU, have long studied the engineering design process with Ken Kotovsky , a professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. They have shown that artificial intelligence (AI) can be beneficial to design teams. Their previous work found that having AI as an assistive tool can make human teams more efficient and effective. Josh Gyory, who earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from CMU in the summer of 2021, has studied if and how process managers improve team performance.