Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Please answer A, B or C to each question
Question
A
B
C
You are walking down the high street
when you come across a pocket watch on
the pavement. Do you:
Stop and look at it, and wonder if
its owner misses it
Step on it
Pick it up and shake it to see if
you can fix it
You have been invited to a fancy dress
party. Would you:
Dress normally because people are
more important than clothes
Spend the 3 days beforehand trying
out everything in the wardrobe,
then wear a sheet
Hire the costume your friend
wore last year
You are walking on a desert island and a
coconut lands on your head. Do you:
Pick it up and decide what to do
with it in good time, after due
reflection
Throw it into the sea, then dive in
after it
Open it with the pen-knife you
always carry in your rucksack, eat
the flesh and drink the juice
Your hosepipe in your garden has become
knotted on the reel. Do you:
Go to the shops and buy another
one because this is cost and time
effective
Prick holes in it
Spend the afternoon untangling
it
A friend is in big trouble and asks you to
lend her £1000. Do you:
Explore whether she really needs
the money or would be better off
with another approach
Lend her £10 and suggest she goes
to the races
Check your statement and write
a cheque agreeing a reasonable
rate of interest and a repayment
schedule
You are invited to be the first person on
Mars. Do you say:
What is the point of space
exploration?
Yes, and may I bring my hat?
No thanks, I'll let someone else
go first
You are only allowed to take one topic on
holiday. Do you take:
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
A ball
SAS Guide to Survival
There are 3 of you floating in a life raft
and there is only enough food and water
for two. Do you:
Carefully evaluate who would
make the greatest contribution to
civilisation on their return…and
then brief the third concisely on
how to achieve that outcome
Rock the boat
Eat the bloke who went to the
party wearing a sheet
It is raining, and you discover you have a
hole in your shoe. Do you:
Ask yourself whether it's worth
making the journey
Walk right through the puddles
and try to get the water inside your
socks to warm up
Hop
You are holding a dinner party and you
ind you have lost your recipe topic. Do
you:
Phone for a take-away and ask
them to deliver 1 course every hour
so there's time to talk
Use whatever is in the fridge. What
is a recipe topic anyway?
Go round to your next door
neighbour and borrow their
recipe topic
Table 2.4 Engineering personality test (for answers see Table 2.7 towards the end of this chapter)
Figure 2.2 An Artist's view of a project (it's an adventure!)
Figure 2.3 An Artisan's view of a project (it's on familiar territory)
Testing this with various audiences around the country
we have found that engineers are mostly Artisans, with few
Philosophers and Artists. I hope you took the test, in which
case you may recognise yourself as one of these, or perhaps a
combination.
With that in mind, it is possible to take this light-hearted
but effective assessment a little further and draw some con-
clusions in relation to the way in which particular approaches
interact with the key anchor diagram for the project process
shown earlier.
