Engineering Ethics Problems in a Developing Country - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 247

their work, which would be very difficult or even impossible otherwise. The time
involved in drawing flow diagrams is easily balanced out by the time (and money)
that would be unnecessarily lost in the program writing, debugging, commissioning
and modifying phases if flow diagrams were not available.
The use of high-level languages was relatively limited in real-time applications
in automation. In addition, the resulting records are less easy to understand than
flow diagrams and consequently a less useful tool for the development of software
for large-scale high-tech applications.
Flow diagrams proved to be a very useful tool in the development and modifica-
tion of software for the projects led by Leading Designer 4 and irreplaceable when
major changes were made to the software solutions. Examples include the power-
generating unit monitor, power network training simulator and switched measure-
ment display (KWP) developed from SAPI ODM and the ProSter system designed
on the basis of Badel system flowcharts adapted for a different environment under
the QNX ® real-time operating system. In all these cases, the major changes were
implemented successfully and did not require the participation of Leading Designer
4, showing the value of the approach.

6.4 Educating the Younger Generation

Educating and training younger colleagues can be considered an ethical and profes-
sional responsibility. However, some of the Polish ICT and automation pioneers
failed to educate their younger colleagues on the basis that they personally needed
to solve all problems. However, Leading Designer 4 recognised the importance of
doing this to ensure that the work could continue even after he was no longer
involved. He therefore did his best to ensure that each member of the design and
development team had full knowledge of the project and therefore could potentially
replace him as leading designer if necessary.
At that time, the main approach to teaching about design was based on the use of
design recipes. However, this approach does not enable designers to think creatively,
develop designs for new problems or be able to respond appropriately to the unex-
pected. A better approach, as used for instance by Leading Designer 4, is to teach
design principles and ways of thinking about design in order to give young design-
ers the prerequisite skills to respond to challenges and new design problems. One of
his techniques involved drawing flowcharts of the required solutions and allowing
his younger colleagues to analyse them and derive their own solutions. In order to
give these younger colleagues ownership of their work and the project, where their
solutions were feasible, they replaced those of Leading Designer 4. This approach
worked well and resulted in the completion and successful launch of a number of
important projects, including the power-generating unit monitor, the power network
training simulator and the switched measurement display (KWP) for the power
industry.