Let us start by taking a journey back to high school….. For some of us that is a long time ago and perhaps for others not so long ago….. Either way, we are going back to year 10 Science….. Can you picture the science laboratory, smell the subtle hint of chemicals in the air and hear the sound of gas as you turn on the bunsen burner for the very first time.

It is all fun, that first experiment….. Yes, that is right, we are now heating a beacon of water to boiling point….. Mr Porchelli keeping a keen eye on you to make sure you didn’t commit the sin of leaving the bunsen burner unattended (and especially not with a non illuminous flame). Oh yes, so much fun…..

But then the real work begins….. Physics….. Just when you thought that mathematics was confined only to the walls of Mathematics Class….. But that is ok, we are talking amongst engineers here and we all have a common love of the fundamentals of Physics.

And now that we are on the topic of Physics, there is no better place to start than Sir Isaac Newton and as always Engineering Education Australia likes to link all things back to professional development. So let us now apply Newton’s First Law of Motion to your professional development.

Now, a bit of a reminder on Newton’s First Las of Motion ……

Newton’s First Law of Motion says that if an object is not pushed or pulled upon, its velocity will naturally remain constant. This means that if an object is moving along, untouched by a force of any kind, it will continue to move along in a perfectly straight line at a constant speed. This also means that if an object is standing still and is not contacted by any forces, it will continue to remain motionless.

And now, let us apply this to professional development by looking at what type of person we are…..

Since 1989 we have discovered that 8 out of every 10 engineers will fit into 1 of the following 2 categories:

(1)   You occasionally undertake professional development. You are in motion, but the friction of the outside world is hurting you….. It is slowing you down and you can feel it and it is hard to break out of this pattern….. Are you up to date? Or are your warning lights on?

OR

(2)   You are long overdue for some professional development….. In fact you are no longer in motion…..  Are you out of date? Are your emergency lights on?

Ok….. Ok…… You are not in the 8 out of every 10 we are talking about here….. No….. You are in the 2 out of every 10 engineers who continually invest in professional development….. You make ongoing deposits into your professional development bank account….. You are in motion and you are counteracting all external forces to make sure that you stay in motion…… You can feel it and this is what is making you the engineer that you want to become……

Regardless of what category you fall into, please take a moment to think about your professional development in the upcoming months. It could be as simple as picking up that book that you have been meaning to read for months, or reading that publication that over the past months has gone from the mail box to the coffee table to the bin without as much as a few glances at the cover, or it may even be attending a conference or a professional development course. You can be sure that Sir Isaac Newton did his fair share of professional development to give him the edge when it came to success. A quality that all successful engineers and professionals share….. But we will save that thought for another conversation.

Sir Isaac Newton, born 4 January 1643 Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire and died 31 March 1727 in London England

The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Yes, most of us know about the 80-20 rule and have probably gone as far as applying the principle to our every day working lives. In fact we can apply it to many a situation….. Business = 80% of business comes from 20% of clients, Management = 80% of work output comes from 20% of the team, Humour = 80% of laughs come from 20% of jokes told, and we could go on and on with examples.

At Engineering Education Australia we know that the 80-20 rule also applies to professional development. Yes, since 1989, we have discovered that 80% of the results from attending professional development come from 20% of the content……

So what does this mean?

Ok….. Ok…… You are probably thinking just as we did….. How about Enginering Education Australia professional development focus on delivering only the 20% that gives all the value? Actually, that is a good thought and if only it were that simple….. However, the unknown variable is that different people each have a different 20% that delivers them all the value.

What is the lesson in applying the 80-20 rule to your professinal development?

he next book you read, the next conversation you have with your colleague, or the next professional development course you attend…. Think to yourself….. What are the 2 in 10 ideas, thoughts, or learnings that are going to give me the result I am after. It might happen in the first sentence of the conversation, in the middle or even right at the end. Because we never know when we are going to get the 2 in 10 and just like a good fisherman we need to be patient and feel for bites. So how about looking past the 8 in 10 that is not going to help you, but rather focus on the 2 in 10 that will give you all the results.

Applying the 80-20 rule to professional development in this way will significantly increase your results by double or sometimes even triple. Of course there are other ways to improve even further, but we can save this for another conversation.

The Pareto Principle (or 80-20 Rule). Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.