Phase 4 · Meet the Core Objectives
9. Management
That you can plan and run work — programme, resources, quality, other people — and that you have made the decisions that come with a constraint you could not wish away.
Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Mentors
Minimum standard: Experience for Incorporated-Member, Experience for Chartered Member.
Core Objective 9 — what IStructE says
Institution of Structural Engineers
- This objective is intended to demonstrate a candidate's experience of management skills for programming and control.
- Minimum standard, Incorporated-Member: E — Experience. The subject should be performed independently or under supervision.
- Minimum standard, Chartered Member: E — Experience. The subject should be performed independently or under supervision.
From IPD Guidance — Chartered Member, Institution of Structural Engineers.
What strong and weak evidence look like
Worth doing
- A programme you built, what went wrong with it, and how you recovered.
- A resourcing decision with a real constraint behind it.
- A time you changed a colleague's approach by persuasion rather than authority.
- A quality process you changed because it was not catching what it should.
- Development of a specific person: what they could not do, and can now.
Avoid
- A job title offered as evidence of management.
- "I managed a team of six" with nothing about what managing them involved.
- Attending meetings, described as chairing them.
- Long lists of responsibilities with no decision in them.
Portfolio items that tend to work here
4 items · saved in this browser only
Suggestions, not a required list. What matters is that the item is yours, that it is annotated, and that it demonstrates the standard rather than the subject.
Questions to ask yourself
When did I have to choose between two things I could not both do?
Management evidence is made of trade-offs. Without a constraint there was no decision.
What did I delegate, and how did I assure myself it was right?
Delegation with retained accountability is the pattern reviewers look for.
Who is better at their job because of me?
A specific person and a specific improvement answers this; a mentoring policy does not.
The same objective, in different kinds of work
| Setting | What the evidence tends to look like |
|---|---|
| Consultancy | Running a work package to a fee and a programme, and renegotiating scope rather than absorbing an overrun silently. |
| Contractor | Sequencing a possession, deciding what to drop, and holding quality under programme pressure. |
| Client organisation | Directing a supply chain towards an outcome without designing it for them. |
Illustrative. The objectives are written to be met in a range of ways by anyone practising as a structural engineer.
How reviewers tend to approach this objective
- Asking about a time the programme went wrong and what you personally did.
- Probing a conflict and how you handled it.
- Asking how you knew delegated work was right.
- Asking what you would do about an under-performing colleague.
There is a bank of original practice questions in the interview question bank, filterable by objective and by grade.
Related pages and tools
- Core ObjectivesWhat IStructE assesses, what Knowledge, Experience and Ability actually mean, and where the two grades differ.
- EvidenceThe difference between describing a project and evidencing a Core Objective, and what reviewers are actually reading for.
- Evidence matrixBuilding the grid of objectives against evidence, so you can see coverage rather than hope for it.
- Gap analysisWhat to do about an objective you cannot evidence — and how long each kind of gap actually takes to close.
- The portfolioWhat the portfolio is for, when it has to be ready, who receives it, and the format rules that decide whether it is read.
- Question bankPractice questions across all ten Core Objectives, filtered by grade, by the standard they are pitched at, and by depth.