By Kim Morrison, Chief Technical Officer, ATC Williams
We are experiencing a period of unprecedented technical acceleration. While technological advancement often captures headlines, I believe the more important question is how we develop the people who will navigate this rapidly changing landscape.
Across our industry, new technologies, including artificial intelligence, are reshaping the way we work. These advancements are dovetailing with evolving regulatory expectations, advanced analytical methods, digital engineering tools, and increasing stakeholder expectations. Knowledge that was once considered current for decades can now become outdated within a few years. Technical professionals are expected to maintain expertise in their chosen disciplines, while rapidly and simultaneously adapting to new information, tools, and ways of solving complex problems.
The Importance of Phronesis
The ancient Greeks recognised that knowledge takes many forms. Episteme refers to theoretical knowledge and understanding, while Techne refers to technical skill or craft. Both are essential to engineering and scientific practice.
Yet there is a third form of knowledge that is perhaps more important than ever in today’s world: phronesis.
Commonly translated as “practical wisdom,” phronesis is the ability to apply knowledge, judgement, ethics, and experience to make sound decisions in complex and uncertain situations. Engineering and science have always required phronesis.
As technology continues to advance, the value of practical wisdom becomes even more important. No amount of software, automation, artificial intelligence, modelling capability, or technical guidance can replace the professional judgement required to balance competing objectives, understand risk, interpret incomplete information, and make decisions that affect people, communities, and the environment.
The future engineer or scientist will not be defined by the ability to access information, since information has never been more accessible. Rather, the future engineer or scientist will be distinguished by the ability to interpret information, apply it appropriately, and understand its broader consequences.
That is phronesis.
Developing future technical leaders requires more than training. It requires knowledge, skill and practical wisdom gained through experience, mentorship and opportunity.
Investing in the Next Generation
One of the responsibilities we share as technical leaders is ensuring that the next generation has opportunities to develop knowledge and technical skills, along with judgement, and judgement is developed through experience.
As outlined in the diagram above, judgement is developed under the guidance of experienced practitioners, via mentoring, collaboration, exposure to challenging projects, participation in technical communities, and opportunities to solve real problems.
For many years, our profession has benefited from a natural transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next. Today, however, the pace of change means that this transfer cannot be left to chance. Organisations must deliberately create environments where learning and development can flourish.
This requires investment in technology and in people.
Creating Opportunities to Learn, Grow and Innovate
At ATC Williams, several initiatives support this philosophy.
- ATC University was established to provide structured learning opportunities that complement project experience and technical mentoring. Our aim is to create pathways for continuous professional development across all career stages.
- Our Technical Communities strengthen knowledge sharing across offices, disciplines and regions. The most effective learning often occurs when people with different experiences come together to discuss challenges, lessons learned, and emerging opportunities.
- Our Technical Innovation Contest provides opportunities for employees to transform ideas into practical outcomes. Innovation projects allow individuals to explore new technologies, develop leadership skills, build business cases, and gain experience in advancing ideas from concept through implementation. This year’s program demonstrated the depth of creativity that exists across our organisation, and we are now preparing to build upon that foundation with our 2027 innovation challenge.
- We are also embracing new digital capabilities, including artificial intelligence and knowledge management initiatives, to help our people access information more effectively and reduce time spent on routine tasks.
Importantly, none of these initiatives exists in isolation. Together, they form a broader commitment to creating an environment where learning, innovation, and professional growth are embedded within our culture.
Practical Wisdom and AI Capability
Much has been written recently about artificial intelligence and the future of professional work. While AI will undoubtedly transform aspects of engineering and science, I remain optimistic about what this means for our profession. The future will belong neither to humans nor machines alone. It will belong to those organisations that successfully combine technological capability with human judgement.
Artificial intelligence can assist with analysis, automate repetitive tasks, and help us manage ever-increasing volumes of information. Yet it cannot replace the practical wisdom that comes from experience, ethical reasoning, professional accountability, and informed decision-making.
The organisations that thrive will be those that use technology as a tool to augment their people while continuing to invest deeply in the development of judgement, leadership, and technical excellence.
A Final Thought
The Age of Technical Acceleration presents both opportunities and responsibilities.
- The opportunity is in harnessing new technologies, ways of learning, and approaches to solving complex challenges.
- The responsibility is in ensuring that we continue to develop the people who will lead our profession into the future.
As technical leaders, our greatest legacy is not the technology we adopt or the projects we complete but rather the capability we help build in others.
Technical knowledge will continue to evolve, tools will continue to change, and technologies will come and go. However, practical wisdom will remain timeless. In a rapidly changing world, there is perhaps no investment more important than phronesis.