What Engineering Managers Need in Project Management Tools

Engineering managers juggle schedules, cross-disciplinary dependencies, and detailed technical trade-offs, yet traditional project tools show only tasks, owners, and dates. This renders what matters most as invisible: the real state of the design, who is touching what, and where risk is building. 

Modern hardware teams need a project management system that’s rooted in the work engineers are actually doing on the product. That calls for tools that live alongside the design data, not off in a separate reporting system. Altium Develop, which anchors tasks, decisions, and reviews directly in the live design, is an example of this approach.  

Key Takeaways

• Project tools for engineering managers must expose live design context, not static information.
• Multidisciplinary co-creation works when requirements, supply chain data, and manufacturability share a single source of truth.
• Project development data should be treated as first-class output, with comments, decisions, and feedback retained in the design to de-risk future projects.

Why Traditional Project Tools Frustrate Engineering Managers

Generic project tools can be useful, but they’re shallow and full of gaps that can cause havoc because, in hardware development, the real issues hide in the design artifacts, such as:

• Requirements that never make it into the schematic
• Critical components that quietly go obsolete
• Last-minute enclosure changes that collide with connector placement
• DFM concerns that manufacturing flags only after files are “final”

If your project tool cannot see those realities, you end up managing by meeting. You schedule more reviews and chase people for updates because the system is blind to what is changing in the design. Engineering managers need a system tightly coupled to live design data and designed for users’ real-world workflows.

That focus on the user is not new for Altium. As Lawrence Romine, Vice President of Marketing at Altium, put it on the recent Altium Develop: Returning to Our Roots podcast, “Altium’s origin story itself is a user story.” Altium Develop returns to that mindset by grounding project visibility in what engineers are actually building, rather than just what is summarized in stale reports.

The following Altium Develop capabilities highlight what engineering managers should expect from a modern, design-centric project environment.

Capability 1. Continuous, Real-Time Insight Into the Design

Hardware teams need to see change as it happens, live in the design.

Altium Develop is built for continuous insight. Every change, comment, and decision is visible as it happens and with context. When design data, comments, and tasks are all part of the same environment, users get:

• Live visibility into which boards, assemblies, and documents are changing
• The ability to drill from a status view into the exact schematic sheet or layout revision
• Up-to-date context for reviews, without manually exporting files or screenshots

Instead of scheduling another “where are we?” call, all team members can open the workspace and see the same current information and what has changed.

Capability 2. Multidisciplinary Co-Creation, Not Siloed Handoffs

Electronics projects rarely fail because one person did their job badly. They fail because different disciplines cannot clearly see each other’s work. These issues often occur when:

• Electrical engineers cannot see the latest mechanical constraints.
• Mechanical teams guess at PCB outlines and keep their own copies.
• Firmware, test, and manufacturing get involved late, when changes are expensive.

Engineering managers need project tools that unify disciplines on their own terms, respecting each team's unique workflow. Altium Develop has this level of multidisciplinary co-creation built into its environment:

• Electrical, mechanical, software, sourcing, and manufacturing can all connect to the same shared environment.
• People can review designs in a browser, leave comments, and participate without a full seat of PCB tools.
• Work happens concurrently, keeping all teams aligned and moving forward.

As Romine puts it, “Effectively, it (multidisciplinary co-creation) is our bread-and-butter core competency.” For engineering managers, that means collaboration built around PCB and product data, not a separate project layer.

Capability 3. Requirements That Live Inside Design Context

If requirements are tracked in one system and designs live in another, your team spends too much time reconciling the two. Altium Develop brings requirements into the same environment as the design with:

• Requirements visible directly in design files, so contributors see what matters without digging through separate documents.
• The ability to focus on the subset of requirements relevant to a team’s work: performance, compliance, environmental, or integration.
• Requirement coverage at a glance, so managers can drill down to see how a requirement is implemented at the schematic or layout level.

This enables requirements to guide decisions throughout the project. For a deeper look at defining and tracking requirements, see Requirements Management KPIs and How Effective Requirements Management Streamlines PCB Component Procurement.

Capability 4. Supply Chain Visibility Tied to the BOM and Design

The design looks great. The prototype works. Then someone discovers that a key component is nearing end of life, lead times just jumped, or tariffs changed the cost structure. Altium Develop helps link supply chain insight directly to schematics and PCB designs, including:

• Component pricing, availability, and lifecycle status within the design context.
• Clearly visible dependencies in the BOM that make risk easier to spot.
• Collaborative alternate parts evaluation that can evaluate design, cost, and schedule tradeoffs in the same environment.

Instead of treating BOM health as a separate spreadsheet exercise, engineering managers can track component risk alongside design progress.

Capability 5. Manufacturability Feedback That Arrives Early

Manufacturing partners have seen hundreds of products and know the patterns that cause yield problems, rework, and schedule slips. The problem is timing. If manufacturing engineers only see final design files, they can only provide late feedback, leading to problems that are expensive to fix. 

Altium Develop supports a more effective workflow:

• Designers can invite in-house or contract manufacturers directly into the environment as collaborators.
• Manufacturing experts can review real design data, build test prototypes, and comment on manufacturability issues early.
• Feedback loops are shorter because everyone works from the same current revision rather than emailed zip files.

For engineering managers, this means fewer surprises at the back end of the project and a clearer line of sight from early concepts to a buildable product.

Capability 6. Data Treated as a First-Class Product of the Project

Another gap in traditional project tools is that they treat development data as a byproduct instead of a valuable output. Teams focus on shipping the product, and the data ends up scattered across tools, emails, and ad hoc spreadsheets.

Altium Develop treats data creation and sharing as a core objective. Teams get:

• Shared access to project data so contributors can see the design, its history, and related decisions in one environment, right where the work happens.
• A growing knowledge base that engineering managers can use to improve processes, train new team members, and de-risk future projects.

Romine describes this shift as aligned with Altium’s original DNA. Altium Develop is meant to feel like a “homecoming” for users who want modern collaboration without losing the direct, design-centric experience that built Altium’s reputation.

What the Right Tool Looks Like for You

The right project management tool should help you see real design progress without extra meetings, while keeping requirements, BOM risk, and manufacturability in view while decisions are still flexible. Altium Develop pairs the proven depth of Altium Designer with a peer-powered network for collaboration, continuous insight, and multidisciplinary co-creation. That combination delivers a practical, efficient platform to steer your product, team, and schedule, all in one place. 

Whether you need to build reliable power electronics or advanced digital systems, Altium Develop unites every discipline into one collaborative force. Free from silos. Free from limits. It’s where engineers, designers, and innovators work as one to co-create without constraints. Experience Altium Develop today!