Well... I am an engineer with quarter of century of development experience, just typically not in the know on the particulars of the given part of the system.

Well... I am an engineer with quarter of century of development experience, just typically not in the know on the particulars of the given part of the system. What I describe is my personal style which has been described as "detective". When things do not work well, I tend to get into the thick of things to get a sense of what is really happening "on the shop floor". I remember, at the start of my career, my disdain for the execs. I couldn't really understand how you can go this far and yet don't understand the simplest basics of the business we are doing. Now I know that it is mighty hard to have true sense when everything you are being told is carefully filtered and worded, when every person you talk to is completely focused on how they appear in the discussion rather than about solving the problem. So to fight this I get into a detective mode and I try to appear friendly to people, genuinely interested (which is not hard because I actually am!) and not trying to sound like all knowing and all powerful. And I do defer to engineers a lot, but I also tell them that they need to be able to support decisions with information.