I've been able to have plenty of project, engineering, and technical influence in companies while not technically being in charge of anything. In fact, I prefer it this way. I don't like day to day managing, and I like the freedom to pick which problems I'm thinking about. And since I have zero care for getting any credit, I'm not threatening anyone and I stay outside the power fights.
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There's a several thousand year old story about this.
Some junior executives joined a large multi-national corporation. While still in their training, they saw some process improvements wanted to make in their own areas.
They asked their friendly local VP if they could make the changes. He said "If this goes wrong, the CEO will blame me, not you. Heck no."
So then they asked their immediate boss they could do a small, ten day trial run with the new process, and metrics that lined up with what their immediate boss was managing for. He, seeing little risk, and potential upside, gave the go ahead for the trial.
The new method worked out great, was rolled out to the whole rest of the training department, and everybody was happy.
- Some people's primary management objective is to not get in trouble with their boss. They do this by reducing uncertainty to the point they actively work against positive change, because it adds uncertainty. These aren't the people you want to be asking permission from.
- A lot of times, people low in the org chart have the actual authority. As long as you are friends with them, and don't make them look bad with the stuff you do, you can get away with a lot of improvement.
- Good ideas need good packaging. You really need to express them in frame of reference of the person or people who are making the decisions. If you are dealing with someone with profit and loss responsibility, frame your solution in terms of making more money or spending less, if you are dealing with a person with schedule responsibility, frame it in terms of reducing variability. Don't frame your problems in developer terms unless you are dealing with a developer who is actively programming.
- You can do a whole lot more experimentation if you can keep the cost of failure lower.
- Most people in a large company never really think about the big picture of the company. If you do, and can clearly express how your ideas fit into them, you can have a big impact. Often when you've really done your thinking and found the solution to a problem, you'll hear your ideas repeated by people all over the company. You don't even have to fight the fight.