Blog Post: Airplanes & Skunk Works
Skunk Works©: “A term used in engineering and technical fields to describe a group within an organisation given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.”
(Three of the most well-known Skunk Works-developed jet fighters: The F-35 Lightning II, the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-104 Starfighter).
In business, it is common use to leave the normal premises or offices when working with idea generation, complex projects or conducting meetings. New surroundings can benefit your thoughts and work processes and can result in improved solutions. You may know this by the terms “process innovation”, “organisational innovation”, “organisational development” or similar, where key is to let go of the creative constraint. But the predecessor to these modern buzzwords was born in an allegedly foul-smelling factory floor in Burbank, California – hence the name, Skunk Works.
Skunk Works©: “A term used in engineering and technical fields to describe a group within an organisation given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.”
Today, the term is widely used in various businesses when describing agile development, production and innovation processes in offline and online environments. The Skunk Works term and story, however, is 67 years old:
In 1943, during the World War II, the allies were facing a rapidly growing German Jet threat. If the Germans would succeed in building a functioning fighter jet, they would gain a massive advantage over the Allies.
Well aware of this, the Air Tactical Service Command of the US Army Air Force, met with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and expressed their need for a jet fighter. The Allied Forces had access to the British developed Goblin jet engine, but the contemporary development and production time of new fighters meant that it could take years before a functional jet fighter would be ready.
A new approach was required.
Chief Research Engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was the man for the job. In 1938, he had gathered a team of Lockheed-engineers who in secrecy, and in an isolated, walled-off building at the Lockheed-factory, had developed the world’s first 400 mph fighter – the P-38 Lightning.
Kelly assembled a similar team in June 1943 to begin the development of a jet fighter. Again, he separated the team from the rest of factory, and based on “Kelly’s 14 rules” the Skunk Works rules of operation was born.
Skunk Works was a team of highly skilled engineers, working closely together in a group based on massive autonomy and free of the normal production bureaucracy at the Lockheed Factory – ensuring an unprecedented short production time.
(The XP-80 prototype, aka. “Lulu Belle”, and the P-80 Shooting Star)
And the Skunk Works team proved their efficiency by designing and building the XP-80 prototype in only 143 days. Dubbed “Lulu Belle”, the XP-80 would later surface as the first-ever American jet fighter under the name of P-80 Shooting Star. The American jet fighter was born – and so was an all-new approach to rapid innovation and development.
And the meaning of all this? Today, much of the organisational- and process innovation seen in businesses, are centred around elements of the Skunk Works idea. The problem, however, is that bureaucracy and top-down management are often preventing the real Skunk Works-like development in taking place. This is where “Kelly’s 14 rules” can be applied. Though they originated in 1943, many of the rules are still considered valid today – even if they were invented around the creation of top-secret projects (three of the most interesting and still very much valid rules are listed below):
- 1. “The Skunk Works® manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.”
- 5. “There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.”
- 9. “The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final product in flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he doesn’t, he rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles.”
Looking at these rules, it seems rather evident that they can be applied directly to many aspects of business life today. And why? Because the issues of dealing with complexity hasn’t changed. Working with complex projects, it is essential to establish a solid foundation or framework around the team. Within this framework, then, the team will have the time, resources and autonomy to succeed with their task(s). That is why “Kelly’s 14 rules” are still highly applicable to today’s business life.
At Fourmation, we are true believers in the “Skunk Works” approach when working with projects. But what do you think – and what techniques do you use in your company?
(Sources: Lockheedmartin.com and Wikipedia)