I was reading a very interesting article about Agile Manifesto – The real origins of the Agile Manifesto.
If you have been in many companies writing software you probably heard about the agile development process and mostly the whole enchilada of implementations. What is more interesting is the “technique” which was defined in late 2001 got at least one antecedent during World War II in US. At Lockheed Martin, the army contractor, one person decided the process of manufacturing in time and with a good control should take a shortcut from the formal process employed at the time. Deliverables over reports, accountability over people management, empowering a short team on delivering but with a pulse on quality control when the project is derailing were a few of the attributes.
Introduced in 1943
- Use a small number of good people … compared to the so-called normal systems
- A minimum number of reports, but important work recorded
- Close cooperation and daily liaison
- A very simple … system with great flexibility for making changes
Introduced in 2001
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
It is very interesting to read about those efforts in established companies which realized their “culture” is slowing down innovation and for that reason several tricks were devised.
Skunk Works
Interestingly enough, the term in the title was registered by Lockheed Martin, with a double signification – celebrate the innovative process employed in 1943 and also to mark a swift change in real project management.
Intrapreneurship
It is well known that most companies are growing in two modes – acquisitions and internal developments. In order to break the inertia barrier present in large companies, most of the blue chip businesses have tried the intrapreneurship concept. Create a disruptive business with an independent life from the main business where people can experiment with different approaches on managing people, managing reporting process and mainly delivering fast results (even failures). The “chaotic” process, although under the umbrella of an established business was called intrapreneurship.
Keep acquisitions as independent entities
The peril of stifling innovations even for acquisitions makes an interesting subject. Some companies want to “bleed out” the innovations without integrating the acquired company into the main business and leave it as a proof it is possible to get better. Others are moving the “management team” of the acquisition in more influential positions in the big company to disseminate the ideas and spread out techniques and an innovation culture .
There are many examples in the industry where “skunk work” teams were isolated and prodded to finish a product or features just to decide the future for the whole company.
- Palm had experienced such teams before their product just sunk due to Google/Apple phone releases
- iPhone was initially developed as an extension from iPod (one team) before being an independent project (another team)
- Nortel used to spin out two different teams with the same objective and then choose the best product, before the final release
Note: The table comparing the Agile Manifesto features and the Lockheed Skunk Works ideas is taken from “The real origins of Agile Manifesto”.