Kelly Johnson's Skunk Work Rules

[Dynoman]

I found the previous post about Barnaby Wainfan's Sins of Aircraft Design interesting enough that I thought that the legendary Kelly Johnson's 14 Rules deserved a place on the forum for budding advanced aircraft development designers and managers.

Kelly Johnson's 14 Rules and Practices

Kelly Johnson's 14 Rules and Practices

www.lockheedmartin.com

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.

2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.

3. The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems).

4. A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.

5. There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.

6. There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the program.

7. The contractor must be delegated and must assume more than normal responsibility to get good vendor bids for subcontract on the project. Commercial bid procedures are very often better than military ones.

8. The inspection system as currently used by the Skunk Works, which has been approved by both the Air Force and Navy, meets the intent of existing military requirements and should be used on new projects. Push more basic inspection responsibility back to subcontractors and vendors. Don't duplicate so much inspection.

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.

10. The specifications applying to the hardware must be agreed to well in advance of contracting. The Skunk Works practice of having a specification section stating clearly which important military specification items will not knowingly be complied with and reasons therefore is highly recommended.

11. Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn't have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.

12. There must be mutual trust between the military project organization and the contractor, the very close cooperation and liaison on a day-to-day basis. This cuts down misunderstanding and correspondence to an absolute minimum.

13. Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures.

14. Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised.

 

[Arjen]

15. Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy.

- p.272, 1994 1st paperback edition - Skunk Works, by Ben R. Rich & Leo Janos

 

[Dynoman]

Skunk Works Lessons Learned. Application of Kelly's Rules:

 

[Reaper]

Would be interesting to convert the rules for 2020+ projects.

 

[taildragger]

15. Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy.

- p.272, 1994 1st paperback edition - Skunk Works, by Ben R. Rich & Leo Janos

I recall that Ed Heinemann at Douglas had a related set of rules that concluded with (paraphrased): "Never work for the f*****g Air Force."

 

[red admiral]

Would be interesting to convert the rules for 2020+ projects.

Nicolai wrote his into a little book published by AIAA i think

Most of the rules are to do with managing people and keeping them focused on the right work. There is no secret sauce.

 

[martinbayer]

Augustine's Laws (https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/book/10.2514/4.868832) fit right into that canon as well.

 

[Arjen]

From Combat Aircraft Designer - The Ed Heinemann Story by Edward H. Heinemann and Rosario Rausa, Jane's Publishing Company, 1980, p.254:

Tell people what is expected of them.
Tell them in advance about changes that will affect them.
Let those working for you know how they are getting along.
Give credit where credit is due, especially for extra effort or performance. Do it while it's hot. Don't wait.
Make the best use of each person's ability.
Strive to keep ahead of schedule.
Don't waste time.
If you're the boss, give guidance, direction, and most important, decisive answers to questions.
Make sure people know where to get answers.
Beware of office politicians.
If you want to pick a man for a difficult job, pick one who has either already thought out the problem or is capable of doing so quickly.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Do what is right rather than who is right.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. Beware of these.
Respect the specialists - those who are masters of a particular phase of the operation. But be wary of allowing them to make big decisions.
Avoid lengthy committee meetings.
Avoid paralysis by analysis.
Plan ahead.

In the last couple of decades I have visited many organizations and noted, unhappily, that the gap has widened between executive level personnel and the people at the manufacturing end of the business. Quite often the executive offices are located in a building apart form the "working"plant. Presidents and vice presidents are often strangers to those in the labor force.
Companies have become so stratified that organization charts are damn near impossible to decipher, much less compose. The chief engineer or his equivalent is sometimes too far down the chain of command and has a plethora of seniors to check with before pressing on. I often wonder how anything gets done. I know that I could not have functioned efficiently had I more than one or two seniors to check with in the major decision-making process.
But I belong to another generation. Perhaps because airplanes and their related systems have become so extraordinarily sophisticated and complex, it is too difficult to simplify organizational practices. I just cannot change my belief, though, that the more limited the span of control, the better the product.

 

[Dynoman]

Here is an interesting paper on the role of the aerodynamicist in the preliminary design of Skunk Works aircraft, the minimal time to first flight in comparison to other manufacturers, and concurrent production at Lockheed.

 

[Dynoman]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bukQbeaP_Cw

 

[antigravite]

Hello,

Thx for this interesting thread.
Has anybody compared Skunk Works rules / style with Muskian way of doing things?

A.

 

[Dynoman]

@antigravite, as in Elon Musk? I haven't compared the two. I have Kendall Perkins (McDonnell Douglas Aircraft designer of FH-1 Phantom, F-2H Banshee, F3H Demon, and F-101 Voodoo) rules on How to Design a Good Aircraft (provided below). It would be interesting to see if he (Musk) or anyone has codified his design philosophies.

 

[Dynoman]

I did a quick search on Musk's design principles and found that many sites quote his five principles from an interview given on the design of a folding rocket fin. They are summarized as follows:

Elon Musks 5-Step Engineering Protocol​

1. Make The Requirements Less Dumb​

“Step one: Make the requirements less dumb. The requirements are definitely dumb; it does not matter who gave them to you. It’s particularly dangerous when they come from an intelligent person, as you may not question them enough. Everyone’s wrong. No matter who you are, everyone is wrong some of the time. All designs are wrong, it’s just a matter of how wrong,” explains Musk.

2. Try And Delete Part Of The Process​

“Step two: try very hard to delete the part or process. If parts are not being added back into the design at least 10% of the time, [it means that] not enough parts are being deleted. The bias tends to be very strongly toward ‘let’s add this part or process step in case we need it’. Additionally, each required part and process must come from a name, not a department, as a department cannot be asked why a requirement exists, but a person can,” says Musk.

3. Simplify Or Optimize​

“Step three: simplify and optimize the design. This is the most common error of a smart engineer — to optimize something that should simply not exist,” according to Musk. He, himself, has been a victim of implementing these steps out of order. He refers to a “mental straightjacket” that happens in traditional schools where you always have to answer the question regardless of whether the premise makes any sense at all.

4. Accelerate Cycle Time​

“Step four: accelerate cycle time. You’re moving too slowly, go faster! But don’t go faster until you’ve worked on the other three things first,” explains Musk. Here he uses another example of how these steps should occur in order. During a wrongheaded process you should simply stop, not accelerate. He says, “If you’re digging your grave, don’t dig it faster.”

5. Automate​

“The final step is: automate. An important part of this is to remove in-process testing after the problems have been diagnosed; if a product is reaching the end of a production line with a high acceptance rate, there is no need for in-process testing. I have personally made the mistake of going backwards on all five steps multiple times. In making Tesla’s Model 3, I literally automated, accelerated, simplified and then deleted,” says Musk.

Elon Musk Reveals His 5-Step Engineering Protocol

How does Elon Musk achieve such game-changing breakthroughs in electric cars and rockets ... at the same time? Running Tesla and SpaceX is quite a feat. Doing so while also being an industry leader (in

cleantechnica.com

 

[Dynoman]

From Combat Aircraft Designer - The Ed Heinemann Story by Edward H. Heinemann and Rosario Rausa,

Ajern, Ed Heinemann is one of my favorites. His design history and his personal story are very interesting. I have copies of his Combat Aircraft Designer and Aircraft Design books. Burt Rutan said that Heinemann was one of his greatest influences. Here is a video on Heinemann's history. There are occasional audio drop outs during the video in a couple of places, but still very interesting video!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO87wWaexZ8&t=1806s

 

[Wobbley Orange]

Kelly Johnson was indeed a God amongst engineers and his "rules" contributed to this. Is there anyone out there (who is much more knowledgeable than me), who could apply Elon Musk's 5 Rules to ohe of Kelly's known successes to see if they would have made a difference?

Personally, I don't see how Elon could do better.

 

[drgondog]

Kelly Johnson was indeed a God amongst engineers and his "rules" contributed to this. Is there anyone out there (who is much more knowledgeable than me), who could apply Elon Musk's 5 Rules to ohe of Kelly's known successes to see if they would have made a difference?

Personally, I don't see how Elon could do better.

It may be heresy but Musk 'rules' conflict with government procurement and contract office processes so thoroughly that even he would have a tough time performing advanced design per USAF/USN Design Standards.

Each of his five Rules,individually and collectively, are essential framework for great design - on time/under budget projects.

 

[Kat Tsun]

It may be heresy but Musk 'rules' conflict with government procurement and contract office processes so thoroughly that even he would have a tough time performing advanced design per USAF/USN Design Standards.

Each of his five Rules,individually and collectively, are essential framework for great design - on time/under budget projects.

Yeah, it definitely helps explain how Starship beat the elderly '80's-era SLS to the Moon. Sclerotic government design practices hobbled NASA.

 

[Dynoman]

From Ben Rich's National Academy of Sciences Biography on Clarence "Kelly" Johnson

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/johnson-clarence.pdf

“Our aim,” he said, “is to get results cheaper, sooner, and better through application of common sense to tough problems. If it works, don’t fix it.” “Reduce reports and other paperwork to a minimum.” “Keep it simple, stupid—KISS—is our constant reminder.” Johnson instinctively knew how to select people for his organization. He knew how to get the most out of the fewest people and how to get the job done—well. He let his managers run their programs with a minimum of interference. He not only gave you the authority but also the responsibility."
"As a man of high integrity himself, Johnson expected complete honesty from the people of the Skunk Works. Mistakes were allowed, but they were to be brought to his attention immediately. And Kelly also expected recommendations to correct mistakes. He was firmly convinced of the importance of being honest with people, not just telling them what they wanted to hear. He emphasized the necessity of good communication, urging us always to ask a lot of questions. One of Kelly’s challenges to employees was a standing 25-cent bet against anyone who wanted to differ with him. It was not the quarter, of course, but the distinction of winning it from the boss, Kelly said. “It’s another incentive. And I’ve lost a few quarters, too,” he admitted. But no to often, it must be noted."