Several months ago, I was living in Tokyo and working in the furiously paced auto industry. Then back to the US, now in San Diego jumping new hurdles in the Defense industry. In between, and still, maintaining entrepreneurial activity. Which brought me to a lunch time conversation today at In-n-Out Burger with an 87 year old retired Navy sailor. He was assigned to the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier that left Pearl Harbor on….Dec 5th, 1941 - a few days later and he would not have been there today to tell me his story.
After a near miss at Pearl Harbor, his carrier before long became the first to be sunk in World War II, hit by 5 torpedoes and a few bombs, the ship was disabled and then sunk. Assigned to another ship, that too was struck, this time by a Kamikaze plane. When I gave him a heartfelt thank you for his service to our country, he shrugged it off saying he was just a stupid young kid who didn’t know any better. He went on to finish a long career in the service. To me he is a great man.
So how is all that related to real life principles for developing products? When I began writing this blog I thought the principles I learned from the Japanese applied to more industries than autos, now I’m confident. In the auto world, companies live and die by the speed they can bring product to market – and actually end up with consumer preference in their favor. The military world is a little different; the customer is … the government. The production volume is on the order a few to a few thousand – over a 10 year time period. But design misses can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and can literally affect human life.
The very same “prove by design” vs. “prove by test” principles are touched upon and missed in both industries. It comes down to this – real principles don’t change because of circumstances or time. They are the same no matter what.
1 comment:
That's pretty cool about that sailor. It seems like a lot of guys go into service because they don't have purpose, and then end up doing a job that has more purpose than any other job in the world.
I think the principles are the same because the government is a business too. It has clientele, limited resources, income and expenditures, and numerous demands for it to succeed. It faces downsizing at times and growth at times. Of course it gets to screw up and stay in business, but it will always follow the patterns any organization follows. It's unpredictable because politicians are in charge so you still get the curveballs and we also have to abide by antiquated regulations and policies, but I think having the mindset that it is a business helps me in my job. I have to prove my worth.
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