Sparklemotion
How to build your own internal skunkworks.
The Devil’s Advocate™ — projects you can try at home
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The lockheed principles:
- Give free rein: Let the team manager have complete practical control of all aspects of the programme".
- Keep it small: The number of people on the project "must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (ten to 25 per cent compared to the so-called normal systems). This should self-select.
- Be like a shark: keep moving: Let the team collaborate and iterate easily. Promote agility. Lightweight tools. Like SharePoint. Favour agility over robustness.
- Log everything: Keep as much data on everything as you can: you need to explain what you’ve been doing and why it was worthwhile even if it didn’t work.
- No secrets in the group, top secret outside it: Tell people what you have achieved, not what you're planning to achieve. Hence: no business plan.
There's no point in working on a secret project if you don't keep it secret. "Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures."
Additional ones: Have a kill switch: if a project is working out, be prepared to nix it. Ask: what have we learned? What could we tweak which realistically might make a difference? If you can’t think of anything, let it go. But record your results.
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