Getting There FIRST

Editorial Abstract: The US Air Force’s broad-based research and development program allows it to remain preeminent in the creation of new technologies. A strong and rapid product-development capability turns these technologies into fieldable systems, and a robust production capacity efficiently produces the number of weapons it needs at an affordable price. All of these elements require a way of thinking about large organizations and technical innovation that involves flexibility, innovation, resources, support, and tempo (FIRST).

IN MILITARY COMBAT, firing the first shot is often critical to victory; being first is also important in innovation and technology. For example, Elisha Gray, a very successful and wealthy American inventor, is barely known today because he found himself at the patent office just a few hours behind a competing inventor—Alexander Graham Bell, who had also come up with the idea for the telephone. Although one might reasonably argue that the telephone was simultaneously invented by several different groups (including three competitors outside the United States), Bell had a design that could be easily reproduced, and he enjoyed the industrial advantages of the United States—not to mention the fact that he was first in line at the patent office. Patent rights do not usually protect military technology, but those who are first to employ a new war-fighting technology often gain the advantage. Being the first to develop the atomic bomb gave the United States the leverage to conclude World War II and dictate the terms of peace. The same principle holds true with regard to the impact of stealth technologies or precision weapons guided by the global positioning system (GPS) on our current military advantage. In virtually all competitive situations, being first forces opponents to react to actions; it also sets standards and allows the initiator to shape the direction of other development efforts.

How does the US Air Force assure itself of first place in terms of having the most significant military technologies? The service relies on a broad-based research and development (R&D) program for new technologies, a strong and rapid product-development capability to turn these technologies into fieldable systems, and a robust production capacity to efficiently produce the number of weapons it needs at a price it can afford. Because all of these elements require innovation, this article addresses the R&D effort and the science and technology (S&T) that comprise the seed corn for future capabilities.

Current State of
Research and Development

Contributing in R&D doesn’t necessarily mean being the first to do the whole thing, but it clearly means being first at something. This goal is easy to understand for individuals and small teams. What, however, does one do with large organizations that also need to be innovative?

Like most industrial nations, the United States provides for R&D through a “three-legged stool.” The best known leg is academic research institutions. Although founded for the purpose of learning, these organizations represent the oldest, most evolved research structures available and provide the greatest results in terms of fundamental science. The other two legs—commercial industry and government research organizations—play key roles in turning the seeds of science into producible, deployable fruits. Typically large laboratories and development centers, they are capable of conducting activities on a wide scale—from short-term studies by individual researchers to massive, highly collaborative national-level efforts. Such organizations include Bell Labs, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

Over the past decade, these organizations have experienced considerable decline; indeed, many people now question their relevance. Some see these organizations as overgrown bureaucracies more interested in the preservation of budgets and empires than in the conduct of new research or the delivery of new technologies.¹ Others argue that because the technology base has changed, these large organizations have no role because we don’t need new rockets, hypersonic vehicles, nuclear weapons, and so forth. Still others point out that the commercial-electronics and computer-software industries remain our only meaningful source of innovation. One must also consider the assertion that so much technology is up for grabs that organizations no longer need to invest in R&D themselves—they can just pick from the tree of knowledge (from others’ research) for free. Thus, AT&T divested itself from most of Bell Labs, Xerox got rid of PARC, and most Fortune 500 companies have downsized their central R&D efforts.² Are these research organizations truly dinosaurs of another technology and business era? Although some of these arguments may have merit, the fact remains that the world is becoming more technologically sophisticated, not less. Nations (or companies) that ignore the need to stay in the forefront of R&D do so at their own peril.

If there is a grain of truth to these complaints about large R&D organizations, what can the Air Force do? To some degree, the answer lies in understanding the nature of the “new” economy and the qualitative change in business philosophy from monolithic entities to supply chains. For most of the twentieth century, an automotive manufacturer, for example, made nearly all of the components for its automobiles. Different divisions made engines, exhaust systems, bodies, interiors, and so forth. Although a few external businesses such as Bendix and Delco supplied brakes, starters, and batteries, the monolithic entity often purchased and absorbed these companies. Economies of scale dictated that the manufacturer control as much of the process as possible in order to regulate volume, quality, efficiency, and rhythm. This trend changed in the last part of the twentieth century as manufacturing techniques improved and the information age began. Companies can now outsource significant pieces of their business yet specify quality and track inventories well enough to realize a different economy of scale that uses the entire external economy, minimum capital investment, and maximum agility. In many cases, these supply chains are managed several layers deep. In other words, an automaker now outsources most parts, often dictating the sources of their suppliers’ raw material and tracking their quality and inventories as well. How is this new economy relevant to R&D? Essentially, the R&D community uses supply chains too.

One might argue, however, that R&D has always been managed by supply chain. From the beginning of scientific discovery, the work of one researcher led to insight and publication by another, and so on; thus, ideas grew as they circulated, and researchers used the worldwide knowledge base available through publication. Today, many organizations have tried to exploit the new economy more explicitly by increasingly outsourcing R&D, either by hiring others to do it for them or by not doing it at all and thereby counting on the technology base to provide all their needs without charge. Both of these approaches suffer from pitfalls. Outsourcing R&D may lead to research results, but organizations that have no role in their discovery often find these results difficult to exploit. Those who decide not to engage in R&D find themselves at the mercy of the marketplace and in terrible danger of rendering their work late, obsolete, or—even worse—irrelevant.

New Approach to Research and
Development: FIRST

A more sensible approach entails examining what makes the new economy tick—agility. Supply-chain systems allow small entrepreneurial teams to exploit the work of other small teams. Sometimes those teams are located outside the parent organization; sometimes they are within. Small teams can change. They can drop one path and pursue another, change their entire business, or disband, thus allowing their members to form again into new teams. But large, monolithic organizations have a difficult time with agility, a situation which produces the great R&D quandary of the twenty-first century: we often need large R&D efforts, yet we want these organizations to be entrepreneurial and take advantage of changes in the economic system. How do we do it? By getting there first and by getting there with a way of thinking about large organizations and technical innovation that involves flexibility, innovation, resources, support, and tempo (FIRST):

We now address how one can apply the FIRST principle to a large research organization such as the AFRL. Although the remainder of the article examines the AFRL in particular and the Air Force and Department of Defense (DOD) R&D systems more generally, the issues of adapting to the new economy are by no means unique to the Air Force. That said, it is critical that our service maintain technological superiority over any potential adversary. As part of the DOD transformation effort, the Air Force is undergoing considerable introspection to examine its role and ways of doing business. Against this backdrop, the service has a healthy perspective on prospective changes and improvements.

With over 5,000 people, installations throughout the United States, and 10 substantial research directorates covering a wide variety of disciplines (sensors, propulsion, information systems, air vehicles, human factors, munitions, materials, directed energy, space, and basic research), the AFRL is a good example of the large government establishments alluded to earlier. Although the AFRL itself is technically less than 10 years old, its components have rich histories over the past 30–60 years. During that time, these organizations have made numerous critical contributions to the national military-research effort, including key roles in integrated-circuit development, jet propulsion, adaptive optics, directed energy, phased-array radar, error detection/correction coding—far too many to list here. In most cases, the AFRL plays the role of integrator of ideas and source of funding, letting external laboratories conduct the actual research. Today, most such efforts come together in procedures developed well in advance through extensive strategic planning. Although the AFRL’s results are unquestionably impressive, FIRST principles involve asking how one can make the system better and more competitive with other research establishments.

To be flexible is to make the most of opportunities, wherever and whenever they arise. Simply changing organization charts, mission statements, and the like does not necessarily reflect flexibility. Rather, flexible organizations tend to focus themselves more on overall contribution than on parochial roles and ways of obtaining results. Perhaps one of the best stories of organizational flexibility is the 3M Corporation’s development of the Post-it Note. The company encouraged extramural R&D from its staff and allowed itself to capitalize upon the results. The Post-it emerged as an innovation from an adhesives-group effort that fell outside normal group objectives, but senior management decided to attempt pilot production rather than quash the effort, resulting in over $200 million in sales within the first couple of years.³

The opposite of flexibility is not a fixed organizational structure but boundaries that limit the cross-fertilization of ideas. Organizations can take a very rigid view of their mission and role, often as the result of negotiations with competitors or the desire to reduce duplication of effort. Thus, for example, the electronics laboratory agrees to have nothing to do with propulsion, and the Air Force agrees to have no involvement in ground vehicles. The problem is that research is shaped by the creativity of the workforce and is seldom planned. Bell was a speech therapist—not an engineer—but his background proved to be exactly what he needed to develop the telephone. The Wright brothers were bicycle makers—not aeronautical engineers—but their background in machining proved critical, matching well with their extensive self-study of aerodynamics. Similarly, the modern study of neural networks in artificial intelligence is the result of psychologists dabbling in computer science.⁴ One might argue that the most fruitful science doesn’t happen within disciplines as much as it does along the permeable boundaries between them. Establishing roles eliminates these productive boundaries. At first, however, this concept seems counterintuitive. On the surface, it seems sensible that forcing researchers to focus on the tasks clearly delineated in their organization’s mission would lead to better results. But human creativity doesn’t work that way. Cross-fertilization is really the key to success, and goals have to be interpreted a little more loosely in research because it is a business full of surprises.

Judged against this view of flexibility, the government gets mixed reviews. On the one hand, most government organizations encourage collaboration among their own components and with outside entities. Programs like Dual Use Science and Technology, for example, team multiple government labs with industry in collaborative efforts. The Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives program provides government funds to universities for building winning proposals from multiple research departments to promote interdisciplinary efforts. Interdisciplinary, interorganizational work is very good but still falls short of the kind of flexibility shown by 3M in its Post-it story. What happens when someone in the electronics lab comes up with a design for a new engine? According to the current government procedure, the electronics lab can work with the propulsion lab, but the latter agrees to do only the propulsion part and the former to do only the electronics part. So what happens to the new-engine idea? Normally it dies because it did not originate in the propulsion lab, which, therefore, isn’t particularly interested. To keep the idea alive, the electronics lab should allow its own employees to pursue the concept at least far enough to develop sufficient interest externally. If the idea is really good, the electronics lab will spend some of its own resources and encourage the inventor to build a team of “disciples,” at least until they can expand upon, prove, and even market the idea.

Unfortunately, like most large organizations, the government does the opposite. Take, for example, the Defense Reliance program, created in the early 1990s as the result of pressures from Congress and the Pentagon to eliminate wasteful duplication in research. Each service laboratory agreed to pick nonoverlapping specialties and to avoid research in areas that invade each other’s turf. Thus, the Air Force does fixed-wing aerodynamics, and the Army does rotary-wing. Furthermore, the Army does unmanned ground vehicles, the Air Force does unmanned (fixed-wing) air vehicles, and the Navy does unmanned undersea vehicles (despite the fact that these three types of vehicles share many common research issues and often need to play together in creative architectures).

People also tend to evaluate flexibility by looking at the organization chart, the idea being that an organization is flexible if it can change its management structure from time to time. Indeed, organizational change can imply adaptation to pursue opportunity. Often, however, it reflects such internal issues as the advancement of careers and the protection of budgets. Frequently, ordinary workers notice no significant change in their environment as a result of major organizational restructuring.

The kind of flexibility described here does not really pose a threat to organizational cohesion and identity. Organizations normally maintain their character by means of mission statements, image, and hiring decisions. People also have a natural tendency to organize themselves around themes and to seek out organizations with the appropriate “labels.” The psychology departments at Stanford and the University of California–San Diego remained psychology departments in spite of the fact that their professors and students dabbled in computer science and neural networks. The point is that flexibility remains possible within large organizations that choose to seize opportunities.

Discretionary funds must be made available for new initiatives and innovation, for innovation and venture capital are very closely related. Moreover, research staffs should be able to move on to something new upon completion of a project, successful or not. Funds prededicated through strategic plans do little to help the kind of project-to-project mobility so critical to innovation. Similarly, external direction from Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), or the Air Staff may be important in some cases for particular programs, but in general, such direction can easily hinder innovation. The Air Force’s doctrinal tenet of centralized control and decentralized execution serves as a sound guiding principle in R&D situations as well. Leadership can establish a standardized process for starting new efforts and killing old ones (the centralized-control aspect) while scientists and engineers propose, develop, and pursue new technology opportunities (decentralized execution). The ability to terminate unproductive programs and mitigate overhead costs is of key importance because such innovation requires discretionary funding. One of the most effective ways of ending programs occurs through an initiative process.

For many years the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the service’s basic research-management organization, cultivated an active initiative program. Each fall, senior leadership voted to terminate a percentage of ongoing programs that had concluded successfully, failed to produce the desired results, gone on too long, or become insignificant players. Money from terminated programs went into an initiative account. In order to counter the temptation of not terminating enough programs, the initiative account was balanced by “taxing” ongoing programs. Thus, the leadership could either terminate something or pay a high tax. Every spring a competition was held to select initiatives from creative ideas proposed by staff members. Unfortunately, this system no longer exists, replaced in the early 1990s by a multiyear, top-down strategic plan with the glorious title “New World Vistas.”

Innovation capital is essential not only because it provides funding for new ideas, but also because it promotes the kind of internal personnel mobility and organizational flexibility so critical to agility. Without flexible funding, R&D staffs are loathe to terminate existing programs because they know that new funding will be hard to come by. Insufficient funding, in turn, will have a detrimental effect on their job environment, satisfaction, and success. Long-term strategic planning is a poor substitute for initiative capital because it replaces short-term creativity with a road map that often takes too long to implement.

Several kinds of resources or capital are key ingredients to successful R&D: money (certainly the most visible and tracked item), people (discussed in detail under “Support,” below), and facilities. Finally, location is often an overlooked asset (or liability) that has much to do with the productivity of a laboratory; thus, laboratories located in Boston or Palo Alto may enjoy much higher success than those in the middle of Iowa.

Since the extensiveness of the facilities and the number and quality of the people are closely tied to money, funding deserves the kind of attention that one might expect. Although the bottom line remains the most visible issue in funding, other issues may be just as important. For example, can funds be applied easily in a timely manner? Building a system around strategic planning such as the government’s Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) may require long delays and intensive manpower just to advocate, track, and disburse money, therefore negating many of the potential benefits of having funds in the first place. Thus, funding methods must match the organization’s view of how it will address flexibility, innovation, and project tempo.

In many cases, however, adequate funds simply are not provided, or they lack the necessary stability to fully enable the R&D enterprise. Although Air Force labs are well funded by outside-observer standards, the long-term trend generally has not been promising, and one might also argue that the budget is not very stable. Air Force S&T funding dropped precipitously after the late 1980s to less than that for both the Army and Navy in 1993 and 1998, respectively (figs. 1 and 2).⁵

Figure 1. Air Force and DOD S&T funding.

Figure 1. Air Force and DOD S&T funding. (Data from FY 2004 Defense Budget [Washington, DC: Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), February 2003].)

Figure 2. S&T funding as a percent of service total obligation authority.

Figure 2. S&T funding as a percent of service total obligation authority. (Data from FY 2004 Defense Budget [Washington, DC: Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), February 2003].)

The question certainly arises as to why these reductions have been made. Is Congress or the OSD forcing these changes? One can trace the relative adjustments made to the Air Force’s S&T budgets for fiscal years 2000 (FY00), FY01, and FY02 during the PPBS process from 1997 through 2002 (fig. 3). Numerous adjustments were made to the S&T budget throughout the Future Years Defense Plan; however, in most cases the adjustments decreased the S&T budget, pointing both to a potential lack of sponsorship within the Air Force and a penchant for using S&T as a funding source for other Air Force priorities. Interestingly, the Air Force was responsible for 78 percent of the decreases in S&T funding while the OSD accounted for 98 percent of the increases over this time period. Although falling far short of restoring the cuts, the OSD has generally countermanded the Air Force’s S&T cuts. The Air Force might have many reasons for using the S&T budget as a bill payer, but such cuts do not provide the stability that promotes the kind of innovative organization mentioned above.

Figure 3. FY00, FY01, and FY02 Air Force S&T budget decisions through the FY97–02 PPBS cycle.

Figure 3. FY00, FY01, and FY02 Air Force S&T budget decisions through the FY97–02 PPBS cycle. (Adapted from briefing, Roy Phillips, to James Engle (SAF/AQR), subject: Air Force S&T Funding Analysis/Discussion, June 18, 2002.)

In addition to reducing funding, Congress has become increasingly involved in the Air Force’s S&T program decisions. According to the AFRL, the magnitude of this oversight has grown from zero in FY95 to approximately 14 percent of the AFRL’s budget in FY02 (fig. 4). Congressionally directed research may yield useful innovations for the Air Force, but it greatly reduces the discretionary funding so critical to innovation.

Figure 4. Evolution of congressionally directed research

Figure 4. Evolution of congressionally directed research

Normally, most organizations have basic infrastructure requirements that create bills which must be paid, regardless of the audacity and vision of their leaders. Likewise, they have ongoing commitments that establish must-pay bills. Unstable and declining budgets present serious difficulties for an R&D organization because they tend to remove critical discretionary funds first. Thus, small start-up teams are far more likely to lose funding, even though such teams often represent the greatest opportunities for innovation. Does this mean that a research organization cannot downsize and still remain productive? Not at all. What matters is that such an organization preserve enough stability to know how to size itself as time progresses so it can maintain a stable discretionary budget.

One must support the S&E workforce in order to have agility. Workers need an environment in which they can experiment, form and dissolve teams as needed, and associate with peers who push them toward excellence. Finally, they need to feel content enough about their work that they choose to come and stay.

Unfortunately, the military finds itself at a considerable disadvantage in this arena, having already experienced a significant dismantling of its S&E workforce. For example, although the Air Force’s program offices have retained more or less the same organizational structure for the past three decades, the S&E portion of military officers diminished from 56 percent in 1974 to 14 percent in 2001.⁶ (Specialization is categorized in terms of the highest degree held in a technical specialty.) Furthermore, the story may be even worse than these dire numbers suggest. Many S&E personnel report that their work often has little or no technical content, that most of this work is surrendered to contractors, and that they are not really used even though they are needed.⁷

The Air Force must make a substantial effort to rebuild this workforce; indeed, certain key reforms have already begun. Of all the areas discussed thus far, the service is likely treating support of the S&E workforce most seriously. For the past three years, it has held two senior-level S&E summits, published an S&E concept of operations, expanded graduate-education programs, made certain changes in hiring and assignment policy, and enacted special-pay incentives (although some of these pay incentives have now been cancelled). All of these modifications appear to have enjoyed some success, but they have not completely turned the corner in terms of improving the quality and quantity of the S&E workforce. Evidently, these changes do not directly address the top issue raised in survey groups—the desire for more meaningful and challenging work. Such qualitative changes in working conditions are vital not only to enhancing job satisfaction, but also to running an agile R&D program. Thus, the improvement of technical content is a win-win proposition.

Perhaps of most critical importance, the Air Force must completely settle the issue of how it should best use its S&E workforce. Today, one encounters many competing visions of the role of government in R&D, most of which are incompatible. For example, hiring engineers in order to build a strong internal R&D capability is fruitless if they are used merely as contract monitors. The Air Force must take steps to end the instability in roles-and-management practices with which its S&E workforce has coped over the years. Stability depends in large part upon making other reforms that will exploit this workforce to the fullest.

In short, much is being done to support the S&E worker in the Air Force and, thus, within the AFRL. However, because all of the FIRST factors interlock, without the right organization, philosophy, budget, vision, and so forth, the workforce may flounder. Such a prospect underscores the urgency of dealing with the other topics at hand.

One could argue that in America we do things on “too” time scales: too short and too long. Too short because we don’t have the patience to run investments past an immediately foreseeable payoff; thus, we miss contributions of great value. Too long because we actually believe that our detailed strategic plans will not be overrun by events. Ideally, we would replace them with “to” time scales: toward a meaningful, long-term vision and toward faster results on a project scale. In other words, we could replace detailed strategic plans with visions such as “we expect to have an entire unmanned strike force” or, as President Kennedy proposed in 1961, “to land a man on the moon before the decade is out.” Such visions are quite different from the detailed, committee-built road maps (strategic plans) that list endless series of projects, each funded according to the political winners or losers of a given year. On the other end of the scale, we need to ensure that we pursue ongoing projects with a sense of urgency seldom seen in government. Doing so may entail initiating fewer projects, finishing them, and then turning resources toward other promising activities.

The benefit of a new technology to the military depends upon the advantage it provides multiplied by the time the system operates before a countersystem negates it, or multiplied by the total amount of time a cost-saving technology is deployed. In either case, the time to develop and field that technology directly affects its overall value. The often unrecognized cost of delays in developing technologies and systems can become dramatically larger than expected. Take, for example, a new material or change that improves the reliability and overhaul time of jet engines on military aircraft. The cost of delay associated with reengining the KC-135 fleet came to $231 million a year (fig. 5). When applied across all engines, such costs could easily reach into billions of dollars a year. The cost of delay remains the same, regardless of whether the delay occurs during technology development or production. The bottom line is that the government should do all it can to limit costly delays by making dynamic changes in funds and offering proper incentives to complete projects with urgency.

Figure 5. Cost of delay for the KC-135 reengining program.

Figure 5. Cost of delay for the KC-135 reengining program. (Adapted from Donald G. Reinertsen et al., “Cost of Delay Analysis: Calculating Project Decision Rules,” Journal of Cost Analysis and Management, Winter 2002, 14–15, http://www.sceaonline.net/Publications/JOURNAL%202002.pdf.)

Newt Gingrich often refers to government time, indicating that, for example, people have come to accept long lines at the department of motor vehicles that they would find absolutely unacceptable at any commercial establishment. We have grown accustomed to long delays in R&D demonstration programs for defense, but commercial venture capitalists often look for similar results and returns in 18 months or less. By getting answers quickly, they can determine whether a project has commercial potential and limit the amount of money invested to make that determination. A program that produces an answer in 18 months is much more valuable than one that yields the same answer in five years. The longer project would have to generate more than three times the money to realize the same rate of return as the shorter one. This is not to say that the military should undertake only short-term efforts. To do so would eliminate grand (and essential) programs, such as Minuteman and the GPS, that qualitatively change the way we fight. Rather, we need to pursue all programs with a sense of urgency that either delivers quickly or fails, freeing up funding for other efforts. Unfortunately, the current military acquisition system tends to take five years to field even the simplest of systems (i.e., those that should take only a few months), and substantial projects take decades. Most of that time is spent in the advocacy and strategic-planning phases, both of which could easily be skipped or greatly abbreviated.

Don Reinertsen, one of the nation’s leading product-development consultants, has definite ideas about tempo. When a participant at the Program Executive Officer/System Commander (PEO/SYSCOM) Conference of 1999 stated, “You cannot speed innovation,” Reinertsen responded by asking, “What would you do if you wanted to slow innovation down? You would inadequately fund it, assign inadequate staff, and load that staff with lots of additional, unrelated duties. Given your resourcing and staffing processes, what makes you think that we have gotten those aspects right and cannot speed up your innovation?”⁸

Agile organizations do not “seize the day” by asking their folks to purchase test equipment by filling out a Form 9 purchase request and then stop work repeatedly to chase the paperwork through the procurement bureaucracy. Rather, they risk the cost of the equipment, order it with overnight shipping, and get the team back to work. And such organizations don’t require that all funding requests be submitted two years in advance, as does a slow, bureaucratic process like PPBS so it can align all of the associated stakeholders before work can begin. Because time is indeed money, an effective R&D organization cannot afford to waste time. Agile organizations make the most of their time because to waste time is to squander opportunities. Time is always important in military-development efforts. A timely answer regarding the readiness of a particular technology or project can lead to its inclusion or exclusion in a larger system-development effort and thus eliminate parallel design tracks. The reduction in uncertainty can dramatically reduce considerations of potential designs.

Conclusion

The fact that FIRST principles provide agility for an R&D organization becomes particularly important in the new economic environment. Because these principles stress opportunity, they urge aggressiveness with respect to time. For the government, following these principles would require significant change in its current practices. Thus far, government efforts at R&D “reform” have proceeded through contract law, strategic planning, and so forth, in such a way as to minimize financial and programmatic risk by focusing on careful management of money and detailed plans. No clear evidence exists that such reforms have been effective—at least not to the extent advertised. Budgets change too often, and plans are seldom followed. FIRST principles turn the tables—accepting risk in order to seize opportunity and stressing quick action with considerably less regard for fiscal accountability. This proclivity does not imply that FIRST organizations take risks with abandon; rather, they fence them off by doing small things quickly in order to jettison “dry wells” before they sap the organization. These organizations then move on quickly to new opportunities. Opportunity-driven organizations cannot afford to waste time, and they are willing to accept some losses in order to move quickly.

The R&D mobilization that took place during and shortly after World War II offers a good illustration of the benefits of FIRST principles. Overnight, major laboratories, educational centers, test ranges, and organizations were created to build systems of historic significance: the atomic bomb, computer, radar, and many other key innovations. Much of this work was conducted with scanty contracting—sometimes only a handshake. Organizations repeatedly seized opportunities not sanctioned by their official charter (flexibility). They regularly spent unprogrammed money on risky ventures (innovation). Budgets allowed for new opportunities (resources). A massive R&D workforce emerged (support). And everything was conducted very quickly but with patience to see the truly important programs through to the end (tempo). Indeed, despite failed efforts, bad specifications, and occasional waste or fraud, time was always of the essence, and the national effort generally yielded stunning results.

In the 1950s, similarly audacious projects brought about ICBMs, nuclear submarines, the hydrogen bomb, early precision-guided munitions, and our first space systems. Interestingly, these far-reaching projects were completed on a budget comparable to the one for defense spending today. Not only have our current accountability and careful planning failed to render us immune to unsuccessful efforts, bad specs, and fraud, but we also seem to have paid a price. Evidently, our methodical pace does not provide us a technological edge, and we find ourselves leaning increasingly on commercially developed technology. Have our reforms really been worth the cost in terms of opportunity?

Today the Air Force technological establishment continues to deliver results in the face of persistent funding pressures and challenges in hiring and keeping talent. However, one wonders what the service could do if it were allowed to pursue opportunities without restriction. Its challenges are typical of those that face large R&D organizations, but the consequences are far more serious in military organizations. On the one hand, if a company loses its technological edge and misses an opportunity, a competitor—perhaps a smaller company with a newer, more agile, and unfettered R&D system—will exploit the loss, but life goes on for the both of them. The Air Force, on the other hand, absolutely cannot afford to lose its opportunities to the “competition” because the consequences can literally mean the difference between life and death.

1. Although the term some is rather nebulous, the authors refer to remarks one commonly hears from senior leadership and operational forces within the Air Force. No doubt one would find similar criticisms in commercial industry as well. For example, the staff in Xerox’s PARC subsidiary frequently lamented the lack of appreciation from the “copierheads” who ran the parent company.

2. Industrial Research Institute, IRI’s R&D Trends Forecast for 2003, November 2002, 3, http://www.iriinc.org/ webiri/publications/trends2003.pdf.

3. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies, videocassette (Schaumburg, IL: Video Publishing House, John Nathan and Sam Tyler Productions, Harper & Row/Warner Books, 1985), based upon the book of the same title by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr. (New York: Harper & Row, 1982).

4. See David E. Rumelhart, James L. McClelland, and the PDP Research Group, Parallel Distributed Processing, vol. 1, Foundations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986).

5. The Air Force’s S&T funding experienced an increase in FY03 and FY04, a phenomenon that merits a closer look. Although this appears to reverse a downward trend, careful examination reveals a possible change in accounting procedure for funding the service’s classified programs. A recently added program element accounts for $369 million or 21 percent of the 27 percent increase in FY04. Although these funds will likely be used for S&T, the important point is that the accounting procedure for classified S&T has changed—not the funding itself—which does not translate into a significant increase in traditional S&T funding.

6. Lt Col Steven C. Suddarth, “Solving the Great Air Force Systems Irony,” Air and Space Power Journal 16, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 11.

7. See Lt Col David Arreola and Nancy A. Soper, Air Force Scientist and Engineer Career Field Focus Group Findings, prepared for the Air Force Science and Engineer Career Field Policy Council, April 2001, http://www.afpc. randolph.af.mil/cp/secp/Documents/Synopsis%20of%20Focus%20Group%20Results.doc.

8. Donald G. Reinertsen, Reinertsen and Associates, PEO/SYSCOM Conference, Cycle-Time-Reduction Session, Defense Systems Management College, Fort Belvoir, VA, 1999.

Col Steven C. Suddarth (USAFA; MSEE, PhD, University of Washington) is the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) commander’s representative to Air University. He previously served as chief of the Air Force Materiel Command commander’s action group at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; deputy chief, Air and Space Components Division, Sensors Directorate, AFRL, Wright-Patterson AFB; program integrator for special programs, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Washington, DC; program manager, Neural Networks and Advanced Computing, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Arlington, Virginia; exchange engineer, French National Air and Space Labs, Paris, France; and project officer, Ground Systems, Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, Los Angeles. Colonel Suddarth is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air War College, as well as Escola de Comando e Estado-Maior da Aeronáutica (ECEMAR) (Brazilian Air Force Command and General Staff School).

Lt Col Ross T. McNutt (USAFA; MS, MS, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is an instructor of joint warfare at Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He previously served as director of the Air Force Cycle Time Reduction Program, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition (SAF/AQ), Washington, DC; Air Force strategic business planner, SAF/AQ; research fellow/assistant, Lean Air and Space Initiative, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Global Positioning Satellite engineer, 2d Space Operations Squadron, Schriever AFB, Colorado; and research physicist, Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts. The author of a number of publications, Colonel McNutt is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College.

Maj William T. Cooley (BS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; MS, University of New Mexico; MMOAS, Air Command and Staff College; PhD, Air Force Institute of Technology) is program element monitor of military satellite communications programs, Headquarters US Air Force, Washington, DC. He previously served as staff officer at the Warrior Preparation Center, Einsiedlerhof Air Station, Germany; chief of the Semiconductor Laser Branch, Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico; and research engineer at Wright Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. A graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College, Major Cooley has published articles in several journals.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.