The B-52 and Jet Propulsion: A Case Study in Organizational
Innovation is a coherent and nonpolemical discussion of the
revolution in military affairs, a hot topic in the national
security arena. Mark Mandeles examines an interesting topic, how
can the military better understand, manage, and evaluate
technological development programs. We see Murphy's Law (anything
that can go wrong, will go wrong) in operation. No matter how
carefully the military designs, plans, and programs the process of
technological development, inevitably, equipment, organizations,
and people will challenge the desired expectations. Mandeles argues
convincingly that recognizing the inevitability of error may be the
single most important factor in the design of effective
organizations and procedures to foster and enhance innovative
technology and concepts. The book focuses on the introduction of
jet propulsion into the B-52. This case study illustrates the
reality that surprises and failures are endemic to development
programs where information and knowledge are indeterminate,
ambiguous, and imperfect. Mandeles' choice of the B-52 to
illustrate this process is both intriguing and apt. The military
had no coherent search process inevitably leading to the choice of
a particular technology; nor was decision making concerning the
B-52 development program coherent or orderly. Different mixtures of
participants, problems, and solutions came together at various
times to make decisions about funding or to review the status of
performance projections and requirements. Three aspects of the
B-52's history are striking because they challenge conventional
wisdom about rationally managed innovation. First, Air Force
personnel working on the B-52 program did not obtain the aircraft
they assumed they would get when the program began. Second, the
development process did not conform to idealized features of a
rational program. While a rationally organized program has clear
goals, adequate information, and well-organized and attentive
leadership, the B-52 development process exhibited substantial
disagreement over, and revision of, requirements or goals, and
ambiguous, imperfect, and changing information. Third, the "messy"
development process, as described in the book, forestalled
premature closure on a particular design and spurred learning and
the continuous introduction of new knowledge into the design as the
process went along. Military innovations involve questions about
politics, cooperation and coordination, and social benefits, and
like other development efforts, there appears to be no error-free
method to predict at the outset the end results of any given
program. This study offers a major lesson to today's planners:
improving the capacity of a number of organizations with
overlapping jurisdictions to interact enhances prospects to
innovate new weapons and operational concepts. We can mitigate
bureaucratic pathologies by fostering interaction among government
and private organizations. The B-52 and Jet Propulsion integrates a
detailed historical case study with a fine understanding of the
literature on organization and innovation. It is a story of
decision making under conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity, and
disagreement. In the pages that follow those who plan, manage, and
criticize technological development programs will find new insights
about the process of learning how to make new things.
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