Augustine’s Laws

Norman R. Augustine – 6^th Edition. 1997

ISBN 1-56347-240-6

Read: 2002 March 22 – April 10.

Reviewed: 2002 April 11.

Aerospace giant Norm Augustine has collected quotes and observations from his involvement in leadership of the aerospace business over a few decades into 52 essays. These were published first for AIAA then made into a book.

Jan Tarsala checked this book out of the JPL library just before going on vacation, brought it to me at lunch with the instruction, “just open anywhere” and then left. As soon as he was back (April 8) he called to say that the library wanted it back. Of course, I have not had a chance to read all of a 300+ page book. An essay a day for 52 days, or one or two a day for about a month would be appropriate. I did read the first eight chapters and was finding them a bit tedious, much like dad’s sermons or the way that he talked in general, a stream-of-consciousness set of thoughts from one quotation to another, sometimes on similar subjects. Beginning with Chapter 9, late last night, I went through this book the right way, reading the italicized adventures of the Daedalus Model Airplane Co., a paragraph at the beginning of each chapter, studying the graph in the chapter, maybe, and flipping over to Augustine’s Law for that chapter.

These are proverbs like: XXXIX “Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of the year – in either direction” or XLII “Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing” (this one requires studying the graph) or XLVI “A billion saved is a billion earned” or XLVII “Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters” or XXIX “Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade” or XXXVI “The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar contract is about on millimeter per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, it would probably be a good idea” or XLV “One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected” or VII “Decreased business base increases overhead. So does increased business base” or XII “It costs a lot to build bad products” or XXVI “If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on top of each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance” or XXVII “Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank” or XXXIV “The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed randomly.”

My favorites are XL “Most projects start out slowly – and then sort of taper off” and my very favorite XXXI “The optimum committee has no members.”

He also backs up with data an assertion XXIII “Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is currently estimated.”

He shows the price of aircraft, in real year dollars, increasing about an order of magnitude every 20 years, projecting that in a few more decades the entire Gross National Product will not be adequate for one. And that 100% of its weight will be electronics.

I did read the whole chapter on software. The amount of software on the country doubles every 14 months. It’s like entropy; the only way to get the worms back into the can is to use a bigger can.

Augustine has an ear, and timing, that is great with those turns of phrase (like “Ready Aim Aim” or “Managers, who never made a decision since the three lucky guesses in a row that got them promoted in the first place). The book is full of them, several laughs per page, if you can stand the tedium. I bet it’s fun to see him deliver one of these lectures. We should invite him to JPL.

Oh, and the pictures are priceless too. An airplane caught in a tree, another with landing gear on top and bottom … just in case. A picture that must be a Presidential Inauguration with the caption, “The headquarters review team arrived.” Don’t miss any pictures.

I’m nearly tempted to put this on my amazon.com wish list, not because I want to read it but because it’s one of those invaluable reference books. So much of the disaster and misdirected energy described rings very true to life in the government-industry sector where I work. Indeed, the book is dedicated “To those many individuals in the private sector and especially those in government who through sheer ability and dedication have achieved so very much, too often in spite of aspects of the system intended to support them.”

Well, maybe I will. I’ll certainly try to share it with Martin in the half hour before I have to take it back to Jan.