Augustine's Laws

This irreverent collection of 52 "Peter Principles" of "What NOT to do" if one wants to become a successful problem-solving manager, is management thinking of a very high order. There is just nothing else like it in the management literature. It is prescriptive thinking and advice that can be, and indeed should be applied to any field of problem-solving. It is nothing if not a reference manual on why "common sense" approaches should not be relied upon exclusively. Augustine, without trying, and without saying so explicitly, demonstrates how and where "common sense" often breaks down. That is not to suggest that Norm Augustine was not often an advocate of "common sense' approaches himself, far from it: he just always warned against complete reliance on common sense. As one of only a handful of Analysts who had the privilege of working with Norm well before he became famous, and went on to become the CEO of Martin-Marietta, among his many other accomplishments, Augustine's Laws have evolved from Norm's own personal management style and timely admonitions, from the time of one of his first management jobs as Manager of the "Systems Analysis Directorate" of the Douglas Missile and Systems Division (which was at the time, soon-to-become "The McDonald-Douglas Systems Analysis Directorate."). Even then, Norm was cautious about over-reliance on "common sense" especially in complex-problem solving situations. He always wanted to "look beyond and behind" the common sense approaches. At the time that I worked for Norm, he was a young honors math graduate from Princeton U. who hit the ground running as one of "Mac Narmara's whiz kids" ready to help solve the many problems of the "Cold War." He was thrown into a den of other elite and very talented Mathematicians and political scientists, to head up, and solve, among other interesting projects: that of helping to develop the MIRV missile system; designing launch vehicles to take payloads to the moon; and designing adequate missile defense systems (like the Nike-Zeus system) to protect the U.S. homeland. I may be the only person in the world who still has one of his beautifully written unclassified mathematical analyses of how MIRVs actually solved the American "throw-weight' disadvantage problem with the then Soviet Union. Frank Eastman, Joe Rebholtz, Richard Johnson, Robert Young, James Brinsley, and Wayne Martin, all of whom are Phds now and who also went on to their own separate stellar careers, can testify to Norm's brilliance and skill at applying these 52 laws doing those heady days. This is an invaluable compendium of pragmatic wisdom that should be tucked away in a safe place not just in the library, but also in the brain, always available for ready use. 50 stars

Accurate, Funny, and informative. This book captures the real (and not so real) world of government and other large projects spot on. Having been on both sides (NASA and contractor), there be truth in this wit. Enjoy. To be appreciated, best read while sitting on a $600 toilet seat.

I would not have ever expected to find myself laughing out loud, nor even smiling often while reading a book that discusses government projects and corporations who contract them. Norman Augustine provides a clear and critical insight into the corporate-government affairs world with just enough graphs and charts to make it comprehensible yet not overbearing. I found it as light reading - which is a virtue on it's own when reading about such complex a subject.

Norm Augustine has captured the government defense aerospace industry "sprawling on a pin" for dissection. In one particularly humorous bit he points out that just when the aerospace industry's trend to more and more expensive combat aircraft looked like it might be stalled since adding weight is anathema to aircraft -- along came something expensive and weightless to fill the gap -- software! This is one terrific book! Just the figure showing there is no correlation between what executives are paid and the performance of their companies is worth the price of admission.

Norman Augustine wrote "Augustine's Laws" in his position as president and Chief Operating Officer of Martin Marietta Corporation (since merged into Lockheed Martin.) This book should be required reading for anyone accepting a job anywhere in the aerospace industry. Augustine follows the declining fortunes of the fictional Daedalus Model Airplane Company as key projects meet every obstacle and disaster business can devise. He sums up his findings in fifty-two witty laws, such as number 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." He comments on the thickness of proposals (one millimeter per $ million contract value), the number of briefings required to keep a multi-year program funded (approximately one year's worth of work per year), and the odds of getting anything approved (a "yes" is a succession of "non-no's.") This book is the aerospace industry in a nutshell. It's funny, tragic, and absolutely dead-on. Read it if you're a taxpayer, a jobholder, or a person who likes a great read.