• Print
  • September 17th, 2008
  • 7 Comments »
  • Innovation

How to learn from a nuclear missle

I love stories of management and creative thinking that come from unexpected places. I have short article about the development of the Polaris nuclear missile, over on my Harvard Business. Check it out.

I hope you don’t mind these cross-blog links I’ve been posting. Let me know if you do.


Leave a Comment / What do you think?

Your email is never published nor shared (comments policy).

7 Responses

  • David C-L - September 17, 2008 at 9:08 am #
  • I understand why you want to make cross-blog posts and I think it’s your prerogative to do so.

    However, as a reader of both blogs, I’d love it if you could label the cross-blog posts in some way that makes it easy for me to skip over them. For example, maybe you could prepend “Harvard Business:” to the beginning of the title of this type of post?


  • Scott - September 17, 2008 at 9:25 am #
  • David: Done! Great idea. Ok with just the abreviation (HB) at the beginning?


  • Chris R - September 17, 2008 at 9:35 am #
  • Tom and Mary Poppendieck have discussed the Polaris program as part of their book “Implementing Lean Software Development”. Interestingly they contend that the success of the project was down to the following of something very much like lean development. PERT was widely seen as the reason for its success, but was really just a facade to keep the sponsors (US govt) happy and the funding flowing. Check out Mary discuss this on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEMdjslEOI She discusses Polaris about 25 mins in.


  • Jay Zipursky - September 17, 2008 at 10:19 am #
  • If you’re going to cross-post every Harvard Business post here, then I’ll unsubscribe from HB! The HB: suggestion is also a good one.


  • Scott - September 17, 2008 at 10:37 am #
  • This is my first time running two blogs, so I’m not sure what the right policy is, and that’s why I’m asking.

    If you have a preference on what you’d like me to do, let me know. For now I’ll mark cross-posts.


  • Arjan Zuidhof - September 18, 2008 at 7:03 am #
  • With the (HB), and the way you have set it up now it’s fine to me. As long as you don’t post the full length article twice, but one article and one referal, this would be OK, IMHO.
    As an example: The other day I started reading a full length article that already appeared on the author’s personal blog last week. This last one did not even contain the author’s name, was posted a week after the other, all without any cross reference.
    Even wonder what Google thinks of a duplicate like that, won’t do the juice any good probably…


  • Jim S. - September 18, 2008 at 6:18 pm #
  • I was a nuc submarine officer on the USS Stonewall Jackson, one of the “41 for Freedom” that were built back in the 60’s. I served on it in the 90’s when it was ~30 years old and had conducted over 70 deterrent patrols.

    Even after being on that thing for a few years I still marveled at the complexity of it as a system. Some days it was just amazing that it all worked (and then, sometimes it didn’t and we’d get doused with high pressure hydraulic fluid, a shower of sparks, or maybe just an exploding toilet!).


Scott's Bestselling Books
  • Confessions of a
    Public Speaker
  • Provocative and funny secrets from a veteran speaker, you'll laugh as you learn.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
  • The Myths of Innovation
  • The classic bestseller on how amazing lessons from the past can help you innovate today.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
  • Making Things Happen
  • The classic and bestselling handbook for any project leader, packed with tactics and stories.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
Photos from Recent Events (view flickr stream)

You're reading Scott Berkun, All rights reserved unless noted. You can subscribe here Blog RSS Comments (RSS)