{"id":1957,"date":"2014-04-22T20:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T00:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/?p=1957"},"modified":"2014-04-22T18:35:18","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T22:35:18","slug":"skunk-works-a-place-for-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/2014\/04\/skunk-works-a-place-for-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Skunk Works: A Place for Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What happens when you try to create something new in your organization? You might be lucky enough to be able to go off in a corner and sprint through the design work without any disturbances. But more likely, you are encumbered by some pesky obstacles otherwise known as policies and procedures. You work tirelessly, are just inches from a reaching a Eureka! moment, only to have one of the following happen:<\/p>\n

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  1. You get thrown out of the conference room because you didn\u2019t sign up for the time slot<\/li>\n
  2. You get dragged into staff meeting<\/li>\n
  3. You need authorization from your boss to go further, there are no approval forms in the tray and the printer is out of ink<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And then a donut or facebook or something shiny catches your attention, and it\u2019s another day before you come back to your big idea.<\/p>\n

    The problem of everyday business impeding innovation is not new, and it affects all kinds of organizations. Lockheed Martin was faced with this same dilemma in 1943. As the story goes, the pressure was on to create a jetfighter in response to jet threat from Germany, and it had to be done quickly. In order to meet this challenge, a team of Lockheed\u2019s best engineers was formed and took up camp in a rented circus tent just outside of the main facility. The team met its goal with time to spare, designing and building the XP-80 jet fighter in just 143 days.<\/p>\n

    The conditions under which the engineers worked in order to achieve such success are known as Skunk Works\u00ae (find out the stinky meaning behind the term here<\/a>). A Skunk Works\u00ae division still exists at Lockheed Martin and the concept has been adopted by other companies such as IBM. Though the set-up differs (I\u2019m guess not all are in circus tents), the Skunk Works\u00ae concept is to free a set of workers from the hindrances of bureaucracy so that they can concentrate fully on a single project.<\/p>\n

    Though typically smaller in size, arts organizations often face the same hindrances to innovation as the Lockheed Martins of the world. The same standard operating procedures we put in place improve our organizations by ensuring accuracy might be holding us back from contributing game-changing elements to our field.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, a lack of resources also puts innovation lower on our list of priorities. However, I think that we often make the mistake of thinking that R&D cannot be inculcated as a regular practice because it is too expensive or time consuming. Using the innovation process to come up with small and cheap experiments will actually help you to identify and fix any issues before a program or product goes to market \u2013 at which point it will be more costly to correct.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s not uncommon to find arts organizations with a skunkish unit or \u201clab\u201d division that follows its own set of rules. Dance organizations, for example, often have a smaller company that performs experimental choreography or works in progress in an alternative venue to test out new ideas and styles without all the planning of a full-blown production. Ballet Austin does this with the New American Talent Dance project. Choreographers are given six weeks to create three new works. Granting more creative freedom allows choreographers to be so prolific in a short span of time. On the other hand, Ballet Austin protects itself by clearly branding the New American Talent Dance project works as something apart from the mainstage productions.<\/p>\n

    Some cultural organizations are considered Skunk Works\u00ae for other institutions. Science Gallery Dublin actually serves as a center for rapid experimentation and innovation for Trinity College, which it is a part of. Science Gallery offers a space where individuals otherwise operating in silos can come together to pool their ideas. As the organization\u2019s director Michael John Gorman describes, \u201cIn a university, an astrophysicist and a geographer can be working in close proximity on a similar subject (like climate change) yet they never get together to discuss it.\u201d Science Gallery provides a structure (or lack thereof) that allows these two individuals to create synergy that is impossible to achieve in the heavily bureaucratic university system.<\/p>\n

    There is another element that makes Science Gallery an excellent Skunk Works\u00ae for a larger institution: the acceptance \u2013 and even encouragement \u2013 of failure. The organization embraces failure as a necessary step in ultimately arriving at a great product or solution. (Check out their current exhibit Fail Better<\/a> on the constructive role of failure). However, there is a lower level of risk involved when an experimental project at Science Gallery fails in comparison to\u00a0the\u00a0more formal environments of the\u00a0university, which has spent centuries building a reputation of accuracy and successful outcomes rather than experimentation.<\/p>\n

    Perhaps a large arts organization might function more like a university than the Science Gallery \u2013 many are long-standing institutions with high-power stakeholders and public failure simply isn\u2019t an option. Tightly controlled policies and procedures are how the institution can function at its size. This is all the more reason to create a Skunk Works\u00ae \u2013 a small, nimble hub set apart from the institution where experimentation can occur. (If you\u2019re interested in reading more on this topic, check out Clayton Christensen\u2019s book The Innovator\u2019s Dilemma<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

    American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a great example of an organization that created a Skunk Works\u00ae to manage risk. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Diane Paulus, the theater opened OBERON, a \u201cclub theater\u201d in an alternate space, with an alternate business model. OBERON serves as an \u201cincubator for local and emerging artists\u201d. A crucial factor in making OBERON a success is that it defies the rules of traditional theater: OBERON operates in a club-like setting rather than using A.R.T.\u2019s mainstage production venue, the Loeb Drama Center. Arguably, the kind of innovative programming that happens at OBERON could not occur in a conventional, proscenium theater where producers are on the hook for filling over 500 tickets per performance. A.R.T. can take on more risk in there OBERON, because failure is not as expensive.<\/p>\n

    Now, back to you, the cultural manager eating a donut and checking your twitter feed while your idea festers in the corner. Most likely, it\u2019s not possible to set up a circus tent in your parking lot and create a fully-fledged Skunk Works\u00ae division in your organization. However, Lockheed Martin\u2019s approach provides some useful suggestions you can incorporate into everyday workflow in order to create a culture of innovation.\u00a0\u00a0 Here are some aspects of the Skunk Works\u00ae philosophy<\/a> that your organization should consider when a problem needs to be solved quickly:<\/p>\n