Early F-35 Program Challenges Provide Lessons For Future Leaders.

• Author: Burbage, Tom

Think about the challenge that was handed to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter team: design, develop, test, field and sustain a family of highly common first line fighters to fully incorporate the unique requirements of Air Force operations, expeditionary operations off small ships and unprepared fields and projecting power from the sea from large-deck aircraft carriers.

While you're at it, make that platform stealthy and supersonic, embed the most sophisticated suite of multi-spectral sensors ever employed in a fighter and make sure you capture economies of commonality and scale. And make sure our closest allies can participate with the goal of true interoperability and burden-sharing in future combat and peacekeeping operations.

In addition, revitalize a global industrial base that has atrophied over the years. Implement revolutionary new manufacturing capability based on very high precision, automation and motion-based production systems. Transfer technology that enables the industries of allied partner nations to compete on a global world stage with the best of the best. And do it during a generational change in the work force where impatience is the overarching personality trait.

As daunting as it may sound, the F-35 offers an exceptional leadership and learning experience to understand the challenges of managing very complex programs.

The first leadership challenge was the critical need to establish a unique "F-35 culture" capable of truly integrating a multi-corporate, multi-national industry team into a seamless, high-performance operation. Achieving consensus that the current culture was probably not capable of dealing with the new levels of complexity that were inherent in the F-35 program was a challenge. Specific steps to develop a unique F-35 common culture were required and it had to cross corporate, geographic and national boundaries.

While many of these concepts have been widely discussed in academic textbooks, few programs have taken specific steps on a large scale to implement them. The F-35 would be different. The management objective was to overemphasize a high-performance culture that was self-sustaining over the long term.

First, harvest lessons from similar challenges. We invited the program managers and chief engineers of every modern tactical development program to join us to discuss lessons learned. Surprisingly, all responded and the F-16, F-18, F-22, B-2, Eurofighter, Harrier, F-117 and Tornado were represented. The...