The following contains excerpts from the book, F.I.R.E. (Dan Ward).
Making quick, effective, and spontaneous decisions in music creation and performance can be the distinction between a mediocre musician versus a professional artist. We teach students in our music school in Odessa, Texas how to prepare for those moments that matter the most.
This is a book was written by a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force who is an engineer that develops military equipment. His interesting and ‘counter-intuitive’ way of viewing life and leadership involves making things simpler and more efficient in order to accomplish import goals.
F.I.R.E. stands for Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained, and Elegant. It is an adaptation from an earlier concept called F.I.S.T. which stands for Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, and Tiny. The author believes that using less money, fewer people, shorter time spans and less complex goals brings greater success. He uses the example of the World War II fighter plane, the P-51, in contrast to the Raptor stealth fighter.
The P-51 was lauded by the pilots and commanders as being an extremely simple aircraft that outperformed all other US fighters in speed, range and maneuverability. Its design made it quick and easy to build (10 weeks) and maintain. “Aviation Magazine” wrote that the P-51 is “a plane that that does not to any extent embody previously unknown engineering features, but rather employed refinements of known, accepted practices.”
The US Air Force’s F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, however, was a complex plane the military began developing in 1981 and wasn’t fully operational until 2005. Engineers originally designed it to confront the Soviet air force. By the time it was ready for service, the Soviet air force was no longer a factor and the costly plane no longer had a mission. By 2013, the US had run air operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the Raptor had not flown one combat mission.
The concept of F.I.R.E. is broken down as follows:
Fast- The shorter the schedule and timeline are, the better your project outcome will be. Short for some projects means years, while for others it means days.
Inexpensive- A small budget is more functional than a big budget. Financial capital is not the key factor; intellectual capital is what matters.
Restrained- Limit the documents you create, the meetings you conduct, the budgets you allocate, the teams you direct and the schedules you set.
Elegant- Shoot for project elements that are “pleasingly ingenious and simple.” Prioritize “true design maturity and true process simplicity.”
We teach students in our music school in Odessa, Texas how to maximize their efforts, whether it be in creative endeavors or in personal practice. The value of ‘sharpening the axe’ to hone skillfulness will always yield more powerful results.
The author believes that a person can succeed “with a skeleton crew, a shoestring budget and a cannonball schedule.” He believes that a person is far more likely to “deliver top-shelf stuff” when working under constraints than when you are getting all the money, time and people you think you need. It seems counterintuitive, but project leaders who get “large budgets, large teams and long schedules” are unlikely to meet all- or even most- or their project objectives. “Faster, cheaper stuff” works better than “slower, more expensive stuff.”
Ward cites the thousand-year-old story of Alexander the Great’s Gordian knot. Alexander figured out how to untangle this complicated “fibrous labyrinth” by simply slashing through it with his sword.
Fire assumes that the doer, not a series of rules, is the ultimate source of project wisdom, relying on “tradecraft and ingenuity” rather than “rigidly defined procedures.” Following are the principles of F.I.R.E.
This philosophy is consistent with an idea composer Igor Stravinsky stated in his book, “Poetics of Music.” He believed he became more creative the more restraints he placed on himself. He wrote, “The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees ones self of the chains that shackle the spirit. The arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain the precision of execution.” We teach these concepts to students in our music school in Odessa, Texas.
You can’t design anything without revealing your values- People who revere complexity make their projects complex. Instead emphasize the values of “speed, thrift, complicity and self-control.”
You can’t change just one thing- Changing one element affects all others. If you must move up your completion date, you must also cut your budget and make things less complicated.
Constraints foster creativity- A lack of people, time and money forces managers to become imaginative and come up with less obvious (and often better) solutions. A minimalist min-set makes you put your focus on the essence of things. A lack of constraints often results in over-engineered solutions, bloated software and incoherency.
Focus fosters speed- create a three-item project list that features the most important things.
We encourage students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to intensely focus on their skill and development, so that they can enjoy freedom of creativity and performance as a result of their personal discipline.
Speed validates the need- legitimate projects satisfy clear needs. Speed in and of itself is not the goal, but rather a path to a better project. “By all means, be fast. But don’t be hasty.”
To finish early, start early- Always be proactive. Always have a “collection of sketches, notes, ideas and prototypes in the works.”
Delays cause delays- Project delays lead to external changes, which create more delays. The result is a “death spiral.” Do everything possible to prevent project delays.
A project leader’s influence in inversely proportional to the budget- More people want to be involved in big projects and will offer their opinions. In contrast, smaller projects don’t attract as much (unwanted) attention. This means more autonomy for project leaders and their teams.
Complexity is not a sign of sophistication- Often, it signifies redundancy, excess and duplication. Instead, streamline; reduction is as valuable as addition.
A great partial job trumps a bad complete job- As you plan, focus first on high priorities. Save the less essential things for later or ignore them. Build your project approach on an “iterative series of incremental steps” that deliver the most important capabilities up front and focus on ‘quick wins’.
We encourage students in our music school in Odessa, Texas the value of prioritizing their goals and processes. If everything is a priority, then nothing is.
The best way to unleash talent is to not have too much of it- On a large team, it is easier for each person to contribute less, something sociologists term “social loafing.”
Minimize the distance between decision and action- The people on the front lines are in the best position to make informed project decisions and to react intelligently. The smallest, lowest of least centralized authority capable of addressing the matter should handle the job, not the higher-ups lacking requisite project knowledge.
Quickly delivering new capabilities is a strategic capability- build for the short-term.
The future will be surprising- prepare accordingly- consider long-term outcomes. You want your projects to last, so build a “responsive capacity for change” into your operations and activities.
We believe that teaching students in our music school in Odessa, Texas the most basic universal skills that are applicable to any musical or artistic endeavor will give them the most latitude when faced with change in the future.
No more than one miracle per project- The more your project involves ‘immature technologies’ the more trouble you may incur. Relay on existing materials, components, pieces, functions and ideas.
The F.I.R.E. prime directive- Keep two primary concepts in mind: Never include advanced technologies that you don’t need. Don’t over-engineer; simpler is always better.
F.I.R.E. contradicts three primary commonly-held ideologies, as follows:
- Faster, better, cheaper- pick two. In its “faster, better, cheaper” program, NASA proved you can have all three: sound projects, low costs and constrained schedules.
- You get what you pay for- Lots of money can deliver a quality product, but so can a small budget.
- Take you time to do it right- Cutting corners compromises quality, but that doesn’t mean that going quickly equates to poor work. Sometimes speed represents efficiency, but sloth can harm project quality and undermine success, as well.
The author offers some final thoughts:
The world is a big place with billions of people and a rich history. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Do your research and you will likely discover a solution that already worked for someone else.
Complexity indicates an ‘immature design’. The best projects are the least complicated and cost less. Yet, simple doesn’t mean easy. Just because F.I.R.E. is possible doesn’t mean that it is easy to implement. Build your projects on the principles of speed, thrift, simplicity and restraint.
Don’t rely solely on brainstorming, that is, developing as many ideas as possible, good or bad. Also embrace “storm-draining”, separating great ideas from the ones you don’t need. Pull the plug on any project exceeding its budget by 15%.
These concepts are not new to me, particularly regarding musical composition. To, again, quote Igor Stravinsky, “All art presupposes a work of selection. Usually when I set to work, my goal is not definite. If I were asked what I wanted at this stage of the creative process, I should be hard pressed to say. But I should always give an exact answer when asked what I did not want. To proceed by elimination- to know how to discard, as the gambler says, that is the great technique of selection…my own experience shows me the necessity of discarding in order to select and the necessity of differentiation in order to unite.”
I think, however, that size or scope of the organization is not so much the issue. A Beethoven Symphony with nearly 80 people on stage can be as ‘lean’ as one of his String Quartets (with only four people). The idea is not so much about ‘micro’ or ‘macro’ but rather of efficiency, ‘economy of means’, and quite simply, the principle of ‘good stewardship’, that is “getting the most out of what you have to work with.” Ultimately, that is the true definition of excellence.