Augustine's Laws, 6th Edition (Hardcover)

~ Norman R. Augustine (Author) "With the excitement of business school now barely behind them, it had been disappointing to realized at so early an age that nothing but the..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, New York, Air Force (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drawing on his experience as an aeronautical engineer in industry and for the Pentagon, Augustine, vice-president of Martin Marietta Corp., formulates 52 "laws" designed to avoid or correct bad management practices. In this expanded version of a book originally published by a technical press, his rueful comments and facetiously didactic style, interspersed with numerous examples, quotes, aphorisms and adages, overlay much common sense and shrewd judgment. He is appalled at the inexorable rise in production costs and schedule delays, many of them caused by faulty government cost evaluation and contract-letting systems, and distressed by top-heavy administrations and over-reliance on technology. Among his targets are MBA programs, a surfeit of lawyers and experts of all kinds, along with lengthy maintenance manuals, and unnecessary committees and meetings. Rules and regulations, he concludes, cannot replace management competence. Photos.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Augustine, executive vice-president of Martin Marietta, has put together a book made up of three parts that seem to bear no relation to each other, yet are forced into an unlikely union: a sort of running commentary on the fortunes of the Daedalus Model Airplane Company; 52 "laws" formulated by Augustine and intended to explain everything from advertising to saving money; and an enormous array of observations, quotations, charts, anecdotes, and bits of information on a baffling number of topics. While this book is obviously the fruit of immense industry, it is scrappy and diffusethe material for a good book rather than a finished work. A. J. Anderson, Graduate Sch. of Library & Information Science, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 365 pages
• Publisher: AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics & Ast; 6 edition (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563472406
• ISBN-13: 978-1563472404
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #304,071 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening and entertaining, September 4, 1998

By A Customer

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for anyone in the aerospace business, February 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Augustine's Laws (Hardcover)

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.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Augustine's Laws is simply a must have, must read!, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

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.