I keep a copy of "The HP Way" on the bookshelf next to my desk, and have shown
that story to a number of people as an example of the flexibility of HP's
(former) management.  I've also shown them my favorite story from the book,
quoted as follows (pp. 107-108):

---------------------

     Earlier I mentioned that sometimes management's turndown of a new idea
doesn't always effectively kill it.  Some years ago, at an HP laboratory in
Colorado Springs devoted to oscilloscope technology, one of our bright,
energetic engineers, Chuck House, was advised to abandon a display monitor he
was developing.  Instead, he embarked on a vacation to California -- stopping
along the way to show potential customers a prototype model of the monitor.  He
wanted to find out what they thought, specifically what they wanted the product
to do and what its limitations were.  Their positive reaction spurred him to
continue with the project even though, on his return to Colorado, he found that
I, among others, had requested it be discontinued.  He persuaded his R&D manager
to rush the monitor into production, and as it turned out, HP sold more than
seventeen thousand display monitors representing sales revenue of $35 million
for the company.

     Several years later, at a a gathering of HP engineers, I presented Chuck
with a medal for "extraordinary contempt and defiance beyond the normal call of
engineering duty."

     So how does a company distinguish between insubordination and
entrepreneurship?  To this young engineer's mind the difference lay in the
intent.

     "I wasn't trying to be defiant or obstreperous.  I really just wanted a
success for HP," Chuck said.  "It never occurred to me that it might cost me my
job."  As a postscript to this story, this same engineer later became director
of a department... with his reputation as a maverick intact.

---------------------

Can you imagine Carly giving someone a medal for continuing a project she wanted
to kill?!  Neither can I.

Wayne




John Clogg <[log in to unmask]> on 11/14/2001 04:59:51 PM

Please respond to John Clogg <[log in to unmask]>

To:   [log in to unmask]
cc:    (bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)

Subject:  Re: [HP3000-L] David Packard's comments on the cancellation of
      the HP3000



Wirt quotes from David Packard's "The HP Way".

I remember reading that in 1995, and panicking because he referred to the
HP3000 as being in it's "obsolescence phase."  It turned out that he jumped
the gun by six years.  By the way, Omega would not have been "the world's
first thirty-two-bit computer", of course, but it probably would have been
the first "mini" with that word size.

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