"The original was Skonk Works (skonk is a dialect variant of skunk), the place of unexplained function near which Lonesome Polecat and Hairless Joe brewed their highly illicit bootleg Kickapoo Joy Juice from ingredients such as old shoes and dead skunks.
Lonesome Polecat & Hairless Joe: They make Kickapoo Joy Juice- if it needs more body, they throw one in!
As a generic term, it dates from the 1960s. One definition is very much that of the original and the one you describe: a small group of experts who drop out of the mainstream of a company’s operations in order to develop some experimental technology or new application in secrecy or at speed, unhampered by bureaucracy or the strict application of regulations (Kelly Johnson formulated 14 visionary rules for running such an operation, which are still regarded as valid even now). It is also sometimes used for a similar group that operates semi-illicitly, without top-level official knowledge or support, though usually with the tacit approval of immediate management."
via (WorldWideWords)
To move too fast was a grievious error, which the young learned and the old knew, but not to move enough, fast enough, far enough, strong enough, that was what really denied goals to those who would be great. How bitter it must be to lie in bed, without the sleep one needed to think clearly and wonder and curse ones self for chances missed and chances lost.
Tom Clancy
Executive Orders
Berkley Books, New York
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling