KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AT NASA

Puneet Bhalla

Jyoti Jain

P S Karthik

NASA

CASE STUDY• Oct 2002, HBR

• Dorothy Leonard & David Kiron

• Managing Knowledge & Learning at NASA (NationalAeronautics and Space Administration) & JPL (Jet PropulsionLaboratory)

• Downsizing & Retirement of Experienced Scientists & Engineers

• Civilian space program as well as aeronauticsand aerospace research

• President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958

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TEN CENTRES OF NASA HQ, WASHINGTON, D.C.

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Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California

Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland

John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, near Pasadena, California

John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland

George Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama

Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

John C. Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

SPUTNIK

Oct 5, 1957Conceived During crisis

FIRST MAN IN SPACE

Russians, USSR winning the space race

RACE TO THE MOON

•$500 Mill to $5.2 Bill in 1965•5.3% of the Federal Budget•$179 Bill – 2001•One in 50 Americans on the Apollo program•Manhattan & Panama Canal

PANAMA; MANHATTAN & APOLLO

77 km waterway in Panama that connectsthe Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean

Employ more than 130,000 people and costnearly US $2 billion (about $27 billion in 2017

BEFORE APOLLO

Technical Depth

NO Project

ManagementCulture

•Small Scale Projects•Centralizing Authority for

•Design•Engineering•Testing•Construction•Manufacturing•Logistics•Training•Operations

MANNED FLIGHT

IRON TRIANGLE

Performance Time Costs

Pre Apollo

Costs Performance Time

Post Apollo after 1970s

CHANGES POST APOLLO

•Resisted Advancing Technology•Adopted Commercial Practices

Integration & Contractor Oversight

Design & Development

Risk Aversion

SUCCESS - COLUMBIA

Space Shuttle Columbia was the first space-rated orbiter in NASA's Space Shuttle fleet. It launched

for the first time on April 12, 1981, the first flight of the Space Shuttle program.

Over 22 years of service it completed 27 missions before disintegrating during re-entry near the end of its

28th mission, on February 1, 2003, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members including

Kalpana Chawla.

FAILURE - CHALLENGER

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of

its seven crew members.

WE HAVE A PROBLEM

•Insufficient Risk Assessment & Planning•Inadequate Review Process

•Inadequate System Engineering

•Resistance to expertise•Pockets of Information

•High Knowledge & Low Experience

AFTER CHALLENGER

•O Ring or Managerial Decision Making•Confidence & Pride•Re-Centralization•Budgets + Technical Specifications Review•Endeavor Success•Hubble Failure

STEPS INITIATED•FBC

•Workforce reduction•Decentralized

•Decade vs Faster timetable•Unleash Dormant Creativity •Reduce Aversion to risk

•Breaking up of large projects

UNKNOWN UN-KNOWNS

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KEY CHALLENGES AT NASA (contd..)KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER OF

LONGER DURATION PROJECTS.

- HISTORY OF DESIGN DECISIONS

AMALGAMATION OF DIVERSIFIED &GEOGRAPHICALLY DISTRIBUTEDCOMMUNITIES.

RISK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

MENTORING PRACTICES

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SYMPTOMS Struggled to find the right balance between mission

performance and cutting edge space exploration in therange of radically reduced budget.

People were retiring and experienced personnel wereleaving but it has few programs to bring their wisdom intoour institutional memory

The most experienced personnel become overburden sojunior folks put in relatively senior positions.

Broke down lines of communication and preventedpeople from internalizing and applying previous lessons.

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CAUSES

Downsizing at NASA over the last decade has resulted inan imbalance in NASA’s skill mix.

Pursuit cut costs and maximizes mission performance.

They have no formal process for transferring knowledgefrom people who are leaving high level managementpositions.

JPL’s prevailed belief is only focus on creation newknowledge and overlooking old knowledge.

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RISK Should we need more IT investment or stick to change culture?However, to begin the cross-agency cultural changes necessary tomake this work, they will need a larger budget. And if it fails, theywill lose credibility .

NASA’s already rich, explicit information.

STRENGTH

OBSTACLEManagement decentralizes,some centers returned to theirpre-Apollo technical culture.

It also sustains a culture ofprivatizing knowledge.Scientists and engineerssometimes don’t includematerial in their reports thatmight compromise theircompetitive advantage.

The project team sometimesresisted experiencedpersonnel’s feedback.

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KNOWLDEGE MANAGEMENT AT NASA

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JANUARY 2000 – IMPLEMENTING KM INITIATIVESIN ALL ITS 10 CENTRES.

PRIVATIZING KNOWLEDGE COMPROMISESCOMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

IDENTIFY, CAPTURE & RECOGNIZE – REWARDKNOWLEDGE SHARING AND MENTORING.

SUCCESSION PLANNING.

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PERFORMANCE ORIENTED KM

RIGHT INFORMATION / RIGHT PEOPLE / RIGHT TIME

ENGINEER - WITH HISTORY OF DESIGN DECISIONSON PREVIOUS PROJECTS.

PROJECT MANAGER – BETTER RISK ASSESSMENTAND MANAGEMENT TOOLS.

SENIOR SCIENTIST – PROVIDING TIME TO NURTUREYOUNG STAR SCIENTIST

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OPTION – 1INVEST IN IT INFRASTRUCTURE

IT systems provide a platform and standards for

scientists and engineers to discuss, document and

share information.

Introduce collaboration tool and communication tool

such as video conference

Pros Cons

Enable to capture employee’s

valuable knowledge and

experiences.

Improving NASA and its

partner’s performance.

Share information instantly.

IT system alonecannot satisfyexperienced people.

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OPTION – IIREFORM KNOWLEDGE SHARING CULTURE CHANGE Change its culture to encourage and motivate employeessharing experiences and knowledge they learned.

Develop Self-Retirement Program - Maintain knowledge Incentive Senior Mentoring - Efficient coachingDevelop the systematic and written process to alloworganization-wide employees follow the process.

Pros Cons

A higher success rate in futuremissions

Resolving the problems oftime allocation of the employeeswho has complained aboutmentoring workload.

Changing culture isriskier than building upIT system

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THREE INITIATIVES BY KM TEAM AT NASA

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2001- IMPROVING DOCUMENTATION –LLIS ($150,000)

MANAGERS RELUCTANT TO SHARE NEGATIVE LESSONS

FUNDAMENTAL WEAKNESS IN COLLECTION AND SHARING (KSI)

Expert’s Directory

2002 - ACADEMY OF PROGRAM ANDPROJECT LEADERSHIP.

INDIVIDUAL CAREER DEVELOPMENT OPPURTUNITIES

ONLINE MANAGEMENT TOOLS (REMOTE COLLABORATION)

($800,000)

2003 - DEVELOPINGWEB BASED PORTAL.INSIDE JPL & INSIDE NASA / CAPTURE DESIGN KNOWLEDGE & DECISIONS

WEB BASED COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENTS (DOC MGR, DISCUSSION TOOL & ACTIVITY LOG)/ PROJECT LIBRARIES / DECISION TREES

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