nasa case study jpl knowledge management
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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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