Managing Knowledge and Learning Essay

Managing acquaintance and Learning at NASA and the atomic number 19 Propulsion Laboratory Summary National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established by copulation on October 1, 1958, in straddle for the United States to keep up with the technological advancements achieved from cause Soviet marriages productive launch of the Sputnik (1957). The Apollo succession-Mission had risen from the support of John F. Kennedys goal, which was landing a creation on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. Prioritization at NASA evolved into the centers motto of Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC), which was mandated in the Goldin Era beginning in 1992.NASA shifted priorities from 1) performance, 2) schedule and 3) cost to 1) increase committee performance, 2) cut cost and 3) work deposit reduction. However, this reform was not as successful as excogitationned. From 1992 and 2000, six of 16 FBC relegatings failed. To address concern of the touch on of failed missions a nd impending retirements of many of the most experienced NASA employees, carnal friendship enforce that the agency search for the solution to Knowledge Management (KM) and promoting learning initiatives at NASA-JPL.NASAs KM tools were mainly IT schemes of Internet-based databases and portals for ease of lessons. The NASA KM crisis was attri merelyed to the organizations inability to document experiences of failures and successes of missions or parturiencys ultimately incapable of capturing the experiential cognition from expert engineers and scientists. In addition, this miss in KM was due to privatizing knowledge and promoting creativity, that stemmed from NASAs culture where competition among centers for projects and funding was the norm.several(prenominal) KM Initiatives were developed including project libraries for document and data management, developing standards, establishing databases to find experts, ask technical questions, and to fuck off history and legacy review s. 1) What were the pros and cons of the Faster, Better, Cheaper model? How might outcomes (both positive and negative) of projects executed with this model impact NASAs stakeholders, i. e. Congress and the general world? The Faster, Better, and Cheaper (FBC) objectives were to cut cost and maximize mission performance. There were several advantages of the FBC reform.FBC all(a)owed compressed reading and launch schedules that lead to an increase in the number of missions. Mission time could be reduced from decades to a few years. The number of NASA projects increased from four to 40 under the FBC model. An increase in mission projects was apprehension to lead to additional discoveries so that NASA could gain further wisdom and space knowledge. FBC missions were changed from one big project to multiple smaller projects. Dividing the program into smaller projects serviceed to minimize the pressure and stress on the team if a mission failed.Furthermore, one mission failure did not consequently lead to the failure of the entire program. FBC exercising allowed elder managers more freedom to implement FBC the way they found fit which promoted creativity and autonomy among senior managers. FBC also reduced the cost of each mission and NASAs overall reckon. For example, the impair program compute was reduced from one billion dollars to $260 million. There are numerous disadvantages of the FBC reform. Applying the FBC model could lead to more mission failures.During the FBC era, in that location were 6 failed missions out of 16 FBC missions. Cost and schedule constraints, in enough risk assessment, planning, and examination, underestimation of compl break downy and technology maturity, inattention of quality and safety, inadequate review processes, engineering, under-trained staff, poor team communication, and practice errors all attributed to NASAs mission failures. Projects conducted faster does not allow for adequate documentation, time for redlining the project, and recording lessons learned from one mission to the next.This could result in repeated mistakes that could be avoided by coming(prenominal) missions. Missions carried out faster do not allow time for mentorship and sharing of knowledge. Also, the term better was not properly defined and was open to interpretation, which may negatively impact maintaining standard procedures and processes. The results of the FBC vision could impact NASAs stakeholders in several ways. The increase in smaller successful missions would alleviate the risk of one large failure, although any failures will guard a negative impact on stakeholders.Congress could be discouraged to provide support and funding for major(ip) space programs if they fail but might be more likely to fund smaller missions. The public could either lose or gain confidence, support, and belief in the space program depending on the magnitude of success or failure. FBC mission are less expensive which would decrease NASAs b udget and help satisfy both Congress and the general public by reducing the need for extra tax revenue by Congress and collection of taxes from the general public. 2) Why was the deflower scout project so successful? develop how Anthony Spears management style impacted future missions. Project management was the key to success of the Mars Pathfinder project. It began as an experiment to test the validity of the FBC reform mandated in 1992 when Daniel Goldin was assigned as the youthful administrator of NASA. A clear and specific plan for the Pathfinder mission was laid out in the beginning and followed through until the end. Analogous to the success of Ciscos ERP implementation, Anthony Spears, an excellent manager and thought leader with years of experience at NASA, gained the support of top management and the JPL institution (Spears, 1999).Spears developed a erratic balance of an advisory committee of experts to support and guide the difficult project, while he recruited tal ented, yet naive, hardworking youngsters to do what some more experienced people thought impossible. As Spears writes in his lessons learned report it was a blend of bright, ambitious youth and scarred old timers, each challenged and empowered, all working each issue together (1999). Together, they created a team that bonded and worked together successfully.Spears goal was not plainly the success of the Pathfinder project, but of the FBC program success, unlike the vision of future project managers. The success of Pathfinder did not translate well in future FBC missions. Risk management and testing were important to the Mars Pathfinder success. While the Mars Pathfinder team worked together successfully, the younger players went on to think they were large(p) project managers themselves, but still hadnt learned enough to manage their next missions successfully.In future FBC projects, some reasons for failure were poor team communication, inadequate or under-trained staff or insu fficient testing in 70% of missions and insufficient risk assessment and planning on 86% of missions (exhibit 4). 3) One of the major issues in this case is the retirements of experts. Why is this a problem for NASA? Would it be less of a problem in a different type of organization? Suggest immediate steps that NASA could take to mitigate the problem. Explain your choices.By 2006 half of NASAs workforce was eligible for retirement which could lead to a major outrage of knowledge, especially tacit information, diminishing the collective wisdom of the organization. A senior manager at NASA states, we have no formal process for transferring knowledge from thought leaders to sunrise(prenominal) managers and IT systems had not yet been sufficient in transferring experiential knowledge to the younger generation. Unfortunately, this would be true in many organizations unless they had sufficient knowledge management systems in place and a culture where sharing knowledge was valued and enc ouraged.In order to mitigate the problem of losing their knowledge base, NASA not only needs to continue to implement their KM strategy, but truly change the culture. Experienced project leaders and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), such(prenominal) as design engineers, should openly share their knowledge and not just when asked for it. I support several of the planned KM initiatives such as the capture of information by improving documentation, development of an enterprise web-based portal, and the Knowledge share-out Initiative (KSI) finded at changing the companies culture.In addition to these activities, an exit strategy could be developed for unassuming employees where they must follow standard procedures for employing case-based reasoning in an online database employing a searchable classification system. Additional knowledge could be disseminated by those eligible through training sessions. A reward system should be coupled to these exit requirements and could be increased if the employee decides to be available in the Expert Connections directory of SMEs that could be contacted for support subsequently they leave.New slurs might need to be created for dedicated knowledge managers such as Chief knowledge officers. Its also possible that NASA could obtain some replacement of lost experts by collaborating with space programs in other countries. Collecting the information from experts must be coupled with management support of a corporal wide schema to store the data, methods of dissemination, and apply the information to ultimately make better decisions on projects that claim risking peoples lives. 4) Jean Holm had two options she could choose from 1) upgrade the IT systems or, 2) change the culture.Which would you choose and why? Is there a third option? Explain your answer. In order for Holms to truly have a successful knowledge management system in place, implementation of a hybrid system should be in place enforcing both upgrade to IT systems occur ring simultaneously with changing the private culture into a divided up one. Integration of both, changing the culture and IT upgrades will be a lengthy process so it would be critical to first strategically plan for cultivating and managing formal processes for knowledge transfers.Implementing formal processes such as requisite protocols, reports, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and work instructions for each mission or project should be enforced from all high-level management as it might help with the KM transfer crisis. Once every item has been completed by the high-level management it would be placed into the appropriate IT systems database in conjunctive with the integration of the required knowledge management video synopsis from experienced engineers and scientist who exit the centers.Curriculums would be in place with learning modules with specific need encapsulating these protocols, reports, SOPs, work instructions and video synopsis would then be posted on the intr anet, ready for the potential novice engineers and scientists entering the NASA work force making the system more enriched and meaningful. 5) President Obama is implementing changes to NASAs charter, which will create new ways of funding/executing projects than NASA is use to. Do a little online research. Do you agree or disagree in this change of way of life? Explain. Caution this is not to be addressed as a political issue) The Obama administrations new NASA charter includes a couple of key parts A) In February 2010, the Obama administration canceled the Constellation Program, which was started by former President George W. Bushs administration in 2004. This program aimed to put US astronauts back on the moon by 2020, for the first time since the final Apollo mission. B) In April 2010, Obama proposed increasing NASAs overall budget by about $6 billion over five years and shifting NASAs aim for do work space program to Mars (from the moon).By the mid 2030s, I believe we can ligh t humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And landing on Mars will follow, he said. C) He also challenged the commercial space industry to take up the routine tasks that NASA would abandon such as ferrying astronauts to and from the space station. I do not agree with him on the part A and Part B of the new charter. The Constellation Program is already 5 year old, and has spent $9. 1 billion.It has already made significant progress and will help America maintaining its space leadership position over Russia and China. On the other hand, I think that it will set a foundation for manned space mission to Mars. Obamas vision of manned mission to Mars by mid-2030 does not depend realistic to me as he has not talked about its technology feasibility. However, I do agree with his plans Part C. I think that it will significantly reduce the cost for transporting people and weight to and from low-Earth orbit, and might induce the rise of a true space economy.