Managing Knowledge and Learning Essay

Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion testing ground Summary National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established by congress on October 1, 1958, in order for the United States to keep up with the technological advancements achieved from former Soviet Unions successful install of the Sputnik (1957). The Apollo Era-Mission had risen from the post of John F. Kennedys goal, which was landing a valet on the Moon and leaveing 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) appeal to 1) increase armorial bearing performance, 2) cut salute and 3) work force reduction. However, this renew was non as successful as planned. From 1992 and 2000, six of 16 FBC committees failed. To process concern of the conflict of failed missions and impending retirements of man y an some other(prenominal) of the most experienced NASA employees, Congress enforced that the agency search for the solution to Knowledge Management (KM) and promoting cultivation initiatives at NASA-JPL.NASAs KM tools were mainly IT transcriptions of Internet-based databases and portals for ease of lessons. The NASA KM crisis was attributed to the organic laws inability to document experiences of failures and successes of missions or starts ultimately incapable of capturing the existential association from expert engineers and scientists. In addition, this lack in KM was start-of-pocket to privatizing friendship and promoting creativity, that stemmed from NASAs civilization where competition among centers for projects and accompaniment was the norm. around(prenominal) KM Initiatives were developed including project libraries for document and data counseling, developing standards, establishing databases to catch out experts, ask technical questions, and to capture hist ory and legacy reviews. 1) What were the pros and cons of the Faster, Better, Cheaper model? How energy outcomes (both positive and negative) of projects executed with this model impact NASAs stakeholders, i. e. Congress and the world-wide public? The Faster, Better, and Cheaper (FBC) objectives were to cut cost and maximize mission performance. There were some(prenominal) advantages of the FBC reform.FBC allowed compressed ripening and launch schedules that entice to an increase in the human activity of missions. Mission time could be reduced from decades to a few years. The offspring of NASA projects change magnitude from four to 40 under the FBC model. An increase in mission projects was legal opinion to lead to additional discoveries so that NASA could gain further wiseness and space cognition. FBC missions were changed from genius big project to multiple smaller projects. Dividing the course of instruction into smaller projects serve welled to minimize the pressure and stress on the team if a mission failed.Furtherto a greater extent, one mission failure did not consequently lead to the failure of the entire program. FBC practice allowed cured managers more freedom to apparatus FBC the way they found fit which promoted creativity and autonomy among senior managers. FBC excessively reduced the cost of apiece mission and NASAs overall budget. For example, the vitiate program budget was reduced from one billion dollars to $260 million. There ar numerous disadvantages of the FBC reform. Applying the FBC model could lead to more mission failures.During the FBC era, there were 6 failed missions out of 16 FBC missions. Cost and schedule constraints, insufficient risk judgment, planning, and testing, underestimation of complexity and technology maturity, inattention of quality and safety, inadequate review processes, engineering, under-trained staff, piteous team communication, and design errors all attributed to NASAs mission failures. Proj ects 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 in store(predicate) missions. Missions carried out faster do not allow time for mentorship and sharing of intimacy. Also, the boundary better was not properly defined and was open to interpretation, which may negatively impact maintaining standard procedures and processes. The results of the FBC fantasy could impact NASAs stakeholders in several(prenominal) ways. The increase in smaller successful missions would alleviate the risk of one large failure, although any failures will have a negative impact on stakeholders.Congress could be discouraged to provide gage and funding for major 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 o n the order of success or failure. FBC mission are less expensive which would accrue NASAs budget and help satisfy both Congress and the world(a) public by reducing the need for extra taxation by Congress and collection of taxes from the general public. 2) Why was the mar talent scout project so successful?Explain how Anthony Spears concern style impacted future missions. Project management was the key to success of the damage 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 new administrator of NASA. A clear and specific plan for the Pathfinder mission was laid out in the beginning and followed through until the end. homogeneous to the success of Ciscos ERP implementation, Anthony Spears, an excellent manager and thought attraction with years of experience at NASA, gained the support of top management and the JPL basis (Spears, 1999).Spears developed a unique balance of an advisory committee of experts to support and guide the difficult project, while he recruited talented, yet naive, energetic peasants to do what some more experienced deal thought im affirmable. As Spears writes in his lessons learned report it was a blend of bright, pushful 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 only 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 salubrious in future FBC missions. Risk management and testing were important to the Mars Pathfinder success. While the Mars Pathfinder team worked together successfully, the young players went on to think they were great project managers themselves, but still hadnt learned enough to manage their next missions successfully.In future FBC projects, some reasons f or failure were poor team communication, inadequate or under-trained staff or insufficient 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 event is the retirements of experts. Why is this a conundrum for NASA? Would it be less of a problem in a different type of organization? Suggest present(prenominal) 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 exhalation of knowledge, especially tacit information, diminishing the collective wisdom of the organization. A senior manager at NASA states, we have no globe process for dispatchring knowledge from thought leaders to new managers and IT transcriptions had not yet been sufficient in transferring experiential knowledge to the younger generation. Unfortunately, this would be trustworthy in many organizations unless they had suf ficient knowledge management systems in place and a ending where sharing knowledge was valued and encouraged.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 stem Matter Experts (SMEs), such 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 Sharing Initiative (KSI) commenceed at changing the companies culture.In addition to these activities, an exit strategy could be developed for retiring employees where they must follow standard procedures for employing case-based reasoning in an online database employing a searchable classification system. supernumerary knowledge could be disseminated by those eligible through training sess ions. 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 after they leave.New positions 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 corporate wide schema to store the data, methods of dissemination, and engage the information to ultimately make better decisions on projects that involve risking peoples lives. 4) Jean Holm had two options she could recognize 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 occurring simultaneously with changing the private culture into a shared 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 inevitable protocols, reports, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and work operating book of instructions for each mission or project should be enforced from every(prenominal) 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 conjunction 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 speci fic need encapsulating these protocols, reports, SOPs, work instructions and video synopsis would then be posted on the intranet, quick 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 used to. Do a little online research. Do you agree or disagree in this change of direction? Explain. reprove this is not to be addressed as a political issue) The Obama organisations new NASA charter includes a couple of key split A) In February 2010, the Obama administration canceled the Constellation Program, which was started by former President George W. pubic hairs administration in 2004. This program aimed to put US astronauts behind 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 billi on 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 send 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 everyday 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 washed-out $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 seem 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 cargo to and from low-Earth orbit, and might induce the rise of a true space economy.