National Aeronautics and Space Administration Academy Sharing Knowledge The NASA Source for Project Management and Engineering Excellence | APPEL WINTER | 2012 Inside LEARNING FROM FAILURE INTERVIEW WITH BRYAN O’CONNOR BUILDING THE FUTURE SPACESUIT ODS/ASA: Ntidero CtohP Ntidero ODS/ASA: ON THE COVER On August 1, 2010, almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun erupted in activity from a C3-class solar flare, a solar tsunami, large-scale shaking of the solar corona, radio bursts, a coronal mass ejection, and more. This extreme ultraviolet snapshot from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the sun’s northern hemisphere in mid-eruption. Different colors in the image represent different gas temperatures ranging from about 1 million to 2 million kelvin. ASK MAGAZINE | 1 Contents 45 20 37 DEPARTMENTS INSIGHTS STORIES 3 15 5 In This Issue The Importance of Human Factors Getting Cozy with Our Closest Star BY DON COHEN BY ALESSANDRO ERCOLANI Moving from BY HOLLY R. GILBERT Observations from a technical to a managerial job, the NASA science missions are helping 4 author learned to value a healthy working scientists solve mysteries of solar physics. From the Academy Director environment. The Appeal of Space 10 BY ED HOFFMAN 20 Juno: A Look Back at Successful Interview with Bryan O’Connor Development 58 BY MATTHEW KOHUT NASA’s former BY JAN CHODAS The team developing this The Knowledge Notebook chief of Safety and Mission Assurance mission to Jupiter focused on reducing risk. Networks and Success talks about understanding risk and the BY LAURENCE PRUSAK risk of complacency. 25 Managing Canada’s Contribution to 60 30 the James Webb Space Telescope ASK Interactive Exploring Science with NASA BY KARL SAAD The Canadian Space Agency BY PAUL HERTZ Stiff competition ensures that has built two essential instruments for JWST. missions chosen by the Science Mission Directorate will deliver valuable results. 37 Building the Future Spacesuit 32 BY DAVA NEWMAN Led by MIT engineers, Hands-On vs. Hands-Off Project a multidisciplinary team is designing a new Management at ESA kind of spacesuit. BY BOB CHESSON Depending on circumstances, strict agency oversight 41 of projects can be necessary or “What Works” Luncheon counterproductive. BY MAUREEN MADDEN Knowledge sharing over lunch at Goddard. 49 Lessons from Lincoln 45 BY ROGER FORSGREN Leaders and managers WIRE: Learning from Failure can learn from this story of the great BY BRYAN FAFAUL AND KERRY ELLIS Poor president’s pragmatism and openness. communication and inadequate testing crippled an Explorer Program mission. 54 Something to Shout About: Bloodhound Supersonic Car BY HALEY STEPHENSON This project has attracted young and old engineers and engaged thousands of students. Issue No. 45 Staff ACADEMY DIRECTOR AND PUBLISHER Dr. Edward Hoffman [email protected] EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Laurence Prusak [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR The Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL) and ASK Don Cohen Magazine help NASA managers and project teams accomplish today’s missions and [email protected] meet tomorrow’s challenges by sponsoring knowledge-sharing events and publications, providing performance enhancement services and tools, supporting career development EDITOR programs, and creating opportunities for project management and engineering Kerry Ellis collaboration with universities, professional associations, industry partners, and other [email protected] government agencies. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ASK Magazine grew out of the Academy and its Knowledge Sharing Initiative, designed Matt Kohut for program/project managers and engineers to share expertise and lessons learned [email protected] with fellow practitioners across the Agency. Reflecting the Academy’s responsibility for Haley Stephenson project management and engineering development and the challenges of NASA’s new [email protected] mission, ASK includes articles about meeting the technical and managerial demands of complex projects, as well as insights into organizational knowledge, learning, SENIOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING collaboration, performance measurement and evaluation, and scheduling. We at CONSULTANT APPEL Knowledge Sharing believe that stories recounting the real-life experiences Jon Boyle of practitioners communicate important practical wisdom and best practices that [email protected] readers can apply to their own projects and environments. By telling their stories, NASA managers, scientists, and engineers share valuable experience-based knowledge KNOWLEDGE SHARING ANALYSTS and foster a community of reflective practitioners. The stories that appear in ASK Ben Bruneau are written by the “best of the best” project managers and engineers, primarily from [email protected] NASA, but also from other government agencies, academia, and industry. Who better Ramien Pierre than a project manager or engineer to help a colleague address a critical issue on a [email protected] project? Big projects, small projects—they’re all here in ASK. ACADEMY PROGRAM MANAGER You can help ASK provide the stories you need and want by letting our editors know Yvonne Massaquoi what you think about what you read here and by sharing your own stories. To submit [email protected] stories or ask questions about editorial policy, contact Don Cohen, Managing Editor, [email protected], 781-860-5270. DESIGN Hirshorn Zuckerman Design Group, Inc. For inquiries about Academy Knowledge Sharing programs and products, please contact www.hzdg.com Yvonne Massaquoi, InuTeq LLC, 6303 Ivy Lane, Suite 130, Greenbelt, MD 20770; [email protected]; 301-837-9127. PRINTING SPECIALIST Hanta Ralay To subscribe to ASK, please send your full name and preferred mailing address [email protected] (including mail stop, if applicable) to [email protected]. ASK MAGAZINE | 3 In This Issue In their frank analysis of the failure of the Wide-field Infrared shared work and shared conversations counter the dangers Explorer’s primary mission (“WIRE: Learning from Failure”), of too narrow a focus and are likely to uncover problems Bryan Fafaul and Kerry Ellis explain that this project based at system interfaces that can doom missions. So Bryan on “insight, not oversight” didn’t have enough of either. O’Connor, in the interview, talks about the value of having Poor communication meant that essential testing was skilled safety personnel involved in the earliest stages of inadequately done. Reflecting on his experience as mission design and development. And Dava Newman describes the manager for WIRE, Fafaul says, “I remind everybody benefits of involving engineers, astronauts, scuba-diving constantly that we are all systems engineers.” In other words, experts, and designers of motorcycle-racing outfits in the everyone on a project should understand the wider context creation of a new, more flexible spacesuit. of the work—not only how the technical pieces fit together, There are other extraordinary scientific and technical feats but the influence of managerial and organizational issues on described in this issue of ASK: advances in solar science; the how work gets done. Juno mission on its way to study the structure and origin of The importance of that wider context is a central theme in Jupiter; the development of a car expected to reach speeds this issue of ASK. Karl Saad’s story of Canada’s contribution above 1,000 mph. We enjoy celebrating those wonders in to the James Webb Space Telescope details some technical the magazine. But we continue to pay more attention to the challenges, including developing a new instrument at a late human and managerial context of these efforts than to their date when the one originally planned ran into problems. But he technical dimensions. especially emphasizes the importance of understanding and Why? Because no amount of technical skill will make up communicating the big picture, including political pressures for problems in those areas. And because, as Fafaul tells on program funding and how his Canadian Space Agency us, “management anomalies” are more difficult to address team connects to the much larger NASA team. Alessandro than technical ones—harder to recognize and understand, Ercolani (“The Importance of Human Factors”) talks about and harder to fix. the value of avoiding overspecialization on the European Space Agency projects he has managed. Team members Don Cohen with a range of skills can help one another when problems Managing Editor arise. (He also notes the importance of keeping other projects informed about how these changes will affect them.) Roger Forsgren’s recounting of the story of how Abraham Lincoln managed a cabinet crisis provides another example of focusing on the broader context—in this case, the need to win a war and preserve the Union. Lincoln did not let personal animosities or the problems caused by “difficult” people stand in the way of forming the talented team he needed to succeed. A corollary of the big-picture approach is that bringing together people with different expertise helps projects. Their 4 | ASK MAGAZINE From the Academy Director The Appeal of Space BY ED HOFFMAN The first International Astronautical Congress beat the Russians (to use Borman’s phrase), some (IAC) held on the African continent was a ask if space exploration is still worth the cost when potent reminder that nations seek the benefits of there are many competing priorities for public spaceflight for many different reasons. expenditures. But Peter