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Tim Brady with NASA Johnson Space Center |
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Date: August 14, 2003
Time: 2:00pm
Speaker: Tim Brady, International Space Station (ISS) Vehicle Systems and Integration Office, NASA Johnson Space Center
Subject: "Framework for Evaluating Architecture, Technology and Organization Options"
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has built a great history for achieving remarkable success in accomplishing complex technical tasks. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, planetary spacecraft were sent throughout our solar system which provided close-up views of the planets. However, the 1990’s arrived with some project failures including a flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope’s primary mirror, and the loss of three spacecraft sent to Mars.
Following the determination of the cause for the 1999 loss of Mars Climate Orbiter, the mishap investigation board reviewed eight previous failure investigation reports and identified a correlation between other project failures and a few common themes. The most common themes included inadequate project reviews, poor risk management, insufficient testing, and inadequate communications. Most project managers are aware of the possibilities of and the consequences of these risk areas in complex technical projects – so why do many projects make these same mistakes?
The presentation will discuss research work, where a framework for evaluating the long-term effect of early project implementation decisions was developed. Early decisions, such as establishing a system architecture and selecting technology of particular maturity, can have lasting impact throughout the project development process and during the project’s operation phase. The ultimate goal of this thesis was to develop an analytical framework that could be used, along with other sound system engineering tools, to expand the management team’s holistic view of the project, which could then be used to enhance project implementation decision-making.
The analytical framework was applied to seven spacecraft projects which served as case studies. Successful and unsuccessful projects were included in the set of cases. Analytical observations were compared to post-project lessons learned to develop a general understanding of the relationship between the project structure and the implementation approach for each case.
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