IT Project Management: NASA Perspectives

Project management insights from NASA exec ...

... "He also knows there's no need for rocket science in managing an IT project. Project management must be kept simple, says Phelps ... " ...

Via InterGovWorld: NASA IT project management

NASA Google Collaborate: Mars Map

Google and NASA collaborate to make more of the NASA content available to the public. If you have ever used GoogleMaps for directions, check out GoogleMars ...

... "Ames and Google also have vowed to work together to solve complex computing problems, including large-scale data management. " ...

Via Yahoo! News: Google NASA Deal

Project Innovation: Look to the Sky

If you need inspiration from the heavens to innovate on your project or just a break from your terrestrial surroundings, don't miss the transit of Mercury this week. Please use safe viewing techniques. ...

... "On Wednesday, 2006 Nov 08, Mercury will transit the Sun for the first time since 2003. The transit or passage of a planet across the face of the Sun is a relatively rare occurrence. As seen from Earth, only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible. " ...

Via NASA: 2006 Transit of Mercury

Project Management Graphics: Lessons from Edward Tufte

I recently checked an old discussion thread on project management graphics that I had participated in on Edward Tufte's forum. Suprisingly (or perhaps not), the thread is still going strong after four years! It must be the world's longest running discussion thread.

The premise of the thread was to find other ways of portraying project status and schedule beyond the Gantt chart. Edward Tufte, for those not familiar, is the world's leading guru on information presentation.

He was brought in by NASA after both the Challenger and Columbia disasters to analyze why the scientists weren't able to present the facts in an effective enough way to avert the disasters.

Tufte is listed as one of Amazon.com's top 100 nonfiction authors of all time.

For those interested in breaking new ground in project visuals, it's worth checking out. Feel free to participate.

Ask E.T.: Project Management Graphics (or Gantt Charts)

Project Stage-Gates: NASA Improvement Opportunity ...

NASA receives recommendation to improve project management quality through stage-gate approach (knowledge points) to the project lifecycle and solution maturity. ...

... "A report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that additional decision reviews are needed to ensure that NASA's projects meet their performance, cost, and schedule goals. ...

GAO’s recommendations include requiring that NASA projects demonstrate: that key technologies have reached a high maturity level before approving the projects for transition from the formulation to the implementation phase, that the design is stable before approving the projects for transition from the design phase to the fabrication, assembly, and test phase; and that the design can be manufactured within cost and schedule and meet quality targets prior to any decision to enter into production. " ...

Project Stage-Gates: NASA Improvement Opportunity: Via Democratic Caucus, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Reps: Gordon, Udall Urge NASA to Heed GAO's Project Management Recommendations ...

Risk management for NASA Payloads

The question of risk classification comes up with regularity. NASA is a good source of formal project management process publications and risk classification is no exception. This paper asddresses the specific area of payload risk but the list of mission characteristics illustrates the analytical framework very well. There are nine characteristics listed with descriptions against each one to classify the mission into one of four risk categories.
The framework can be adapted to apply to other organisations that need a consistent process for risk management.
NPR 8705.4 - AppendixA

The Ideal Project Manager Doesn't Exist

Here's a great article from NASA's ASK (Academy Sharing Knowledge) site. Owen Gadeken from the Defense Acquisition University talks about his research project to find the ideal project manager.

After examining many project managers, including two seasoned brigadier generals that had nothing in common except a successful track record, he came to the conclusion that there's no such thing as an ideal project manager.

Project managers, like projects and organizations, come in many styles, and no one style stood out as "the correct way." The only two things that all successful project managers seemed to have in common were personal credibility and a results focus.

Here's the full article...

NASA - In Search of the Ideal Project Manager

Earned Value Management: The Performance Baseline ...

NASA provides nice tutorial on the earned value program management technique, EVM. It emphasizes establishing the performance measurement baseline which becomes the reference to which progress is tracked. ...

Earned Value Management: The Performance Baseline: Via NASA: EVM Tutorial - EVM: Earned Value Management

... "Earned value provides an objective measurement of how much work has been accomplished on a project. Using the earned value process, the management team can readily compare how much work has actually been completed against the amount of work planned to be accomplished. All work is planned, budgeted, and scheduled in time-phased planned value increments constituting a Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB). " ...

Project Managers: Importance of Human Capital ...

Project Managers: Importance of Human Capital: Via Huntsville Times: Networking opportunities

... "Tuesday: The Project Management Institute will hold its monthly luncheon meeting from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bevill Conference Center (550 Sparkman Drive N.W.). Theresa Washington, director of the Office of Human Capital at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, will speak on The Importance of Human Capital to Project Managers. " ...

IT Research Projects: Google, NASA Join Forces

Google and NASA have agreed to collaborate on research projects that will synergize the knowledge of both organizations. Between Google's ability to organize information and NASA's supercomputing ability, some interesting advancements should result.

Check out the Computerworld report...

Google, NASA plan R&D partnership - Computerworld

Research into NASA project management

NASA is synonymous with attention to project management. This recent presentation from the Stevens Institute of Technology describes an approach for classifying projects according to characteristics. Novelty, Complexity, Technology and Pace are proposed classification dimensions. The paper goes on to describe four recent projects and assesses their classification on these dimensions. One recommendation is to develop different project management rules according to the project classification. This is not a new concept - many organisations try to distinguish different flavours of project methodology according to the type (size, risk, strategic goal, etc.). What's interesting about this one is the research aspect.
"Identifying NASA project types

Project Management Information Improvement: WBS Standards ...

Via SpaceRef - Your Space Reference: NASA Internal Memo: Message from the Administrator: Project Management Information Improvement ...

NASA's project management information improvement initiative phases in starting FY 2006. This should create a powerful dataset across common WBS standards ...

... "To ensure sound financial and program management, which is critical to NASA's mission success, the agency's Integrated Enterprise Management Program has initiated the Project Management Information Improvement (PMII) project. This vitally important project is designed to improve how we manage project information by aligning NASA's many technical and financial work breakdown structures into a single data management structure. " ...

Project Management Categorization; One Size Does Not Fit All

The most forward-thinking organizations are developing project management frameworks that vary based on certain project criteria. A key element of this is the project's classification.

Some thought leaders in this are Lynn Crawford, Brian Hobbs, and J. Robert Turner, whose book, Project Categorizations Systems, comes out this fall from PMI. Also, Russell Archibald's report on the 2003 IPMA Global Survey on Project Categorization (reported in Budapest in 2004) is well worth reading (click on the PDF link for best readibility).

NASA has decided to embrace project categorization, and has recently put together an initiative to develop a scalable project management framework that can adapt to certain project classification criteria (for example the complexity, urgency, and technology aspects as well as certain product types). Below is the full report (again, click on the PDF version for best readibility).

Identifying NASA Specific Project Types

Implementing Earned Value; Training and Scalability Are Key

Here's a lesson from NASA's Public Lessons Learned System (PLLS) from their pilot project to implement Earned Value Management at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in 2004.

Two key points were raised:

• Make sure that sufficient training is provided to cover all facets and various scenarios
• Make sure your EVM system is implemented in a way that doesn't slow down small projects and work requests (either have a light version of EVM or don't require it for projects under a certain size).
  
  For the full details, go to the NASA PLLS System below and search for '1409' (which will bring up lesson #1409)...
  
  NASA Public Lessons Learned System (PLLS) Database

NASA - Warning: Projects May Be Closer Than They Appear

Here's a great case study of software projects from NASA's ASK (Academy Sharing Knowledge). It explores the fine balance between software experimentation and needing to meet the targets of a project. Some key lessons, according to the case study are:

• When tailoring a COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software product, you
  should recruit developers who have an in-depth understanding of the intricacies of the product.
• Establishing open communication with your customer is not only intended to
  understand customer requirements but also to convey challenges you face on the project.

Both valuable lessons indeed.

The first would seem obvious, but many people attempt to customize or integrate purchased software without having experts who have "been there and done that" with that particular piece of software and know where the mine fields are. This can be a dangerous oversight.

Likewise, many talk about the importance of communicating with the customer to understand requirements and share "good news," but it's equally critical to engage the customer in meeting challenges and risks.

In addition to the above lessons, the case study also points out three key points:

• Be sure to articulate the business need to software developers
• Understand people, not just processes and technology -- all three must be present. For intance, we must get developers to apprciate the need to schedule and budget, and we must get customers to understand risks and constraints.
• Stay out of the weeds and delegate more - otherwise you can't see the whole field. If you find yourself getting so bogged down that you can't manage the project - consider what can be delegated (perhaps including project administration).
• Given a tight target date and unknown territory, go for phased milestones.

For the full case study, read on...

NASA - Warning: Projects May Be Closer Than They Appear

Earned Value Weighted Milestones in MS/Project

Looking for a way to get Earned Value Weighted Milestones out of MS/Project? Here's a NASA presentation showing how MS/Project can be configured to offer a real percent complete based on wieghted milestones. Again, click on the link to view the PDF version.

Earned Value at NASA

Here's a good presentation from NASA back from 2002 on scheduling and Earned Value. The report is focused on R&D projects, but it's a valuable overview nonetheless. Pay particular attention to the "backup" slides, as they offer various alternatives for tracking Earned Value.

As those who have struggled with EV know, problems can occur when a simple percent complete formula is used, as all milestones are treated equally. Weighted milestones is a good solution, but not all project management software easily supports it. Another option is to use percent complete, but add a manual adjustment factor (perhaps in MS/Excel) that is based on weighted milestones (also see my entry on "Earned Value Weighted Milestones with MS/Project" for another solution). The fact is, Earned Value is a great tool, but it must be combined with weighted deliverables to be totally effective.

The link below is to the HTML version. Once there, click on the link to bring up the PowerPoint version for best readibility.

Earned Value for R&D-Type Projects

NASA APPL: Project Management Lessons from the Galileo mission

NASA's ASK (Academy Sharing Knowledge) resource, part of their APPL (Academy of Program and Project Leadership) site, contains a wealth of valuable lessons learned. We'll be frequently featuring these lessons learned on PMThink, and I encourage everyone to explore NASA's site for additinal lessons. By bravely and openly sharing these lessons publicly, they are truly doing a service to the project management industry.

Oh, of course people will point to NASA's well-publicized tragedies. No doubt there were some huge errors in judgment (and/or communication gaps). But their projects are an order of magnitude more complex than what anyone else is attempting, so naturally the stakes and the impacts will be higher (not that it's an excuse for human tragedy). Of course, with big mistakes, come big lessons. With some of the most extraordinary achievements in humankind (and just as importantly, its extraordinary disasters), NASA is the ideal place to turn to for project management lessons.

Check out this story for example, with lessons from the Galileo project in 1982. In addition to the obvious lessons of the importance of the project manager, and the project manager's role in selling the project, another key lesson is the ability to recognize when tradeoffs must be made in time, scope, or cost in order to assure a more successful project.

In this case, NASA realized that the best way to get to Jupiter was via a "gravity assisted" loop around Venus. This extended the time it would take to get to Jupiter threefold, but the resulting launch energy would make the project more successful.

Here's the full writeup...

NASA - A New Spin

Proof Of Concept Projects

Consider a proof-of-concept prior to developing a full business case proposal for a new project investment. Proofs have been very effective for IT projects, especially when introducing emerging technology. It should be an important first step when introducing new technology partners into the enterprise architecture. Jeffrey Bauer, Dryden Flight Research Center, provides some insights in this article ... Proof Of Concept Projects: Via NASA - Proof of Concept

... "View graphs and a lot of conjecture don't inspire people to invest in projects. Proof of concept does. Once he had our video as proof of concept, he successfully sold a $50-million program based on our low-cost (roughly $100,000) prototype." ...

The End of Gantt Charts?

For a great discussion thread on potential modern alternatives to the traditional Gantt Chart for project schedule tracking, see Edward Tufte's forum... Tufte is the world's leading guru on presenting data and information, and was brought in by NASA to explore why their scientists were unable to present their case effectively in both of their shuttle disasters. He's also listed among the top 100 nonfiction authors on Amazon.com.

Ask E.T.: Project Management Graphics (or Gantt Charts)

Call For Papers: NASA PM Challenge ...

Call For Papers: NASA PM Challenge: Via PMFORUM, Connecting the World of Project Management PMFORUM Breaking News: CALL FOR SPEAKER PARTICIPATION ANNOUNCED FOR NASA'S PM CHALLENGE 2006

Papers needed at NASA project management challenge conference ...

... "Project Management Challenge 2006 is the third Annual NASA Project Management Conference established to further leadership, teamwork, knowledge sharing, training and lessons-learned in the areas of program and project management within the agency. It is sponsored by NASA's Academy of Program and Project Leadership (APPL) and is a centerpiece of NASA's Project Management training. " ...