Ed Hoffman outlines knowledge strategy at NASA

Today I had the pleasure of attending a presentation at PM Oz on the Gold Coast, by Ed Hoffman, Director of NASA Academy. Below are some of my notes from that presentation.

What is the mission of the organisation and yourself? Having a good answer to this is the biggest difference between “good” and “great”.

NASA training was formerly geared to classroom training – disasters in the 90’s dictated the need for change to a culture of learning to support to mission of the organisation.

Challenges at NASA range from responding to the effects of radiation from Mars on a mission, to new hardware and software to knowing how 7 people can cohabit in a tin can for 3 months at a time.

Pretty much everything that happens at NASA is a project.
Project Management and Systems Engineering were identified as the two most important disciplines at NASA

Uncertainty is the key constant across NASA projects, but unknowns need to be anticipated and responded to. Some missions span 10, 20 or 30 years. 1, 2 and 5 year projects need to feed into these missions, even though future circumstances are not known. The academy needs to ensure that these can be delivered over multiple generations of people.

80% of people at NASA are eligible to leave (retire?) in the next 5 years.

Most NASA missions are international partnerships, so strategy needs to manage this integration.

NASA academy provides a common frame of reference for all NASA employees, providing standards, policies etc.

How do you learn? NASA people say that it is by being hands on. Give people tasks to undertake so they can apply what they learn on the job.

“Non-traditional learning” did not provide NASA with the knowledge that it needed and was a factor in the failures on the Mars program.

Four fundamentals to successful projects:
leadership
teamwork
processes
knowledge
For any organisation that needs to exist for more than a year, what is the knowledge needed, how do you share this?

Knowledge intensive organisations are effective because people trust each other and are willing to share.

Two kinds of people – the ones how insist that you must follow the processes, plus those who say you should throw them out. Blindly following processes will not work.

What are the most critical goals of your project?

What is the knowledge that you will need to deliver on these goals?

“Work the system” to get access to the resources you need.

Make sure that you have some time to reflect and think.

Build the community.

Tell stories. NASA does this through a magazine where people can tell stories of their experiences.

Project success capabilities:
teamwork
leadership
process
knowledge