We are getting ready for another great PM Challenge 2010 in Galveston Texas!

Some Important Dates to remember:
PM Challenge Registration
Attendee Registration Starts: October 26, 2009
Registration Ends: January 8, 2010

Hotel Reservations
Hotel Reservations Deadline: January 13, 2010

Lunches:
Purchase of Meals Deadline: January 8, 2010

Wordle is a web-based tool that allows you to create word clouds based on words that you provide. Just for fun, I entered all the words in the titles of the presentations of PM Challenge 2009. I took out all the small words like “the” “at” “in”, etc. The image below is one of the visual representations, using Wordle. If you click on the image you’ll be taken to the source image in the Wordle website gallery.

Among the many sessions that I was able to attend, a few stand out. Those are probably the ones I’ll remember the longest. One of those was Karen McNamara’s presentation titled “Stardust Lessons in Learning”. Her take home message was that Lessons Learned, typically done at the end of a project, are reactive, whereas “planning to learn” is something that needs to happen at the proposal stage and is proactive.

Her presentation was based on her experience with the Stardust mission and focused in particular on some missed opportunities to learn from the heat shield that was developed for the Stardust capsule. If more planning for learning had taken place during the proposal or design phase, a great deal of valuable lessons might have been learned about the specific properties of PICA, the material used for the heat shield.

NASA sends things in space and most of them are not meant to return. As a result, much more attention is given to getting it in space than handling the return when a return is planned, and even less attention is given to learning from that return (beyond the samples collected for the mission itself). The resulting oversight in this case meant that there was no easy way to recover (what if it had landed in the water), move (no handles) and open the capsule without damaging it and a lot of potentially valuable data about how the heat shield handled the re-entry was not captured. This is all particularly relevant because the properties of PICA should be of value to ORION.

The bigger question, however, is “whose job is it to plan for learning?” Projects are entirely focused on delivering their products on schedule and within budget (or as close as possible to that ideal), and don’t necessarily see the value of lessons that might be useful to other projects or activities. This isn’t unique to NASA. It’s something that happens in most project-based organizations. Karen McNamara was suggesting that Planning for Learning should be the responsibility of someone at the Agency level rather than at the project level.

For more on planning for learning from a Knowledge Management perspective and in the context of project-based organizations, I recommend the following short paper:
Julian, Jerry L. “How Knowledge Management Professionals Can Improve Cross-Project Learning in Project-Based Organizations,” KMPro Journal, Volume 5, No. 2, (2008). URL: http://www.kmpro.org/journal/KMPro_Vol_5_No_2.pdf

Bill Gerstenmaier gave a great talk on “thinking on the job: distractions, multitasking, and the erosion of attention.” Disclaimer: I multi-tasked and wrote this on my blackberry during his presentation. Here are my notes:

Non-renewable resources - time and conscious attention. Are we spending it on the right thing? Priorities. Need to so step back and look at the global level.

What is multitasking? When you switch before a natural break. Problem is that human brain doesn’t switch that quick. You accomplish less, lose efficiency. It may be necessary in today’s world but it doesn’t improve performance.

Some situations call for multitasking. You are probably multi-tasking right now. You need to decide when it makes sense.

There is a lot of unnecessary multi-tasking going on. Its been shown that people in cities are more stressed than people in the country - more distractions, not relaxing. Do we continually stimulate ourselves? Maybe that’s not good.

Information quantity has nothing to do with it. We probably get to much information. Need to make a conscious limitation.

Information accessibility has everything to do with it. In today’s electronic world you can access information later. Information is no longer hard to get.

There was a time when there was natural limits. In today’s world there are no limits (or at least very few).

You don’t want to let natural selection control what data you see. Don’t multi-task but selectively task.

The result of not selecting is no selection. The quality of data today is not as good. You can now spit information out as fast as you can make it. When it comes to data, quantity is more important than quality. We have to think of ways to select the better data. We have a hard time writing succinct and to the point documents today. Do we really need the extra fluff? We have better bandwidth, but the quality is less.

Talked about a few examples of “the evil of technology.” Does the technology always benefit you the way you think?

Don’t feel like you are going to “miss something.” Focus on what’s important.

Consequences of multi-tasking. Memory less. Studies show falling IQ’s. Effects our work.

What can we do to reduce multi-tasking. Self limit. Make conscious decisions. Take time to take time. Be aware of your limits. Be aware of how you are using your attention. Don’t multi-task around those who deserve your time. Give quality responses. Actively listen.

What if you only checked your email twice a day?

Everything is not urgent or important. Maybe we don’t need “task lists.” Do you really need to be involved in everything?

Think about your environment. Find a place you can think creatively. Use it to enhance your data and help do your work.

Henry David Thoreau once said “Its not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about.”

I had an opportunity to listen to the talk in the ‘creative collaboration” track by Dawn McIntosh from NASA HQ on “Using web 2.0 tools to enhance collaboration at NASA.” It was a really well done presentation and I wanted to share my notes from the talk with anyone else who may be working on developing a site similar to Dashlink. I’m looking forward to the posting of the presentation post-conference. Here’s my notes:

Website: dashlink.arc.nasa.gov

Dawn McIntosh talked about the benefits of using web 2.0 at NASA for collaboration on research. Discussed the development of dashlink as a virtual environment to disseminate results and collaborate on research problems in health management. Talked about bringing together two communities who have very little overlap in our traditional communications. Now they can go grab info and grab data. You can post topics, post algorithms, or post data. Gave both communities equal access. Its community moderated.

Dashlink has seen continually increasing growth since launch. Community of 200. 12000+ downloads to date.

Anytime that someone posts to the public they have to re-agree to the terms of the site. Couldn’t make non-NASA users to fill out forms. If someone disagrees, there is a thing any member can click to self moderate.

Web 2.0 features include member contact, discussions, associated content, and tagging. They use Trac for internal collaboration, discuss through ticketing, and of course have version control.

The site is public facing and open to all of nasa and the public.

Lessons learned:
– Work closely with developers, policy makers, and exp users.
– Off shelf is not always best
– Grad students were very helpful.
– Community moderation was key to foster open and up-to-minute research collaboration
– Had to have registered users and an atypical registration process. Non-NASA people had to get a NASA sponsor to contribute bc of policy reasons. They were trying to avoid opening the doors wide open - took an incremental approach.

Challenges:
– Culture resistance to nee ways to collaborating
– Workforce unfamiliar with soc media tools
– Policy and legal barriers. Govt must comply w many rules private doesn’t deal with
– Concern about ideas being stolen is a very NASA concern. Academics enbraced it.

Overcoming challenges:
– An agile design process that deal with policy and legal questions. Design or policy was continually revisited.
– Top down pm to bottom up support
– Focus on content, community, easiness by making it super easy to upload content
– Persistent
– Ran virtual poster session
– Feedback link
– Skipped cooler tools in favor of simple with intent of collaboration
– Don’t ask permission after - work with policy makers
– Have a solid elevator pitch
– Compromise but don’t give in.

These golden rules are some pretty good guidelines. I’d be interested in their project recovery and repair processes. - Coop

(Dhanu Kothari & Romeo Mitchell) have worked specifically with project recovery and repair. It is the very nature of projects that an element of uncertainty and ambiguity built in. The challenge is, how do I get work done amongst all the turmoil. Theoretically, we have as much authority and we desire to do what is correct, by finding whomever it takes to get what we need done. When we have all the responsibility and no authority, the way we get things done is how we work with the people: our team members. How do we get people on board and capture their interest? If a person is forced into the project, the PM has to get them interested. Must have team processes, team culture and the ability to manage politics within and without of the team. Do you really know who your clients and stakeholders are? The 10 golden rules are accompanied by 50 detailed questions to assess your project.
1. The good PM thinks like a pessimist but acts like an optimist. Have a passion for the project and desire its success. Know the language of PM. Have a general knowledge of the technology in your project. Know the client’s language and needs. A PM has to act as a change agent.
2. Develop a project organization that reflects the roles and responsibilities of your project. Does every worker know what they are doing and how it applies to the mission? You must translate and filter project information down to workers and up to managers. You have to sell to closure the project.
3. You must manage the politics – play with the intent of moving your project forward. Politics is the frontline influence expectations.
4. Goal Setting for our Team Members: Team purpose – incentivise team members for their work. Understand your goals. Participation goal formation gets team members to form good discrussion. Conduct casual interviews with new members to determine their strengths and needs. Don’t punish the person for being on your project.
5. Facilitate open communication: projects get late one day at a time, not suddenly. Get status from each member weekly – what did you do, what are you doing next, how can I help? What kind of culture would you like – and build it. Shield your team members from being “shot as the messenger”.
6. Institutionalize a culture of problem resolution and negotiation instead of a blame game. Evaluate the process for your meetings: who is taking minutes? How long does it take to get the minutes out? Is everyone receiving the minutes? The PM should sign and send out the minutes: “ he who controls the minutes controls the project”. How do you differentiate yourself and your team from other projects. Celebrate milestones. Empower your team members. Micromanagement is the #1 killer of teams. Manage by deliverables and milestones due every few weeks.
7-10. Know the rules, and continuously remind team members of the rules. Set and enforce expectations. Brief and debrief lessons learned – and use them in your future planning. Transition to integration: at the end of the project sit down and build the accomplishments of the team and try to help your team members find their next mission to support. What is your team yearning for?

I think we should have training sessions on this at every center. - Coop

(Robert Hurley) is from Wallops and works the softer side of management. This presentation is from the perspective of the PMs and workforce receiving the news of project termination, not from the terminator. Project termination is often the right decision because it demonstrates the organization’s willingness to challenge itself. There is limited information or coursework on the impact of project termination on individuals and the organization. Projects are often externally terminated by Congress or the President. People often grieve the loss of a project, especially a long a difficult one. Projects sometimes are cancelled in silence, leaving participants in shock. Steve Cook said that it took about 2 years for previously-cancelled NGLT team members to buy into the new Ares Program. Now, the new Presidential administration is considering the Ares program. Projects are terminated not only because of unmet commitments, but also changes in priority/politics/budget of the Agency. Projects in the group that were cancelled: International solar polar mission, Langley HiC Research, TDRSS-C, Space Launch Initiative, In Situ Fabrication and Repair for Constellation. Anaclitic depression is a melancholy when the organizations or beliefs we lean on are taken away. PM’s often feel ostracized from other PMs as they seem to think the cancellation may infect their projects. Project termination can have a significant impact on employee productivity and commitment. NASA has a reputation for a “stop-start” approach to projects. Keys to minimizing trauma: PM needs to be involved and aware of the situation – the PM can actually appeal the cancellation all of the way to the deputy administrator. Employee Assistance programs are useful as well in terminations. Need to present cancelled team members with new employment opportunities. Must allow teams to document their accomplishments and status to provide closure for the individuals as well as the Agency, and hold a celebration of the team’s achievements. Termination requires closure; one technique is to bring in an independent termination manager to work with the project manager and close out the project. Not certain if NASA has or will follow this technique. Regardless, how the termination is handled can minimize the inherent negative effects on employees and the organization. Q. You may want to explore how to maintain workforce through long termination like the shuttle program. Shuttle has a transition team and a termination office. Q. Would be interested in how the projects got resurrected (Gravity Probe B, etc).

It’s nice to have an opportunity like this to hear from folks at the top. - Coop

Q. What is the biggest challenge facing the Agency? A. Performance – the taxpayers are interested in what we are doing but they demand us to deliver.
Q. Are there any new initiatives in the risk management area coming our way? A. Yes, as an RDT&E organization we tend to place the rules from the previous program onto the next program, whereas we need to be more flexible. We have to learn the best tools available, and listen to the best risk managers in the world. Communications is key.
Q. Do you envision more investment in technologies, and how do we adapt to change in Space Ops? A. It’s a very dynamic time, so we need to learn from the legacy programs like Shuttle that are going away.
Q. What can today’s project managers do to prevent scope creep? A. We need to hold off on program/design changes until we get some deliverables out.
Q. What advice to someone with new idea that might enhance the agency but they don’t know how to bring it forward? A. Line supervisor, if they don’t support, instead of going around them, though, go back to them and say you wish to go higher with it and maybe convince them. As soon as you try to secretly go around somebody, they’ll stop support or trusting you for anything. The supervisor needs to explain “why” they do not support an idea
Q. Certification of PMs: current plans within NASA for certifying PMs? A. We are ahead of most Agencies thanks to our APPEL program.
You have to build a sense of urgency in your project, instead of letting the schedule fill the allowed time slot. Slipping schedules are usually the product of poor planning up front. Setting expectations with vendors and contractors is important as well.
Q. Effective Communication: how do PMs provide enough information to the teams to be productive.
A. communications has more than one direction, so you have to remember to comm. Fwd and back, left and right, and up and down. Good ideas come from all types of sources – make sure you listen to whomever is bringing you the message.
C. It’s important at face-to-face meetings, conference calls, and even long email threads, it is important to go back at the end and summarize for all involved. Email is not a communication form, but a tool for transferring information – talk to people.
Q. How will systems engineering and project management come together at NASA? The two have to work together while remaining a checks and balance.
C. Great project managers are always on a path going forward, and they have multiple off-ramp paths if things change. Risk management is a key factor along with true independent reviews, and there really is no substitute for experience. As a PM you need to know the scope of the impact from a small change being requested. Good project managers know what is in their risk system and can immediately explain them.
Q. We are 7 months from FY10 and the end of shuttle – when can we expect a firm decision on shuttle extension? A. With the budget and constraints we are still on a path to end shuttle flights in 2010 or maybe a little later. Techs at KSC are getting to work on Ares hardware.
Q. Are blackberrys and laptops in meetings a hindrance to communication? A. Not necessarily, it all depends on how they are being used? It will not work to have a Draconian “leave all blackberries at the door”.
Q. How to balance requirements with innovation? A. Requirements were not handed down from the mountain on tablets, so don’t get into the mode of “this doesn’t make sense, but I’ll do it because it is a requirement. We have to step back as managers and determine the absolute minimum of direction we can give and still get the job done, instead of trying to micromanage everything. Remember that the people that develop requirements are not always there to explain them, so there needs to be data associated with the requirements so that anybody can figure out what the intent of the requirement is.

(Daria Topousis) What would you want from a Project Management community? Use a social page for NASA employees so we each can connect based on competencies or through work acquaintances (like LinkedIn? Making APPEL tools available to the group. For example the Guidance and Control group morphed from a “bookshelf” to a “blog”. Are there specific topics or should there be an open forum? Either way, there needs to be a dedicated community manager to keep prodding it along. The website has to be fluid with a feedback mechanism and show that it is constantly updated. Are there things like being able to ask an experienced person a question? Would have to get the word out at gatherings like this meeting. The site probably needs to be pre-populated with information like the APPEL Knowledge base. Connecting with “gray-beards” on real life experiences they’ve had. Another key is that it has to be timely.

This is a case of thinking outside the box that I think we as an Agency could learn from. I hope the Digital Astronaut really takes off and great things happen. - Coop

(Nick Skytland) plans future lunar architectures, designing next generation spacesuits, and previous worked developing nontraditional partnerships with NASA and industry. Worked for X-Prize in 2004 on the Spaceship One project. How does NASA apply the global shift in demographics? Does the office have to be at a desk in a cubicle, or can it be at Starbucks with a blackberry? Everything from where we work, to when we work, to how we work, are changing. “Work” is becoming more reliant on technical competence, more mobile, and more collaborative. The information age puts us all together on an equal playing field based on our intellect. Norms for younger generation are speed, authenticity, openness and playfulness. “enterprise 2.0” refers to how businesses can utilize new technology to enhance the way they work. Today, there is a large number of people that want to be part of an organization that makes a difference in the world. What are we doing to encourage our workforce to engage in their jobs fully? Towers Perrin did a survey of 90,000 employees worldwide, and found that almost 4 of 5 workers are not working to their full potential, and 2 of 5 have “checked out” altogether. They published the top ten drivers of how an organization can enhance the engagement of their workers. “User contribution systems” allow people outside of the hierarchy to help solve problems in a new way, by mobilizing collective intelligence. Knowledge brokering brings together the promising ideas of people across an organization or an agency by identifying everyone’s capability and listening to them. Proctor and Gamble built a website for user contributions so that anyone can submit ideas for world-changing products. Dell built a similar structure, but instead of reviewing millions of posts, they let the users rank the posts and once they break a threshold then they review them. Innocentive has a “Seekers and Solvers” web site applying awards to solutions to problems from anybody. Threadless allows members of the community to submit T-Shirt ideas, poll the users, and the winner gets the T-shirt printed, a prize, and recognition in the art design community. Participatory Exploration is a systems-thinking approach, available on a website called www.spacehack.org built by a former NASA intern. An example of a user contribution system at NASA is the digital astronaut, which is a working hypothesis to predict how various factors from impacts to time affect humans in space. The system will go online in about 6 months as an XML (Internet) based module that anyone can use.
Q. How do we keep IT Security from shutting this down, have you seen roadblocks or solutions?
A. Yes there are roadblocks, but NASA Ames has been working great strides with open sourcing. Obviously, we can’t share nuclear trade secrets, but things like physiology that benefit humanity should be open.
Q. Have you thought of the risk of contractors inputting ideas, and then bidding against those ideas?
A. Yes, it will take some work the implement the systems so that participants are contributing to society and thus the public domain, but we need a way to at least incentivize them so that people will still contribute.