Kelly.michael

NASA Engineering & Safety Center (NESC)
Project Management Challenge 2009

Agency-wide Benefits
from
Diverse Broad-Based Teams
Michael J. Kelly

1

Kelly 02/24/09 This briefing is for status only and does not represent complete engineering data analysis


from
Michael J. Kelly

Case Study #1 – Composite Crew Module
Michael T. Kirsch

Case Study #2 – Max Launch Abort System
Dawn M. Schaible
2


3

Kelly 02/24/09
Am
e sR
Je es
tP ea
rop rch
Dr uls Ce
yd ion
en nte
Fli La r
gh bo
tR rat
es ory
ea
rch
Ce
n te
r
NASA’s ten Centers…

Jo
h ns
on
Sp
ac
eC
Prologue

en
ter

St e
nn
is
Sp
Ma ac
rsh eC
all en
Gl Sp ter
en ac
NESC Broad-Based Teams

nR eF
es lig
ea ht
rch Ce
This briefing is for status only and does not represent complete engineering data analysis Ce n te
n te r
r
Ke
nn
Go ed
dd yS
La ard pa
ng Sp ce
ley ac Ce
Re eF n te
se lig r
arc ht
hC Ce
en n te
ter r

Prologue
NASA’s ten Centers… sometimes behave like “information silos.”
• Inward focus • Turf battles, power struggles over
• Managers serve as information authority and resources
gatekeepers • Loss or disenfranchisement of
• Information communication vertical talented employees
direction only • Poor/inconsistent Interface with
• Poor/inconsistent inter-silo communication external parties
• Disincentives to collaborate or share • Poor/inconsistent execution of
information common goals

4


Prologue
Diverse broad-based teams help establish Agency-wide networks that:
– increase inter-center knowledge and information flow.
– facilitate inter-center collaboration.
– encourage inter-center relationships and communities of practice.

Connecting people across the Agency helps to tear down silos.

5


Presentation Agenda

• NESC Overview & Technical Discipline Teams

• How NESC builds Diverse Broad Based Teams

• Agency-wide benefits from Diverse Broad-Based Teams

6


NESC Overview
In 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) observed that NASA's safety
organization lacked adequate technical expertise and resources for independent technical
reviews of NASA's Programs and Projects.

The NASA Engineering & Safety Center (NESC) was formed as a response to this observation,
with a mission to provide the Agency’s Programs and Projects with rigorous independent
technical perspectives on their most critical technical issues.

7


NESC Overview
Five years later - The NESC remains dedicated to technical excellence by:

– Creating technical findings based on independent testing, analysis and inspection,
and generating recommendations that improve the quality of stakeholder technical
decisions.
– Fostering the core tenet of technical rigor.
– Enhancing mission success by focusing on the most complex, critical, high-risk
technical issues.
– Facilitating hands-on design & development experience

8


NESC Overview
Five years later – The NESC remains independent:

– Centrally managed and funded through the Office of Chief Engineer.
– Unaffiliated with and unbiased by any specific NASA Program or Center.
– Unaffected and unbiased by the Programs our teams evaluate.
– Has an independent engineering chain of command to assure an avenue for
consideration of all points of view.

9


NESC Overview
Five years later – NESC continues to cultivate an Agency-wide safety culture by:

– Modeling technical rigor and engineering excellence.
– Encouraging healthy tension during technical discussions.
– Cultivating an open environment & encouraging diversity of opinion.
– Promoting more-informed stakeholder risk-based decision-making.
– Fostering strong in-line checks and balances.
– Advocating safety as a vital component of design and development.

10


NESC Overview
NESC teams engage in a variety of activities:

• Conducting technical assessments of high risk issues by reviewing data,
creating new data by performing independent testing and analysis, creating
data-driven findings and observations, generating solution-driven, preventative
or corrective recommendations that are rigorously grounded in team findings
and observations

• Engaging in forward-looking technical investigations, which may include
performing independent tests and analyses with high potential to advance
knowledge within a discipline.

• Performing design development and demonstration work, which may include
conducting design trade studies, performing preliminary design definition,
weights trades, structural analyses, systems analyses, detailed design work,
design integration work, and constructing full-scale test articles for laboratory
and flight testing.

11


NESC Overview
The NESC organization is comprised of just six offices

• Office of the Director – Leadership team located at Langley Research Center (LaRC).

• NESC Chief Engineers – Embedded executives, one at each Center, who provide
access and insight into Center-based Programs and Projects.

• Principal Engineers - Discipline generalists with systems engineering and project
management skills who lead assessment teams and advise other assessment team
leaders.

• Systems Engineers – Systems engineering and process specialists, who provide
system engineering and integration for assessments and other NESC activities.

• Management & Technical Support – Administrative management experts who provide
contracting and budgeting solutions for NESC teams and the leadership team.

• NASA Technical Fellows (Agency discipline experts) – Stewards for technical
disciplines, who form and lead Technical Discipline Teams (TDTs).

12


NESC Overview

Office of the Director
NASA HQ Senior S&MA
Integration Manager

Management and System Engineering Principal Engineers
Technical Support Office Office Office

NESC Chief Engineers NASA Technical Fellows
(one per center) (one for each of thirteen technical disciplines)
ARC MSFC Aerosciences Loads and Dynamics
Avionics Materials
JPL GRC Flight Mechanics Mechanical Systems
DFRC KSC Guidance, Navigation, and Non Destructive Evaluation
Control Propulsion
JSC GSFC Human Factors Software
SSC LRC Life Support/Active Thermal Structures

13


NESC Technical Discipline Teams
The NESC has created thirteen pools of discipline specialists called
Technical Discipline Teams (TDTs).

• Aerosciences
• Avionics
• Flight Mechanics
• Guidance, Navigation, and Control
• Human Factors
• Life Support/Active Thermal
• Loads and Dynamics
• Materials
• Mechanical Systems
• Non Destructive Evaluation
• Propulsion
• Software
• Structures

Each TDT is lead by a NASA Technical Fellow.

These standing teams of experts are the core of the NESC’s workforce.
14


TDT members are chosen by the NASA Technical Fellows:
• from the ten Centers
• from industry
• from academia
• from other U.S. Government agencies and laboratories

They are selected based principally on their peer-recognized discipline
expertise and engineering excellence.

Demonstrated team skills are also a factor in selection:

• Collaboration • Record of success
• Humility meeting team goals
• Listening • Open-mindedness
• Creativity • Planning
• Tenacity • Negotiation

15


About one-quarter of TDT members are from outside of the Agency

The rest proportionally represent all 10 NASA Centers.

University
(4%)
NASA
(74%) Other
(1%)

• Other US Gov't
(4%)

Industry
(17%)
16


Building Teams
When forming broad-based teams, NESC goes beyond TDTs.

With consideration given to a team’s specific objectives, team leads purposefully
recruit additional technical experts and topic specialists:

• from industry
• from academia

This is done deliberately, to maximize diversity of technical thought.

The NESC brings NASA’s best engineers together from across the Agency,
and teams them with other experts from outside the Agency,
to address the Agency’s highest-risk, most-complex problems.

17


Building Teams
Diversity of technical thought derives from diversity of personal perspective.

Team members bring unique points of view that reflect their:

• Organizational cultures
• Business cultures
• Collegiate cultures
• Cultures related to geographic location
• Cultures related to age, race, and gender

18


Building Teams

NASA has a culture of engineers and scientists, but numerous “sub-cultures” are
apparent.

Each of the ten NASA Centers:

• performs unique types of work:
• human versus robotic
• launch vehicle, spacecraft, aircraft
• research, development. operations
• possesses a unique mix of experience.
• has different age demographics.
• has heritage strengths in design, analysis, and testing.
• holds different perspectives on the merits of emerging technologies.
• predisposition towards technology development versus technology acquisition.
• employs different analysis or testing methodologies.
• has different affiliations with proximally located colleges and universities.
• has affiliations with regional fabrication companies.
• has unique communication practices.
• has different business practices and different management cultures.

The NESC deliberately brings people together from multiple centers,
to leverage these differences.
19


Building Teams

Industry partners are recruited for NESC broad-based teams to add perspective and
improve knowledge - in areas where Agency team members may lack experience.

Those with product development experience are included on teams engaged in
design development activities - to help improve the skills of Agency team members
by facilitating hands-on design experience, and experience with integration,
configuration control, test planning, etc.

Team members from academia or from government national laboratories are often
included on NESC broad-based teams for their pertinent knowledge of relevant
emerging areas of research .

Partners from other government agencies are sometimes included on NESC broad-
based teams to bring non-space systems perspectives.

Teaming with experienced non-Agency partners assures valuable knowledge
transfer to Agency team members.

20


Building Teams
NESC includes young (“resident”) Agency engineers on broad-based teams,
who contribute:
• Knowledge of new tools
• Enthusiasm, energy, creativity

NESC contracts with retired (“grey beard”) Agency veterans, who provide:
• Perspective on heritage system design details
• Perspective on design decisions made on heritage systems
• Perspective on organizational issues

Working together provides the resident engineers with:
• Historical Agency perspective
• Recognition and understanding of lessons learned on heritage systems
• Hands-on design and development experience
• Improved Agency-wide familiarity

NESC Broad-Based Teams bring generations together to improve
Agency knowledge continuity.

21


22

Kelly 02/24/09
Am
e
sR
Je es
tP ea
rop rch
Dr uls Ce
yd ion
en nte
Fli La r
gh bo
tR rat
es ory
ea
rch
Ce
n te
r

Other U.S. government
entities, industry & academia

Jo
h ns
on
Sp
ac
eC
en
ter
Building Teams

St e
nn
is
Sp
Ma ac
rsh eC
all en
Gl Sp ter
en ac

nR eF
es lig
ea ht
rch Ce
n te r
r
Ke
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Go ed
dd yS
La ard pa
ng Sp ce
ley ac Ce
Re eF n te
se lig r
arc ht
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en n te
ter r

Building Teams

23


Building Teams

24


Agency-Wide Benefits
The Agency benefits from broad-based teams at least five ways:

1. Innovative solutions are generated for Agency problems when teams
represent a broad diversity of thought and experience.

2. Inter-Center collaboration is vastly and permanently improved when
Agency-wide networks of expertise are created.

3. Near-term decisions are improved when the right technical information
is provided to decision makers at the right time.

4. Long-term decisions are improved when future decision-makers are
provided with hands-on experience today.

5. Mission safety and mission success is improved when the NESC’s
safety culture is proliferated across the Agency.

25


Benefit 1 – Innovative Solutions
Broad-based team members learn from each other when they are given a
common goal that requires them to share ideas and collaborate to find solutions.

NASA benefits when the readiness level of new technology (TRL) is advanced by
the innovative collaboration of a broad-based team.

Agency program or project stakeholders benefit when broad-based teams create

• novel findings and recommendations
• new analytical tools
• new physical tools
• inventive testing methods
• original inspection techniques

Agency programs or projects benefit when broad-based design development
teams deliver an innovative design or design feature that is adopted to replace a
similar design.

Bringing people with diverse perspectives together assures
innovative solutions that might not otherwise be possible.

26


Benefit 2 – Networks of Expertise
Broad-based teams connect technical experts across the Agency – with each other and
with experts in industry, academia, and other U.S. Government agencies.

These connections are inter-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, inter-organizational and
cross-organizational.

NESC experience has shown that the resulting professional relationships persist after
the team’s work is complete. They endure long after the teams are disbanded:

• Team members continue to associate, meet, query, discuss, collaborate, and
learn from each other.
• Exchanges of technical information and ideas continue, regardless of
organizational association or geographic location.
• Experts leverage these associations to help them resolve new problems.

This benefit extends beyond the participants themselves, to their worksite associates,
who by virtue of their affiliation with their resident expert, are also connected to the
larger network of expertise.

Such broad-based teams persist and grow as a virtual team.

Networks of expertise are an enduring benefit for the Agency!

27


NESC broad-based teams have occasionally been reconstituted, in part or in whole,
for the purpose of tackling a new Agency task related to their original area of focus.

Examples of team members becoming assets to subsequent Agency activity include:

• Smart Buyer team members became an asset for the Orion Project

• Composite Crew Module (CCM) Conceptual Studies team members became an
asset for the CCM Design and Development Team

• CCM Design and Development Team members became an asset for the Orion
and Altair Projects

• Alternate Launch Abort System (ALAS) team members became an asset for
the Max Launch Abort Systems (MLAS) Team

• MLAS team members may become an asset for the Launch Abort System
(LAS).

Experienced broad-based team members bring value to new teams.

28


Benefits 3 & 4 - Better Decisions & Decision Makers
When broad-based teams deliver peer-reviewed findings and actionable
recommendations, stakeholder programs and projects gain insight that
improves their near-term decisions on high risk technical issues.

Agency team members that participate on broad-based design development
teams, gain personal insight into the complexity of full-scale system design and
development, integration, fabrication and testing, which makes them better-
informed decision-makers who will make better Agency design decisions for
the rest of their careers.

The Agency particularly benefits when such experienced, knowledgeable team
members accept key decision-making positions within the Agency.

Improving employee decision-making competence is a significant
legacy benefit for the Agency.

29


Benefit 5 – Exported NESC Safety Culture
NESC broad-based teams spread the NESC’s safety culture Agency-wide.

In 2008, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) Annual Report, called
for “efforts to institutionalize … NASA-wide programs to reinforce safety as
a core value within the Agency,” and to promote safety “as a paramount
decision-making consideration throughout NASA design, development, and
management.”

NESC broad-based teams cultivate an Agency-wide safety culture by:

• Modeling technical rigor and engineering excellence
• Encouraging healthy tension during technical discussions
• Cultivating an open environment, deliberately encouraging
diversity of opinion
• Advocating safety as a vital component of design and development
• Promoting more-informed stakeholder risk-based decision-making
• Fostering strong in-line checks and balances

Through the Agency-wide Network of Expertise that broad-Based teams create,
the NESC Safety Culture proliferates across the Agency.

30


Conclusion
The NESC has found that building diverse broad-based teams of technical expertise from
across the Agency, and from outside the Agency, creates substantial benefits for NASA.

• Better-informed Agency near-term technical decisions

• More-experienced Agency decision-makers and consequently
better long-term technical decisions

• More innovative solutions to Agency problems

• Enduring Agency-wide networks of expertise

• Agency-wide proliferation of the NESC’s safety culture

31


Epilogue
The NESC has advantages that help us build broad-based teams:
• We have standing contracts with non-Agency TDT members.
• Funds are pre-positioned for Agency TDT members at all ten centers.
• NESC MTSO Office has analysts dedicated to coordinating new
contracts.
• NESC files are managed centrally.
• We have our own independent chain of command.
• Teams have clear accountability.
• NESC is a flat organization that allows maximum flexibility.

32


Epilogue
How can you emulate this success when forming a team?
• Wherever and whenever possible, seek team members with diversity
of technical thought.
• Look beyond your ‘circle’ – even if just from your own center.
• Deliberately recruit team members from multiple generations.
• Consider other dimensions of diversity.
• Reach out to other centers – invest the effort to overcome difficulties
with inter-center funding.
• Create an environment for knowledge transfer from contractor team
members to Agency team members.

33


Questions?

Broad-Based Teams
...broaden perspectives!
34 Contact your Center’s NESC Chief Engineer or email nesc@nasa.gov



Backup charts:
Whole presentation WITH
animations

35



from
Michael J. Kelly

Case Study #1 – Composite Crew Module
Michael T. Kirsch

Case Study #2 – Max Launch Abort System
Dawn M. Schaible
36


37

Kelly 02/24/09
Am
e sR
Je es
tP ea
rop rch
Dr uls Ce
yd ion
en nte
Fli La r
gh bo
tR rat
es ory
ea
rch
Ce
n te
r
NASA’s ten Centers…

Jo
h ns
on
Sp
ac
eC
Prologue

en
ter

St e
nn
is
Sp
Ma ac
rsh eC
all en
Gl Sp ter
en ac

nR eF
es lig
ea ht
rch Ce
n te r
r
Ke
nn
Go ed
dd yS
La ard pa
ng Sp ce
ley ac Ce
Re eF n te
se lig r
arc ht
hC Ce
en n te
ter r

Prologue
NASA’s ten Centers… sometimes behave like “information silos.”
• Inward focus • Turf battles, power struggles over
• Managers serve as information authority and resources
gatekeepers • Loss or disenfranchisement of
• Information communication vertical talented employees
direction only • Poor/inconsistent Interface with
• Poor/inconsistent inter-silo communication external parties
• Disincentives to collaborate or share • Poor/inconsistent execution of
information common goals

38


Prologue
Diverse broad-based teams help establish Agency-wide networks that:
– increase inter-center knowledge and information flow.
– facilitate inter-center collaboration.
– encourage inter-center relationships and communities of practice.

Connecting people across the Agency helps to tear down silos.

39


Presentation Agenda

• NESC Overview & Technical Discipline Teams

• How NESC builds Broad Based Teams

• Agency-wide benefits from Broad-Based Teams

40


NESC Overview
In 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) observed that NASA's safety
organization lacked adequate technical expertise and resources for independent technical
reviews of NASA's Programs and Projects.

The NASA Engineering & Safety Center (NESC) was formed as a response to this observation,
with a mission to provide the Agency’s Programs and Projects with rigorous independent
technical perspectives on their most critical technical issues.

41


NESC Overview
Five years later - The NESC remains dedicated to technical excellence by:

– Creating technical findings based on independent testing, analysis and inspection,
and generating recommendations that improve the quality of stakeholder technical
decisions.
– Fostering the core tenet of technical rigor.
– Enhancing mission success by focusing on the most complex, critical, high-risk
technical issues.
– Facilitating hands-on design & development experience

42


NESC Overview
Five years later – The NESC remains independent:

– Centrally managed and funded through the Office of Chief Engineer.
– Unaffiliated with and unbiased by any specific NASA Program or Center.
– Unaffected and unbiased by the Programs our teams evaluate.
– Has an independent engineering chain of command to assure an avenue for
consideration of all points of view.

43


NESC Overview
Five years later – NESC continues to cultivate an Agency-wide safety culture by:

– Modeling technical rigor and engineering excellence.
– Encouraging healthy tension during technical discussions.
– Cultivating an open environment & encouraging diversity of opinion.
– Promoting more-informed stakeholder risk-based decision-making.
– Fostering strong in-line checks and balances.
– Advocating safety as a vital component of design and development.

44


NESC Overview
NESC teams involve themselves in a variety of activities:

• Conducting technical assessments of high risk issues by reviewing data,
creating new data by performing independent testing and analysis, creating
data-driven findings and observations, generating solution-driven, preventative
or corrective recommendations that are rigorously grounded in team findings
and observations

• Engaging in forward-looking technical investigations, which may include
performing independent tests and analyses with high potential to advance
knowledge within a discipline.

• Performing design development and demonstration work, which may include
conducting design trade studies, performing preliminary design definition,
weights trades, structural analyses, systems analyses, detailed design work,
design integration work, and constructing full-scale test articles for laboratory
and flight testing.

45


NESC Overview
The NESC organization is comprised of just six offices

• Office of the Director – Leadership team located at Langley Research Center (LaRC).

• NESC Chief Engineers – Embedded executives, one at each Center, who provide
access and insight into Center-based Programs and Projects.

• Principal Engineers - Discipline generalists with systems engineering and project
management skills who lead assessment teams and advise other assessment team
leaders.

• Systems Engineers – Systems engineering and process specialists, who provide
system engineering and integration for assessments and other NESC activities.

• Management & Technical Support – Administrative management experts who provide
contracting and budgeting solutions for NESC teams and the leadership team.

• NASA Technical Fellows (Agency discipline experts) – Stewards for technical
disciplines, who form and lead Technical Discipline Teams (TDTs).

46


NESC Overview

Office of the Director
NASA HQ Senior S&MA
Integration Manager

Management and System Engineering Principal Engineers
Technical Support Office Office Office

NESC Chief Engineers NASA Technical Fellows
(one per center) (one for each of thirteen technical disciplines)
ARC MSFC Aerosciences Loads and Dynamics
Avionics Materials
JPL GRC Flight Mechanics Mechanical Systems
DFRC KSC Guidance, Navigation, and Non Destructive Evaluation
Control Propulsion
JSC GSFC Human Factors Software
SSC LRC Life Support/Active Thermal Structures

47


The NESC has created thirteen pools of discipline specialists called
Technical Discipline Teams (TDTs).

• Aerosciences
• Avionics
• Flight Mechanics
• Guidance, Navigation, and Control
• Human Factors
• Life Support/Active Thermal
• Loads and Dynamics
• Materials
• Mechanical Systems
• Non Destructive Evaluation
• Propulsion
• Software
• Structures

Each TDT is lead by a NASA Technical Fellow.

These standing teams of experts are the core of the NESC’s workforce.
48


TDT members are chosen by the NASA Technical Fellows:
• from industry
• from academia

They are selected based principally on their peer-recognized discipline
expertise and engineering excellence.

Demonstrated team skills are also a factor in selection:

• Collaboration • Record of success
• Humility meeting team goals
• Listening • Open-mindedness
• Creativity • Planning
• Tenacity • Negotiation

49


About one-quarter of TDT members are from outside of the Agency

The rest proportionally represent all 10 NASA Centers.

University
(4%)
NASA
(74%) Other
(1%)

• Other US Gov't
(4%)

Industry
(17%)
50


Building Broad-Based Teams
When forming broad-based teams, NESC goes beyond TDTs.

With consideration given to a team’s specific objectives, team leads purposefully
recruit additional technical experts and topic specialists:

• from industry
• from academia

This is done deliberately, to maximize diversity of technical thought.

The NESC brings NASA’s best engineers together from across the Agency,
and teams them with other experts from outside the Agency,
to address the Agency’s highest-risk, most-complex problems.

51


Diversity of technical thought derives from diversity of personal perspective.

Team members bring unique points of view that reflect their:

• Organizational cultures
• Business cultures
• Collegiate cultures
• Cultures related to geographic location
• Cultures related to age, race, and gender

52



NASA has a culture of engineers and scientists, but numerous “sub-cultures” are
apparent.

Each of the ten NASA Centers:

• performs unique types of work:
• human versus robotic
• launch vehicle, spacecraft, aircraft
• research, development. operations
• possesses a unique mix of experience.
• has different age demographics.
• has heritage strengths in design, analysis, and testing.
• holds different perspectives on the merits of emerging technologies.
• predisposition towards technology development versus technology acquisition.
• employs different analysis or testing methodologies.
• has different affiliations with proximally located colleges and universities.
• has affiliations with regional fabrication companies.
• has unique communication practices.
• has different business practices and different management cultures.

The NESC deliberately brings people together from multiple centers,
to leverage these differences.
53



Industry partners are recruited for NESC broad-based teams to add perspective and
improve knowledge - in areas where Agency team members may lack experience.

Those with product development experience are included on teams engaged in
design development activities - to help improve the skills of Agency team members
by facilitating hands-on design experience, and experience with integration,
configuration control, test planning, etc.

Team members from academia or from government national laboratories are often
included on NESC broad-based teams for their pertinent knowledge of relevant
emerging areas of research .

Partners from other government agencies are sometimes included on NESC broad-
based teams to bring non-space systems perspectives.

Teaming with experienced non-Agency partners assures valuable knowledge
transfer to Agency team members.

54


NESC includes young (“resident”) Agency engineers on broad-based teams,
who contribute:
• Knowledge of new tools
• Enthusiasm, energy, creativity

NESC contracts with retired (“grey beard”) Agency veterans, who provide:
• Perspective on heritage system design details
• Perspective on design decisions made on heritage systems
• Perspective on organizational issues

Working together provides the resident engineers with:
• Historical Agency perspective
• Recognition and understanding of lessons learned on heritage systems
• Hands-on design and development experience
• Improved Agency-wide familiarity

NESC Broad-Based Teams bring generations together to improve
Agency knowledge continuity.
55


56

Kelly 02/24/09
Am
e
sR
Je es
tP ea
rop rch
Dr uls Ce
yd ion
en nte
Fli La r
gh bo
tR rat
es ory
ea
rch
Ce
n te
r

Other U.S. government
entities, industry & academia

Jo
h ns
on
Sp
ac
eC
en
ter

St e
nn
is
Sp
Ma ac
rsh eC
all en
Gl Sp ter

en ac

nR eF
es lig
ea ht
rch Ce
n te r
r
Ke
nn
Go ed
dd yS
La ard pa
ng Sp ce
ley ac Ce
Re eF n te
se lig r
arc ht
hC Ce
en n te
ter r


57



58


Agency-Wide Benefits
The Agency benefits from broad-based teams at least five ways:

1. Innovative solutions are generated for Agency problems when teams
represent a broad diversity of thought and experience.

2. Inter-Center collaboration is vastly and permanently improved when
Agency-wide networks of expertise are created.

3. Near-term decisions are improved when the right technical information
is provided to decision makers at the right time.

4. Long-term decisions are improved when future decision-makers are
provided with hands-on experience today.

5. Mission safety and mission success is improved when the NESC’s
safety culture is proliferated across the Agency.

59


Benefit 1 – Innovative Solutions
Broad-based team members learn from each other when they are given a
common goal that requires them to share ideas and collaborate to find solutions.

NASA benefits when the readiness level of new technology (TRL) is advanced by
the innovative collaboration of a broad-based team.

Agency program or project stakeholders benefit when broad-based teams create

• novel findings and recommendations
• new analytical tools
• new physical tools
• inventive testing methods
• original inspection techniques

Agency programs or projects benefit when broad-based design development
teams deliver an innovative design or design feature that is adopted to replace a
similar design.

Bringing people with diverse perspectives together assures
innovative solutions that might not otherwise be possible.

60


Broad-based teams connect technical experts across the Agency – with each other and
with experts in industry, academia, and other U.S. Government agencies.

These connections are inter-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, inter-organizational and
cross-organizational.

NESC experience has shown that the resulting professional relationships persist after
the team’s work is complete. They endure long after the teams are disbanded:

• Team members continue to associate, meet, query, discuss, collaborate, and
learn from each other.
• Exchanges of technical information and ideas continue, regardless of
organizational association or geographic location.
• Experts leverage these associations to help them resolve new problems.

This benefit extends beyond the participants themselves, to their worksite associates,
who by virtue of their affiliation with their resident expert, are also connected to the
larger network of expertise.

Such broad-based teams persist and grow as a virtual team.

Networks of expertise are an enduring benefit for the Agency!

61


NESC broad-based teams have occasionally been reconstituted, in part or in whole,
for the purpose of tackling a new Agency task related to their original area of focus.

Examples of team members becoming assets to subsequent Agency activity include:

• Smart Buyer team members became an asset for the Orion Project

• Composite Crew Module (CCM) Conceptual Studies team members became an
asset for the CCM Design and Development Team

• CCM Design and Development Team members became an asset for the Orion
and Altair Projects

• Alternate Launch Abort System (ALAS) team members became an asset for
the Max Launch Abort Systems (MLAS) Team

• MLAS team members may become an asset for the Launch Abort System
(LAS).

Experienced broad-based team members bring value to new teams.

62


Benefits 3 & 4 - Better Decisions & Decision Makers
When broad-based teams deliver peer-reviewed findings and actionable
recommendations, stakeholder programs and projects gain insight that
improves their near-term decisions on high risk technical issues.

Agency team members that participate on broad-based design development
teams, gain personal insight into the complexity of full-scale system design and
development, integration, fabrication and testing, which makes them better-
informed decision-makers who will make better Agency design decisions for
the rest of their careers.

The Agency particularly benefits when such experienced, knowledgeable team
members accept key decision-making positions within the Agency.

Improving employee decision-making competence is a significant
legacy benefit for the Agency.

63


Benefit 5 – Exported NESC Safety Culture
NESC broad-based teams spread the NESC’s safety culture Agency-wide.

In 2008, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) Annual Report, called
for “efforts to institutionalize … NASA-wide programs to reinforce safety as
a core value within the Agency,” and to promote safety “as a paramount
decision-making consideration throughout NASA design, development, and
management.”

NESC broad-based teams cultivate an Agency-wide safety culture by:

• Modeling technical rigor and engineering excellence
• Encouraging healthy tension during technical discussions
• Cultivating an open environment, deliberately encouraging
diversity of opinion
• Advocating safety as a vital component of design and development
• Promoting more-informed stakeholder risk-based decision-making
• Fostering strong in-line checks and balances

Through the Agency-wide Network of Expertise that broad-Based teams create,
the NESC Safety Culture proliferates across the Agency.

64


Conclusion
The NESC has found that building diverse broad-based teams of technical
expertise from across the Agency, and from outside the Agency,
creates substantial benefits for NASA.

• Better-informed Agency near-term technical decisions

• More-experienced Agency decision-makers and consequently
better long-term technical decisions

• More innovative solutions to Agency problems

• Enduring Agency-wide networks of expertise

• Agency-wide proliferation of the NESC’s safety culture

65


Epilogue
The NESC has advantages that help us build broad-based teams:
• We have standing contracts with non-Agency TDT members.
• Funds are pre-positioned for Agency TDT members at all ten centers.
• NESC MTSO Office has analysts dedicated to coordinating new
contracts.
• NESC files are managed centrally.
• We have our own independent chain of command.
• Teams have clear accountability.
• NESC is a flat organization that allows maximum flexibility.

66


Kelly.michael

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