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Goddard Space Flight Centre Part A - Case 2
Goddard Space Flight Centre Part A - Case 2
While reading the Wall Street Journal, Edward Rogers noticed an advertisement for a
Knowledge Management Architect at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Though he was not particularly looking for a job, he felt that this ad closely described the focus
of his last 10 years of work. Rogers was an academic whose scholarship centered on developing
models of how and why people cooperated intellectually. He had taught at Cornell, Duke, and
the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The NASA position sounded like a marriage of many
of Rogerss long-term interests. After submitting his resume and completing the interview
process, Rogers was offered the position on a term appointment for three years. Following his
first month of work, during June of 2003, Rogers was left with more questions than answers.
Given the scope of NASAs projects, Rogers knew he had to have a road map but wondered
what it would look like. Where would he start? What should he actually do?
Edmund Sanders, Bush Taps Cost-Cutter to Head NASA, Los Angeles Times, 15 November 2001, A-22.
This case was prepared by Gerry Yemen and Professor James G. Clawson. The authors gratefully acknowledge the
support of the Goddard Space Flight Center for making the interviews possible and the case study participants
named throughout the case for their cooperation. It was written as a basis for class discussion rather than to
illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright 2004 by the University of
Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send an e-mail to
sales@dardenpublishing.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a
spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwisewithout the permission of the Darden School Foundation.
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The role of NASA centers varied depending on the program areas they supported. The
Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, which originally was an aircraft research lab,
specialized in research creating new knowledge and technologies like thermal protection systems
that enhanced NASAs interests.2 The Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Virginia
devised space and aeronautics technology and was the primary place for flight research.3 The
Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, produced and shared critical technologies addressing
national priorities through research, technology development, and systems development for safe
and reliable aeronautics, aerospace, and space applications.4 Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Maryland, was one of the leading U.S. laboratories to develop and operate unmanned
spacecraft as well as manage most of NASAs Earth observation, astronomy, and space physics
missions.5 The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was considered a leader in
aerospace and robotics research.6 Leading NASAs efforts in human space exploration, the
Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, housed the famous Mission Control Center and
astronaut training.7 Located on Floridas east coast, the Kennedy Space Center was the launch
site for hundreds of scientific, commercial, and applications spacecraft.8 The Langley Research
Center in Hampton, Virginia, specialized in aviation and space research for aerospace,
atmospheric sciences, and technology commercialization aimed at improving the way we live.9
The Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama, led the world in preparing humans for
space travel and the use of space for research and development.10 In Mississippi, the Stennis
Space Center tested rocket propulsion for flight-worthiness and worked with industry partners to
develop remote-sensing technology.11
Several of NASAs projects and programs12 provided an historical view of the kind of
missions the agency centers worked together to achieve.
Explorer Program
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This was the United Statess first successful attempt to launch unmanned space missions
and actually predated NASA (launched by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency). What began as
an effort to launch an artificial satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit on January 31, 1958, grew into the
longest running series of NASA spacecraft and provided numerous scientific missions ranging
from radiation belt meteorology to studying reactions between sunlight, ozone, and other
atmospheric constituents.
Project Mercury
This early human space flight set out to discover whether humans could survive
spaceflight, and involved six one-person flights. Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first American
to fly in space on May 5, 1961. This mission was suborbital and lasted for 15 minutes.13 On
February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn Jr. became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth.
Project Gemini
This project expanded space flight to include a two-person spacecraft. Gemini vehicles
flew 10 flights and on June 3, 1965, Edward H. White Jr. became the first U.S. astronaut to walk
in space.
Project Apollo
This project was intended to put a human on the moon and demonstrate American
prowess in science and technology. Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Buzz Aldrin Jr. were the
first astronauts to land on the moon on July 20, 1969, accomplishing what President Kennedy
had asked them to do. The Apollo project lasted 11 years and conducted 33 flights11 manned
and 22 unmanned. Big budgets and the successful landing of Apollo 11 on the moon built faith
among NASA employees, and America as a whole, that the organization was capable of
accomplishing impossible challenges and was the perfect place.14 A sense that the
organizations work was beyond mistakes permeated that cultureand the extraordinary quality
of NASAs workforce reinforced it.
Space Transportation System (STS)
This program was started to build a reusable Space Transportation System, more
commonly known as the Space Shuttle. It took nine years to develop and included six
vehiclesEnterprise (the first Space Shuttle Orbiter), Atlantis, Challenger (destroyed in 1986),
Columbia (destroyed in 2003), Discovery, and Endeavour (most recently built). The shuttles
launched into space like rockets and returned to Earth landing like gliders. The orbiter
comfortably accommodated eight people but could carry as many as tennot so comfortably.
13
Stephan J. Gerber and Roger D. Launius, A Brief History of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, <http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/factsheet.htm> (Accessed on June 4, 2004).
14
Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Vol 1, August 2003: 102.
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The Shuttle was intended to provide low-cost, frequent access to space. Sally K. Ride became
the first American female to fly in space on June 18, 1983. When compared to Apollo, this
project had less public support and government funding. The increased bureaucracy and
heightened use of outside contractors that went along with the shrinking budgets changed the
NASA culture internally.15 Resources became scarcer and competition between NASA agencies
to get a slice of the funding increased (see Exhibit 1).
The accidental and tragic loss of the Challenger and Columbia crews and vehicles gave
rise to the process of organizational learning and its implications at NASA.
Project
Leadership
(APPL)
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could do. It is an adult to adult thing. They are passionate about their work but
want cooperation, not a dictation.
As we thought about improving and how we could to do better than mandatory
training, an important idea kept swirling around. In every organization people
know who the best are and usually want to be just like them. Since we had access
to the very best project managers, on any given assignment at NASA, we thought
we could get them together to share their stories so others could learn from them.
Hoffman, a graduate of Columbia University, earned his PhD in behavioral sciences. He
spent his entire career at NASA and dedicated his scholarship and work to participative
management, team building, and organizational learningand had made a lot of progress. It
was Hoffmans approach to learning that laid the foundation for APPL, which started with
project managers sharing stories. His group asked agencies for access to the best of the best
project managers and was sent people from the U.S. Department of Defense and across NASA
Centers. These project managers told Hoffman and his group stories about key challenges they
faced in their careers and on projectsand how they overcame problems. For nearly one-and-ahalf years, Hoffman listened and discovered that these stories were about competent, dedicated,
passionate people working together and leading in several functional areas. He also learned that
trust was the most important ingredient: All stories collaborated through trust. They needed
trust relationships with industry partners, agency partnerspeople who wanted to be
successful.
As the end of the meetings approached, most participants stated their desire to continue
but felt the learning had to be something that was driven by volition rather than directive. Once
that was clear, participants started recommending other talented people to Hoffman. As word
spread, the effort grew into larger forums, and every NASA agency asked to be included. By
late 2000, these stories were combined into a book called Project Management Success Stories.18
The endeavor continued with the birth of a magazine called ASK: Academy Sharing
Knowledge.19 The workshop activities eventually replaced the CM program for learning as it
grew into the Academy of Program and Project Leadership. By 2003, APPL had matured into an
organization that supported individual practitioners, project teams, and NASA projects and
programs at every level of growth. APPL provided products and services like knowledgesharing events and publications to help leaders manage risk, maximize human capital, contain
costs, maintain project schedules, and develop high-performance teams to promote mission
success.20 APPL helped develop project leadership through career development processes and
programs, and eventually NASA project leaders were getting together with business leaders from
the corporate world to share their experiences.
18
Alexander Laufer and Edward J. Hoffman, Project Management Success Stories: Lessons of Project Leaders
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2000).
19
At the time this case was written, the ASK publication could be accessed online at
<http://appl.nasa.gov/ask/issues/18/overview/index.html>.
20
Letter from the Director <http://appl.nasa.gov/about/overview/index.html> (Accessed 11/15/2004).
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When Goddard Space Flight Center advertised for a KM Architect, Hoffman could not
have been more pleased. This was a clear indication to him that the center was committed to
fostering a learning culture. Hoffman thought about how he could best help the new KM
architect to get more done.
21
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The key to Goddards success, according to Diaz, was creativity and the ability to attract the best
and brightest people necessary to achieve the NASA mission. He explained:
There is a traditional attraction, since NASA does things that no one else can.
The people who come to work at the center matter. So what keeps them here? ...
the three elements of our human capital strategy1) opportunity to work here, 2)
having the resources necessary (sustainable workload), and 3) an environment
hospitable to the values employees bring to work (value-centered management
practice). I believe that people are the key to our success.
The organizations set of values had been listed on the last page of Goddards annual
reports since 2000:
Agility: Anticipating the future, leading change, and adapting quickly are crucial to
thriving in a dynamic environment.
Balance: An employees work life and personal life, including health, family,
community involvement, and other interests, contribute to the vitality both of the
individual and of the center.
Creativity: Freedom to explore new ideas stimulates discovery, fosters innovation, and
leads to more effective ways of doing work.
Integrity: Trust, fairness, honesty, and accountability for our actions are the cornerstones
of personal and organizational integrity.
Respect: Diversity among people and their ideas is an inherent strength as we work
toward fulfilling Goddards mission.
Teamwork: Accomplishments result from successful teams, both internal and external to
the center, that capitalize on the strengths and contributions of every team member.
Diaz believed that a cornerstone of his responsibility as a leader was to provide the
resources to ensure the organizations people and values could thrive. Human capital was very
important to Diaz and he was keenly interested in keeping good employees. He stated, Part of
making sure the resources are available includes making sure they dont have to learn something
that was already learned over again. This is a wasted resource. New resources were meant to
focus on doing things that had not been done before. One thing Diaz was confident would help
the agency reduce learning over and over was hiring someone skilled in knowledge
management (KM) who could orchestrate Goddards KM efforts. Diaz was committed to the
importance of Goddard being a learning organization.
KM was an agency-wide, NASA-mandated initiative since January of 2000. Each center
was to develop its own strategic plan and coordinate implementation with other NASA centers,
but Diaz had already worked toward moving past a mandated policy. Although he saw
Goddards culture as being open to innovation in the area, he was aware of several obstacles he
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believed a KM architect would face. First he thought that the history of KM was too academic.
So a KM architect would have to be convincing enough to change very smart peoples minds to
see that instead of an academic exercise, KM was an issue of survival.
Next, even though the amount of attention paid to generational knowledge loss had
increased, Diaz still saw a need for more recognition. The use of oral histories combined with
the aging workforce made saving this knowledge even more urgent.
Diaz also wanted employees to recognize the importance that KM played in mission
safety. Part of his strategy was to include the library as a starting point to help keep missions
safe. He supported moving the library from its traditional role to an advocacy role. With the use
of appropriate technology to extract and retain information, Diaz wanted the library to index and
transform data. Ultimately, Diaz envisioned project development seeking help from the library
staff to capture project knowledge to be indexed for easy accessshould it ever be needed.
Sadly, on February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was accidentally destroyed, killing all
seven crew members on board. Sorrow and shock permeated the entire agency, and Goddard
employees felt a deep sense of loss. The Columbia tragedy brought back painful memories of
the Challenger accident 14 years earlier. Newspaper editors wondered if NASA had learned the
lessons of Challenger or if the agency was repeating the same mistakes.24
Implementing ideas like KM cost money, and Diaz explained how Goddard was funded:
The institution is funded through program funds. Program funds flow from
NASA headquarters to the program offices through the institution. As a
consequence, I get a delegation of resources from NASA headquarters to do
something specific that is associated with a program. We fund the institution and
maintain our capabilities using those same funds. At any given point in time at
Goddard, there are 60 or so space flight projects and thousands of individual
grants that are funded directly to investigators in science and technology. So
overall we might deal with 6,000 transactions a year that convey resources from
NASA headquarters or, in some instances, from other government organizations
to Goddard. None of the resources are specifically dedicated to organization
maintenance.
We have a very robust and well-developed process for identifying institutional
needs from the standpoint of maintenance of capabilitiesboth in terms of the
physical plant, as well as the intellectual capital. So we extract resources from the
program funds that we get to maintain and invest in capabilities necessary. We
share that strategy for investment with headquarter officesthey are
stakeholdersin much the same way an industrial organization would share with
governmental customers their strategies for internal research and development
activities. Taxpayers supply about 2.5 to three billion dollars associated with
specific mission-related activities and we fund the institution through those.
24
Editorial Desk, Investigation of a Tragedy, New York Times, 3 February 2003, A-24.
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While working on the Mercury laser project, the team discovered an unclean optic lens
during an inspection. There was documentation from the previous project so we had the name of
the technician who had signed off the sheet that the lens on their project was clean but there was
nothing to show whether the lens had been cleaned or was simply clean. Some team members
recalled the lenses actually coming from the supplier already cleaned. Others thought they may
have cleaned the lens at Goddard. Limited numbers of people had that knowledgehow do you
find them? It took several phone calls to reach the technician who had signed off the previous
projects sheet and he said, Oh, no. They dont come from the supplier cleanwe do wet
wipes. That experience got us started working on a Yellow Pages of Experts that included
names of experts and the projects they had worked on so at least you would know where to start
looking for more information
While waiting for her first project to be launched, Novo-Gradac was put in charge of the
Laser Risk Reduction Program. One of the first things she did was hire one full-time team
member to develop a knowledge management task within the program. She had to track down
the documents from four projects and develop a plan of how to make those documents accessible
to the NASA laser community. Novo-Gradac said, Our ultimate goal is to upload the most
critical information into a searchable online electronic library and have the less critical
documents sorted in their existing format in a safe accessible location. That team member had
to dredge through three or four projects-worth of information to sort out what deserved to be in
the electronic library. This was a labor-intensive project with many hours of work spent
slogging through boxes and boxes of material and developing appropriate search keywords for
the information. Novo-Gradac said, We need an architect who knows what information is being
gleaned and then tell us how to keep it and make it accessible.
One of the dilemmas the organization faced was that the cost curve of building a KM
system upfront was so high that many wondered if it was worth doing all that work just in case
someone might need it. As Novo-Gradac remembered:
The director of the organization (NASA Earth Science Technology Office) that
provided funding for the Laser Risk Reduction Program had to be convinced of
the value of developing a database of laser related knowledge. Money for that
would have to come out of the current program manager budget. He thought we
were going to focus on developing the software/hardware for a knowledge
database. And he had seen several such efforts that were under-utilized. He was
hesitant and not interested in paying for another database that no one used. We
had to convince him that instead of designing software, we were focused on
collecting valuable information and uploading into an already existent data
management resource. We explained that the reason the other databases went
unused was that the content was weak. He reluctantly agreed to fund us for a
year, and during that year he came to understand what we were trying to do. Then
he became much more enthusiastic about spending his money on the activity.
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the organization, and the 10 weeks he spent with NASA provided him with an awareness of the
amazing capabilities of the agencys workforce.
When Rogers read the information about Goddards search for a Knowledge
Management Architect, he was intrigued. First, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and
second, he asked himself how many PhDs in knowledge management from top-tier schools were
there in the United States? The search announcement read:
Knowledge Management Architect for term of three-year appointment:
Integrate the human capital, process, and technology aspects of the centers cutting edge
knowledge management strategy.
Systematically capture and share critical knowledge for a unified knowledge network.
Serve as advisor to management and provide leadership at NASA for working groups on
knowledge management policy, processes, and techniques.
A government job was never something Rogers had considered. But after talking it over
at home, he decided to respond with a statement about his philosophy regarding knowledge
management. If his letter resonated, he thought he would hear from Goddard and if it didnt then
it was probably not an effort I wanted to be a part of anyway (see Exhibit 4). Although
Rogers received a notification of application postcard in November of 2002, he heard nothing
else from Goddard for three months.
With the approach of a new academic year, Rogers was beginning to wonder if NASA
was still interested. So in March of 2003, he called Goddard to see if the search was still active.
The KM position had been advertised nationwide in places where government jobs were not
regularly advertisedlike in the Wall Street Journal. He found out the center was committed to
addressing knowledge issues, had a timetable for a beginning of summer start, and believed they
needed an academic inside NASA working on KM. The Columbia tragedy (in February of 2003)
had only added pressure for NASA to show that it was learning from its past mistakes. Rogers
made his own views clear and helped define what he hoped the position would entail. He
listened to the reasons that were being given for hiring someone with his background:
The original approach to KM had been much like how NASA solved engineering
problems; hire experts and put a team on it to solve the structural problem.
Organizational issues were now at the level where it was acknowledged as important and
persistent, yet it was a functional area that few people understood well.
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KM was not a problem that could be solved by hiring a consultant. Instead, KM was an
endemic part of organizational structure that needed to be understood in-house and
worked on in a consistent manner.
Rogers felt that if Goddard recognized these issues, he would take on the challenge.
Bringing what he called smartness into a center already full of clever people was an
assignment he felt was challenging enough to warrant abandoning his academic aspirations. The
KM architect position at Goddard fit like a glove with a career plan vision Rogers had written in
1994 while applying for another job (see Exhibit 5). After flying to Goddard and interviewing
in the latter part of March, Rogers was offered the job starting May 13, 2003. He returned to
Huntsville and resigned from the university.
After one full month under his belt, Rogers wondered how he should proceed helping
Goddard Space Flight Center become a learning organization. It was, in fact, the kind of
opportunity he had looked forward to for many yearsbut what would his plan of attack look
like? How could he help this collection of rocket scientists and engineers work together better?
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Exhibit 1
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
Changes in Federal Spending 19932002
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Exhibit 1 (continued)
NASA Budget
Fiscal
Year
1965
1975
1985
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
NASA Budget
Real Dollars Constant Dollars (in
(millions)
FY 2002 millions)
5,250
24,696
3,229
10,079
7,573
11,643
14,310
17,060
14,570
16,965
13,854
15,790
13,884
15,489
13,709
14,994
13,648
14,641
13,653
14,443
13,601
14,202
14,230
14,559
14,868
14,868
15,335
NA
(requested)
15,255
NA
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Exhibit 2
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
Goddard Missions
Goddard Missions
Year
Projects
2001
2002
2003 Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer (CHIPS)
STS-107, Fast Reaction Experiments Enabling Science Technology Applications and Research (FREESTAR) Hitchhiker
Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE)
Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX)
Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF)/Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
All-Canadian Science Satellite, SCISAT-1
Coupled Ion-Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI)
Swift
Source: Compiled from Goddard Space Flight Center Annual Reports.
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Exhibit 3
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
Goddard Employees1
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Exhibit 4
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
Statement of Research and Career Interests
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Exhibit 5
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
My Career Plans
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