1、Lessons Learned Entry: 1793Lesson Info:a71 Lesson Number: 1793a71 Lesson Date: 2007-6-15a71 Submitting Organization: ARCa71 Submitted by: Donald MendozaSubject: Project Management: Misaligned Project Support Organizations Abstract: Center organizations must be adequately aligned with the needs of th
2、e projects they support. This is especially true for projects that are at the beginning of their life-cycle or at a critical milestone since inefficiencies and ineffectiveness at these junctures can propagate well into latter phases where they are significantly more difficult to correct or make up f
3、or.Description of Driving Event: The Project was aimed at the developing and running a mission which would attempt to confirm either the existence or absence of water ice on one of the moons poles. It was conceived to be a relatively fast-paced and low-cost Project and therefore leveraged as much ex
4、isting Agency and industry technology and experience as possible. In particular, the Project leveraged existing NASA systems by flying as a secondary payload onboard a vehicle launching a larger spacecraft intended to map the moons surface, its corporate partners spacecraft expertise, and the Center
5、s experience with the Lunar Prospector mission. Thus, as the Projects approach to reduce its cost and schedule was technology and experience leveraging it planned to rely heavily on support from the various Center line organizations including those responsible for systems management, procurement, pe
6、rsonnel, and acquisitions. Unfortunately, these organizations were not adequately aligned with this approach and the Project was forced to accomplish more “boot-strapping” than originally planned. However, the Projects experience during this time illuminated several opportunities which the Center ca
7、n address to improve its project management capabilities.Lesson(s) Learned: 1. Support or line Organizations (SMO, Procurement, Acquisitions, etc.) are not adequately in-line with the requirements of fast paced projects, especially during their spool-up period. Provided by IHSNot for ResaleNo reprod
8、uction or networking permitted without license from IHS-,-,-a. A line organizations timescale is much to long for critical items or services like procurements, document review/approval, export control, personnel actions, and logistics. Thus, the Project will have to devote much of its own time to be
9、coming proficient on rarely used tools and in shepherding the work of people outside its organization. b. Some line organizations may be too academic or geared towards providing their domain expertise through consultation rather than Project specific practice. However, Projects of this nature benefi
10、t more from “just-in time” hands on help rather than consultation. While this consultation may result in good advice, heavily resource constrained Projects just dont have the personnel to follow it up in a timely fashion. c. Most support organizations serve multiple projects and have their personnel
11、 located together, often in a location that is not convenient or accessible to the projects. Thus, a project will be required to spend lots of its time traversing to and from its support offices and waiting for service amidst all the Centers other work. 2. The issues described above are exacerbated
12、by the fact that the Center does not have an adequate mechanism to share and promulgate corporate knowledge or to capture it as people leave, thus each new project (and support staff) suffers unnecessarily with the same issues which plagued those who came before. Recommendation(s): 1. Centers should
13、 adjust their processes such that line and project organizations are better able to coordinate their respective schedules, especially during the projects spool-up period, this includes: a. Adjusting the line organizations timescales or turn-around times such that they can provide their services in t
14、ime to meet a Projects schedule. Thus, as a standard practice the Project should have a representative from each appropriate line organization (independent of any persons assigned to the project) review its schedule to ensure that their organization can meet it. b. Ensuring that, in addition to thei
15、r consulting services that support organizations have the resources to provide their domain expertise to the projects specific tasks in times of crisis or high activity. c. Providing projects with dedicated and co-located support or as a minimum the establishment of a shared resource center with a m
16、aster integrated schedule (integrated with that of all the Centers projects) in which multiple projects can get “just-in time” services. 2. Centers should establish an enterprise approach to project support such that the resources of all support services and offices can be coordinated via an integra
17、ted master schedule. This schedule should address the long and short term delivery of support as well as the sustained and “just-in time” delivery of support. a. Critical to this Centerwide integration of services is a mechanism to share and promulgate corporate knowledge. Therefore, Centers should
18、formalize a knowledge capture and dissemination system and ensure it is incorporated into appropriate employee training and development programs as well as into project planning tasks. Provided by IHSNot for ResaleNo reproduction or networking permitted without license from IHS-,-,-Evidence of Recur
19、rence Control Effectiveness: N/ADocuments Related to Lesson: N/AMission Directorate(s): a71 Space Operationsa71 Sciencea71 Exploration Systemsa71 Aeronautics ResearchAdditional Key Phrase(s): a71 Program Management.a71 Systems Engineering and Analysis.Additional Info: a71 Project: AllApproval Info: a71 Approval Date: 2008-08-07a71 Approval Name: mbella71 Approval Organization: HQProvided by IHSNot for ResaleNo reproduction or networking permitted without license from IHS-,-,-
