# Presentation: 142999

## Managing Big Science Projects:Avoiding the Near Death Experience

- Very large scientific projects attempt the near impossible. They involve new technology and measurements that have not been made before. They are invariably one of a kind efforts. Yet they must be designed and built and commissioned in a predictable manner. How can we avoid “low balling” that mega project on our horizon? Why must we use industrial strength planning and performance tracking when we never did that before and we got this far? There are techniques to do these things and there are new project models emerging.

## Managing Big Science Projects: Avoiding the Near Death Experience 

- Gary H Sanders, Thirty Meter Telescope Project, Caltech+UC+AURA+ACURA
- Fermilab Colloquium
- May 26, 2004

## LIGO – a centralized scientific tool

** **

- Hanford Observatory
- Washington
- Two interferometers(4 km and 2 km arms)

- Livingston Observatory
- Louisiana
- One interferometer (4km)

**Hanford, WA -> **

**<- Livingston, LA**

**Notes:**
LIGO is an example of a centralized scientific tool around which it is natural to build a large project and extended scientific community

## The near death experience lurks...

**Too many large scientific projects get into trouble**
**Trouble is diagnosed at vulnerable times**
**Projects are frequently reorganized**
**Some projects are canceled or they fail**
**The “review-cry-coach-review-cry-coach-fire-reorganize-review...” cycle as a learning tool**
**There has to be a better way**
**Spread case-based experience of scientist/managers to those in emerging projects**
**Make the scientist-specific cultural setting ****visible**

- Project
-      Science

## This Talk

**Culture**
**Big science is different from small science**
**Management goals in big science**
**The “linear project”**
**Complex projects**
**Structuring the linear project**
**New kinds of projects**

## Anthropology

## The Astronomer - Vermeer

## The Geographer - Vermeer

## The Collaborators – A Caltech “forgery”

## The training and filtering of scientists

**Undergraduate study – reading and problem sets**
**Filters out productive problem solvers**
**Graduate study – ****Apprentice**** research under an advisor**
**Absorb the advisor’s techniques and values**
**Early postdoctoral career – ****Independent**** ****contributor ****to research **
**Show independence, innovation, creativity, analytical and technical mastery, focus, teaming in small teams**
**Midcareer – ****Mentor**** in research**
**Confidence, mastery, emergence as a leader in a research field, strong focus, tenacious, competitive, seeker of “truth”**

## Work-motivation of scientists

**Among the most stable of work-motivations throughout one’s career********* are the need for:**
**Achievement**
**Affiliation**
**Power**
**The filtering process for scientists prefers achievement**
**Big science requires teams that value affiliation and power**

- * McClelland,D.,Motives, Personality and Society, New York: Praeger 1984

## Project Science as a culture

**Theoretical scientists**
**Experimental scientists**
**Project scientists**
**Three distinct cultures and temperaments**

## The project manager’s motto 			– the project mindset

- Project
-      Science

- “the better is the enemy of the good enough”

- “Il meglio e l'inimico del bene”
- Boccacchio, 14th century

## Small Science vs. Big Science

- Project
-      Science

- From discussions with Harry Collins

## Big science is public

**Everything about the conduct of big science must be transparent to the public**
**This is an ethical imperative**
**You are consuming resources that could make a difference to:**
**The public**
**Other recipients of the specific support**
**Other scientific opportunities**
**Your project’s resources are not an entitlement**
**You must be prepared to be on “60 Minutes”**

## The “Linear” Project

## The “Linear” Project: An Ideal

**Before we can create and manage a real world project we must be able to isolate the “ideal” project inside the real project**
**What are the identifying features of the ideal project?**
**The project that can be managed in a straightforward “linear” manner**

## The “Linear” Project

**Executing the project consists solely of carrying out a well defined plan**
**Project goals and requirements are stable**
**Sponsor support and funding are stable**
**Managing institutions do not confuse the goal of project success with their other goals**
**Resources are matched to project**
**Resources are really controlled in one project office**
**Project team owns the plan**
**The result is that the major risks are technical**
**Remaining risks are inexperience and human behavior**

- Project
-      Science

## Managing complex (nonlinear) projects

**Most real world projects are not linear projects**
**Nonlinear projects are managed with great ****management attention**** to nonlinear attributes**
**Diffuse goals steered towards project goal**
**Multiple resource bases coordinated through negotiation and consensus building rather than real control**
**Project replanning places heavy burden on leadership and erodes focus on and respect for project plan**
**Project is distracted by reinventing and rejustifying itself**

## Managing complex (nonlinear) projects

**Most nonlinear projects are managed without reference to a simple linear plan**
**How it could be**
**The most important things that should be managed for project success are the linear attributes**
**Nonlinear aspects are taken for granted and an accommodation is made and not seen as a complication**
**This accommodation is a slippery slope**
**Projects must strive to achieve a linear model as much as possible in order to minimize risk**

## Generic nonlinearities/complications...

**Major project replanning is caused by:**
**Project goals unstable**
**Politics interfere with project progress**
**project either follows politics or**
**tries to operate adaptively in the lee of the political winds**
**Sponsor attention or support varies within term of project**
**Annual funding does not follow either:**
**funding profile dictated by ****technical**** ****pace**** of project or**
**funding profile agreed to in a ****funding limited**** plan**

- Project
-      Science

## ...Generic nonlinearities/complications...

**Institutional setting of project poor**
**Operating laboratory management imperatives influence decision making, resource allocation, funds management**
**Project managers create, execute, dismantle**
**Operating lab managers conserve and adjust**
**Transient vs. continuous management**
**Host institutional culture and support infrastructure not matched to project**
**Institutional setting fragmented among disparate institutions**

- Project
-      Science

## ...Generic nonlinearities/complications...

**Project team members suffer cultural mismatch**
**traditional “small science” vs. “big science” gap**
**values system not matched to project science**
**project science not matched to traditional graduate student education, nor to tenure evaluation process**
**projects are successful because the contributions of many types of team members are combined, thus contributions must be matched to project needs and not just to academic meritocracy**
**team members do not respect the systems and processes of large projects**
**dysfunctional information sharing, information structure**
**Promotes fragmentation into small islands or “stovepipes” often along scientist/nonscientist lines**

- Project
-      Science

## ...Generic nonlinearities/complications

**Resources management decentralized**
**European model with independent institutes each controlling own budget and resources**
**Scientific creativity without formal change management**
**Project unable to “heal” or to confront surprise**

- Project
-      Science

## Organizing the Linear Project

## Organizing the Linear Project

**Project stages**
**Baseline**
**Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)**
**Organization**
**Cost Estimate and Risk**
**Schedule**
**Performance Measurement**

## Distinct stages in a project...

**Conceptual**** Definition to Reference Design**
**Reference Design ****Planning**** to Baseline Definition**
**...****to Final Design and ****Commitment**
**... ****to ****Industrialization**
**Execution and ****Performance**** Measurement**
**Integration**** and Plan to Completion**
**Endgame**

- “broke and done on the same day”

- Manage obligations

- Manage costs

## The baseline...

**Scientific requirements are defined and fixed**
**Technical requirements meet the scientific requirements and are fixed**
**Project deliverable is defined in a conceptual design**
**Subsystems are defined**
**interfaces are defined**
**Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) defines all work to be performed in the project including delivery of each subsystem and their integration **

- Project
-      Science

## ...The baseline

**Costs are estimated at the lowest level in the WBS**
**Schedule is developed following the WBS**
**Costs and other resources are integrated with the schedule to define the value of each scheduled activity, and a profile of obligations and costs**
**Risks are assessed at the cost estimate level in the WBS and a contingency pool of funds are defined for project-wide management of risks**
**Basis for performance measurement is established**

- Project
-      Science

## When to start defining the “baseline”?

**On day 1 with pencil sketch?**
**...**
**After conceptual reference design defined?**
**...**
**When sponsor makes full commitment?**
**...**
**At Final Design Review?**
**...**
**When “as-built” drawings are completed?**

## When to “baseline”?

**This question is very much misunderstood**
**Don’t delay**
**This leads to irresponsible softness in project team commitment to the reference design**
**“****After all, we aren’t baselined yet, so...”**

## Reference Design to Baseline Definition

**Put reference design under early configuration control as interim baseline**
**Grow a culture of disciplined work that fosters commitment to timely decisions**
**Team commits to “strawman”**
**Team learns process of orderly change**
**Team learns that work can now move forward**
**Team learns hierarchy of technology options and design choices**
**Baseline choice with fallback option and decision date**
**Equal options with decision date**
**Firm baseline choice with no option**
**Sponsor must recognize what this is**

## Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

## Project

-      Science

## Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

- Project
-      Science

## Project Organization

- Project
-      Science

## Cost Estimate - Basis

**Establish detailed Work Breakdown Structure**
**All estimating to be done “bottom up” by the engineers and scientists directly responsible for each item**
**scientist + engineer**
**Establish a written Cost Estimating Plan that defines uniform formats and procedures for all estimators**
**Each estimated item should have all information supporting the estimate for that item recorded in a standard Basis of Estimate worksheet for that item. The Basis sheet should be signed and dated by the estimator.**

- Project
-      Science

## Slide 38

## Project

-      Science

## Project

-      Science

## Project

-      Science

## Slide 42

## Slide 43

## Cost Estimate - Risk analysis

**Primitive method - bulk percentage rule of thumb**
**“****15% for civil works, 10% at contract signing”**
**“****30% for technical systems”...**
**Rates pronounced by grizzled veterans**
**Better method - Standard Risk Factor/Percentage**
**One method of this type described here**
**Best method – cost of point design response to each risk estimated one by one**
**not usually practical**

## (%Contingency used)/(% Project complete)

## Schedule Detail COC Pathfinder

**Schedule Detail COC Pathfinder**

## Schedule - Integration

**Project Management integrates detailed schedules and reviews all schedule ties between subprojects with those developing detailed schedules**
**Identify all ****Critical Paths**** ****(paths through schedule with no extra time (slack))**
**Test alternate approaches to Critical Path**
**Test alternate project strategies**
**Attempt to build schedule slack in critical operations**
**Develop menu of “work arounds” for anticipated schedule risks**

- Project
-      Science

## Slide 48

## Slide 49

## Slide 50

## LIGO Cost Schedule Status

- Project
-      Science

## LIGO – a centralized scientific tool

** **

- Hanford Observatory
- Washington
- Two interferometers(4 km and 2 km arms)

- Livingston Observatory
- Louisiana
- One interferometer (4km)

**Hanford, WA -> **

**<- Livingston, LA**

**Notes:**
LIGO is an example of a centralized scientific tool around which it is natural to build a large project and extended scientific community

## Project configurations

**Linear projects – ****LIGO (1994 – 2001)**
**Composite operating+project setting - ****NuMI**
**Multiple support sources - ****TMT**
**Collaborative projects – ****RSVP, Keck**
**Global projects – ****ALMA, ITER, Lin. Collider**
**Bottom-up collaboratories – ****NEES, Earthscope, NEON**
**“****Almost big” science – ****CDMS II, Borexino**

## Lessons for Big Science Projects

**Manage culture at the individual and group level**
**Structure the linear project inside your real project and make sure that you are managing both the linear attributes and the complications adequately**
**On day one, start to structure everything progressively as if it is a project**
**Big science is different from small science**
_**[http://www.projectscience.org](http://www.projectscience.org/)**__** for case studies**_