A P P L

IN THIS ISSUE

Looking Back, Looking Forward

by Todd Post

Ha rd to believe we ' ve done six issues alre a d y. Our charter was to come out bim o n t h l y, and only 9-11 slowed down our production schedule. You see there, not

e ven a terrorist attack can stop ASK. Big kudos to our design team led by Jo e y

and John only blocks away from the World Trade Center who quickly brought us

back online. 

It's been a great year for all of us on the ASK staff, but especially for me. I want

to thank eve ryone who has contributed time and energy to the project, most of

all to the storytellers in and out of NASA. Yo u ' ve been terrific, and so have our

readers, eve ry one of you. 

At ASK our creed is 'For Practitioners by Practitioners,' and this issue, I believe ,

goes a long way tow a rds re i n f o rcing that. At ASK we respect practitioners in all

fields and know in our hearts that the good ones share universal characteristics

such as passion, curiosity, open mindedness, and a big heart to share what they

k n ow with those who don't. In this issue, we not only showcase stories by NASA

p roject manager practitioners, we feature stories by practitioners from a va r i e t y

of places we haven't visited before. 

For instance, I hope you will look with special interest at Arnold Ma rder's story

this issue about the world of metallurgy and materials science. Ma rder celebrates

an exceptional practitioner in that field. While Ma rder's story is not about pro ject management dire c t l y, we think you will re c o g n i ze a number of similarities

b e t ween the hero of the story and the best project managers. 

Julie Pollitt in her story "Even Politics is Project Wo rk" describes her recent transition from being a NASA project manager to serving on Capitol Hill as a Science

and Technology Fe l l ow for Congressman Tony Hall of Oh i o. When Pollitt got to

C o n g ress she had no idea how useful her background as a project manager would

be in writing legislation on military aerospace issues. 

Since I've already reflected on where we ' ve been this ye a r, I might as well say a

little something about where we ' re going. In upcoming issues we intend to pre sent a great variety of perspectives for you. ASK agents are hot on the trail of some

of the most intriguing and unique practitioners in their fields. 

ASK 6 also includes two more stories on the Pathfinder solar-powe red airplane

p roject, precursor to the amazing Helios prototype that was so much in the new s

this summer when it flew to nearly 100,000 feet. Reading Ray Morgan's story

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 3

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Todd Post is the editor of A S K

Magazine and works for

E d u Tech Ltd. in Silver Spring,

Maryland. He recently had an

article published in K n o w l e d g e

M a n a g e m e n t on A S K

Magazine and the use of storytelling as part of the

Knowledge Sharing initiative at

N A S A .

You can contact Todd at

t p o s t @ e d u t e c h l t d . c o m

and tell him what you think

about this issue of A S K .
" Hangar Bash" and Dougal Maclise's "The Only Thing You Need To Know" will

g i ve you a project manager's perspective both from industry and NASA. In the

past three issues we ' ve published other stories by members of the Pa t h f i n d e r

team. We ' ve elected to do so because you voted for it. We heard from our re a ders that they we re interested in learning more about a project from different pers p e c t i ves. The Pathfinder case study is the start of our answer to that request. We

also intend to present case studies of other projects over the next ye a r. 

I'm sure this next year at ASK is going to be as exciting as the one that just past.

We ' ve got plenty of stories lined up for you alre a d y. Keep telling us what interests you, and we'll make it happen. As Sh e r ry Buschmann, the subject of our

i n t e rv i ew this issue, says, "Se r i o u s l y, I believe communication counts for eve rything." Couldn't say it better myself. Don't be bashful. Tell us what you think. 

Best wishes. 

Todd Po s t

A P P L

Issue 6 IN THIS ISSUE

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Looking Back, Looking Forward (cont’d)

page 4
A P P L

F R O M T H E D I R E C TOR’S DESK

Saturday With Sinatra

by Dr. Edward Hoff m a n

Much of what I know about success and leadership comes from my early experiences working at Abada International, a small import / e x p o rt company based in

New Yo rk City, and its colorful owner Joe Abada. Joe did not perfect his leadership style using books or by parroting the latest highfalutin' theory; rather, he

built the company from nothing to a success through common sense and hard

w o rk. 

This was several years before my career at NASA, meaning I was a ve ry yo u n g

man at the time. Befitting my level of experience, the job position had no title.

It was assumed that my work re vo l ved around the re q u i rements of the day and

the needs of the business. Ge n e r a l l y, assignments centered on maintenance of the

building, preparing inve n t o ry for shipment and repairing damaged goods. 

The work was straightforw a rd and hard, requiring attention to detail and adapta b i l i t y. For example, once a month I was expected to clean the ro o f. A New Yo rk

City roof was not high on my list of pre f e r red work activities. Aside from the general soot and dirt, invariably there was unrecognizable organic or inorganic matter that I would inspect from the end of a broom and often try to avoid. Fro m

my roof responsibilities, I learned the importance of intuitive leadership. 

Joe would never dictate how to do an assignment, but he would clearly define the

task and trust you to get it done. At the appropriate time he would nonchalantly walk around and start talking, promptly providing me with clear feedback on

the work. He would always check the corners. I tended to do a poor job with the

corners because, in my experience, the strangest looking cre a t u res always decaye d

in the corners. 

T h e re was never any lack of clarity with Joe. Either it was good work or I would

be given specific examples of my sub-performance. If the work we re not up to

s t a n d a rd (and standards we re high), the work was done again until it was right. I

learned the importance of cleaning the corners. Forget about trying to hide the

d i rt. 

One of the things that endeared me to Joe and why I still appreciate his genius

was what I learned from him on the Sa t u rday shift. During the evening hours we

listened to a radio show called "Sa t u rday with Sinatra." Joe loved listening to

Sinatra, and had no qualms about working to the sound of Ol' Blue Eyes. Un t i l

it ended, we stayed and worked with the music blasting in the background. 

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 5

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Dr. Edward Hoffman is Director

of the NASA Academy of

Program and Project

Leadership. He is responsible

for the development of program

and project leaders and teams

within NASA. Dr. Hoffman

develops training curricula, consulting services, research projects and special studies in program and project management.

You can contact him at 

ehoffman@hq.nasa.gov.
St r a n g e l y, despite the long hours, it was fun. T h e re was a pride in having the

stamina to put in those hours, and the fun was on account of the music. Ha rd

w o rk and high standards are important, but so is taking care of yo u r s e l f, and if

that means improving the environment so that you enjoy being there, then turn

up your radios and play what makes you happy. 

A P P L

Issue 6 F R O M T H E D I R E C TOR’S DESK

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Saturday With Sinatra (cont’d)

page 6
A P P L

LETTER FROM THE EDITO R - I N - C H I E F

Applying General Principles to Unique Situations

by Dr. Alexander Laufer

Good project managers understand that it is important to invo l ve the customer in

the project deeply. In vo l vement can mean a lot of things, but generally it re q u i re s

the project manager to listen to and be re s p o n s i ve to the customer's needs. 

Listening and re s p o n s i veness do not mean always accepting the customer's point

of view. Let me share with you two examples in which customers we re deeply

i n vo l ved in the projects, but the extent to which their initial demands we re met

d i f f e red considerably. 

One project entailed the design and building of a facility for ecological re s e a rc h

and was operated by a local university (the customer) at a site operated by the

De p a rtment of Energy (DOE). The facility would house a ve t e r i n a ry-type clinic

for observation, surgery and autopsy of small animals. As most of the re s e a rc h e r s

using the facility would have offices in other locations, the customer re q u i re d

only a single telephone line for the entire facility. 

The DOE site manager decided that the facility must comply with DOE stand a rds, and this included multiple phone lines, fiber optics, computer capability,

and a fire notification system. These applied to all new facilities constructed no

matter what their functions. 

The customer was furious when informed of this because these re q u i re m e n t s

we re going to add substantial cost to the project, and the customer had a limited budget. At that point the customer proposed doing away with all the communication lines to the facility, settling for a cellular phone. The DOE site manager still found this idea unacceptable; all facilities located on site must be on the

site system. 

It was a delicate situation for the DOE project manager, whose job was to provide oversight of the project and serve as the go-between for the customer and the

DOE site manager. Despite the site manager's re q u i rements, the project manager was convinced that the customer was right. Under these unique circ u m s t a n c e s ,

the Project Manager believed the DOE standard was inappropriate. The site

manager howe ver was adamant about his re q u i rements. Thus, the Pro j e c t

Manager decided to take the case to DOE headquarters and argue on behalf of

the customer. 

In this case, a waiver was granted. The facility was constructed with a single

phone line, and the project was completed within budget. 

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 7

“

Despite the site mana g e r’s requirements,

the project manager

was convinced that

the customer was

r i g h t .

”

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

D r. Alexander Laufer is the

Editor-in-Chief of A S K

Magazine and a member of

the Advisory Board of the

N A S A Academy of Program

and Project Leadership. He is

also a visiting professor in the

Civil Engineering Department

at the University of Maryland

at College Park and Dean of

Civil Engineering at Te c h n i o n -

Israel Institute of Te c h n o l o g y.

You can contact him at

allaufer@askmagazine.org. 
In the second project, led by the same Project Ma n a g e r, the mission was to design

and build a new facility to test products for five different customers. The new

facility was to provide environmental test chambers that could quickly raise and

l ower temperatures. Each customer had completely different temperature

re q u i rements for the products that we re to be tested. This meant that the facility had to provide multiple ovens or additional environmental chambers to satisfy all the different re q u i rements. The result was that the total estimated cost of

the facility was much higher than the approved budget. 

The Project Manager approached the customers separately and tried to get them

to relax their re q u i rements so that the project would be able to meet its budget.

The customers listened to him, but we re clear that they could not compro m i s e

on their re q u i rements. While the Project Manager wanted to satisfy his customers, he re a l i zed that unless he found a way to get them to relax their re q u i rements they would all wind up with nothing. T h e re f o re, he decided to appro a c h

them one more time and to ask them to relax their re q u i rements, but this time

he approached them as a gro u p. 

Each customer was provided with the temperature ranges re q u i red by all the

other four. They all we re requested to adjust their re q u i rements to the next closest set of re q u i rements. At first, there was resistance to changing anything. Each

customer felt that the re q u i rements could not be changed. But once they re a l i ze d

that unless they collaborated, none of them would get anything, they work e d

together to streamline their re q u i rements so the project could succeed. By combining re q u i rements, they we re able to reduce by half the number of ovens and

e n v i ronmental test chambers. In the case of special needs, small units would be

p u rchased at a greatly reduced cost. Since fewer units we re needed, the size of the

facility was likewise reduced. 

In both examples the project manager worked with the customers and met budget constraints. Howe ve r, in the first case he was willing to confront authorities in

o rder to meet the customer's re q u i rements, while in the second case he conf ronted the customers and convinced them to modify their re q u i rements. T h e s e

two examples demonstrate that when it comes to meeting customer needs, context is the key. 

A P P L

Issue 6 LETTER FROM THE EDITO R - I N - C H I E F

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Applying General Principles to Unique Situations (cont’d)

“

Context is the key.

”

page 8

“

While the Project

Manager wanted to

satisfy his customers,

he realized that

unless he found a

way to get them to

relax their requirements they would all

wind up with nothing.

”
L e s s o n s

• Is the customer always right? Generally yes, but sometimes in order to serve the

customer properly you have to persuade the customer to see beyond what they think

they need to what is in the best interests of the project. This is especially true when

pursuing all goals means getting none of them. 

• You should always involve customers in a project, but you should not adopt a onesize-fits-all approach for satisfying their needs. You must recognize that situations

and customers are different, and therefore they demand a different response.

Context is the key. 

• When necessary, the project leader must fight for flexibility of standards to benefit

the unique needs of a customer. 

A P P L

LETTER FROM THE EDITO R - I N - C H I E F

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Applying General Principles to Unique Situations (cont’d)

page 9
A P P L

Issue 6 S TO R I E S

Even Politics is Project Work 

(Or the US Congress is Looking for 

a Few Good Project Managers)

by Julie A. Pollitt

Why put my career at NASA on hold for a year to become a Science and

Technology Policy Fe l l ow on Capitol Hill? The way I look at it, why not? W h a t

does working in the U.S. Congress have in common with working as a pro j e c t

manager in the world of aerospace? Su r p r i s i n g l y, a lot! 

I had been working in the civil aerospace world for 12 years, at least half of them

as a project manager, and all with NASA. I thought Congress would be an interesting change, a way to broaden my background. I wanted to understand the

b readth of national aerospace policies, both civil and military, and from that pers p e c t i ve Congress is the center of the action. In addition, I wanted to see how

decision-making in Congress affects what we work on at NASA and at other federal agencies. My ticket to Capitol Hill came by way of the American Society of

Mechanical Engineers Federal Government Fe l l owship Pro g r a m .[ 1 ]

Many people don't re a l i ze it, but nowadays almost eve ry issue that comes up on

the Hill has a science or technology component to it. Most congressional staff do

not have a background in science or engineering. Thus, Science and Te c h n o l o g y

Policy Fe l l ows are in high demand. 

I went to work for Congressman Tony Hall of Dayton, Ohio because he was

looking for someone specifically able to work on aerospace issues. Congre s s m a n

Hall is re g a rded as a leader on the Hill in pushing for more Re s e a rch and

De velopment (R&D) in military aerospace. The majority of this science and

technology work is done by the Air Fo rce. From my point of view, it was a gre a t

o p p o rtunity to learn the aspects and issues of military aero s p a c e .

I was responsible for three pieces of legislation for Congressman Hall. T h e s e

pieces of legislation affect the U.S. Air Fo rce and relate to access-tos p a c e / reusable launch vehicles, aging aircraft, and the insufficient investment in

defense aerospace science and technology. Being responsible means that I

re s e a rched the issues, originated the legislative ideas, drafted the legislation, and

sold it to key committees and other offices on the Hill, all within the bro a d

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 1 0

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Julie A. Pollitt is currently a

Science and Te c h n o l o g y

Fellow in the U.S. Congress,

working on military aerospace

issues. Previously she was a

project manager on a variety

of programs at NASA's A m e s

Research Center, where she

began her aerospace career in

1988. In future job assignments she hopes to blend her

technical background, project

management experience and

her knowledge of the workings

of Congress.

[1] The American Society of Mechanical Engineers joins approximately thirty other scientific and engineering societies in sending representatives to work in the U.S.

Congress each year. These individual fellowship programs are then coordinated

under the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 
f r a m ew o rk established by Re p re s e n t a t i ve Hall. I was given full staff re s p o n s i b i l ity for getting it passed. Passing legislation re q u i res the staffers to work hand-inhand with the congressman who sells it to his peers. Cu r re n t l y, all three pieces

h a ve been passed by the House of Re p re s e n t a t i ves and are in conference negotiation between the House and Senate. This legislation will be part of the Na t i o n a l

Defense Authorization Bill for FY2002. 

Of the three, the Air Fo rce Science and Te c h n o l o gy Act for the 21st Ce n t u ry[ 2 ] w a s

by far the most complex. It re q u i red me to draw from eve ry aspect of my backg round as a NASA project manager. This piece of legislation addresses deficiencies within the Air Fo rce's planning and budgeting processes. These pro c e s s e s

decide their science and technology program top-line budget and inve s t m e n t

p o rt f o l i o. 

A P P L

S TO R I E S

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Even Politics is Project Work (cont’d)

page 1 1

[2] This legislation can be found at the following internet address:

http://thomas.loc.gov/ by performing a search for Bill HR 2659 from the 107th

C o n g r e s s .

“

Many people don’t

realize it, but nowadays almost every

issue that comes up

on the Hill has a science or technology

component to it.

”

Julie Pollitt and Congressman Tony Hall of Ohio in Hall's office on Capitol Hill.
C o n g ressman Hall, partly because of his close relationship with the Wr i g h t -

Patterson Air Fo rce Base in Ohio, has been pushing the Air Fo rce to invest more

in re s e a rch and development (R&D) for years. Of all the armed services, the Air

Fo rce is the only one whose R&D budget has dropped significantly in the past

10 years--46% since 1989. Perhaps even more alarming, the Air Fo rce budget has

potential gaps in future technologies, such as those to address emerging thre a t s

like terrorism. Congressman Hall wanted me to legislatively reinstate a long-term

planning process that had been absent in the Air Fo rce since the mid-1990's. I

actually took it a step furt h e r. I looked at the entire planning and budgeting system of the Air Fo rce. 

I was operating under the premise that if the Air Fo rce is not investing in R&D,

then there may be more than the absence of a specific long-term planning pro c e s s

c reating barriers to R&D advo c a c y. T h e re may be barriers throughout their entire

planning and budgeting system. At the same time, I looked at the changes they

had recently made to see how these might help the situation. Ha ve they gone far

enough? Is there something more that should happen? Should we wait a year or

two and see if the changes are effective? Should we make them prove that the

changes are effective to solve the problem? I was trying to think both about

p rocesses and results, the past and the future .

My project management training and experience was important at many points

during the creation of successful legislation. Re s e a rching an issue is ve ry similar

to the project re q u i rements phase. Once you understand the problem that needs

to be solved, you then conceive a "conceptual design" of legislation to address the

issue. You may even create a multi-year legislative plan to attack the issue.

Fu rt h e r, you need to decide what monies may be re q u i red by the affected federal agency to implement the legislation. This must be budgeted for by Congress. 

All decisions and legislation in Congress pass through a committee system. T h e

committee which has jurisdiction over the issue decides what legislation passes or

"dies in committee." Pa rt of the legislative plan is to decide what information,

money requests, or legislative language must be provided to the committee in

time to influence their decision points. T h e re is a sense of timing and deadlines,

the same as with any critical project. 

The first point where my background came into play was in understanding the

Air Fo rce science and technology investment issue. At NASA I learned how to

A P P L

Issue 6 S TORIES: JULIE A. POLLITT

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Even Politics is Project Work (cont’d)

page 1 2

“

My project management training and

experience was

important at many

points during the creation of successful

l e g i s l a t i o n .

”
p e rform complex budgets and plans. Having done so much strategic and pro j e c t

planning, I was able to pick up Air Fo rce documents and easily understand what

was going on. I spoke the same "language" as the Air Fo rce budgeters and planners. Most legislative staff don't have this kind of background. It would have

been difficult for them to understand where key decision points we re, who was

making them, who was absent from the decisions, and what planning and budgeting techniques we re being applied. And furt h e r m o re, it would have been

e x t remely difficult for them to take this information and understand how it

translated into decisions about the science and technology program top-line

budget and investment port f o l i o. 

At NASA project managers are continually taught the key to the success of any

p roject is the relationships that form within the team and with customers and

s h a reholders. In this instance, the team consists of the Congressional offices or

committees that work with our office. They have a vested interest in the successful outcome of the legislation. The customer and shareholders are the U.S. public and the special interest groups that stand to benefit. To an extent, the Air

Fo rce is also a share h o l d e r. Relationships with all of these parties are critical to

the passage of the legislation. I spent a significant amount of time building these

relationships. This is one of the things you have to do to establish your cre d i b i li t y, and on Capitol Hill credibility is eve rything for success. It is a ve ry "personal" environment, much more so than the world of science and engineering. 

As a project manager you have to build a team and work with them to achieve a

common goal. Building relationships is an important part of the work a pro j e c t

manager does at NASA, and certainly it's an important way you establish yo u r

c re d i b i l i t y. But what's different at NASA is that we ' re all scientists and engineers,

so there really are not significant communication barriers. 

On the Hill I'm continually working to build social relationships as a way to mitigate the communication barriers surrounding scientific and technical issues.

That's why I spend a significant amount of time going to receptions, two or thre e

a week sometimes. I spend even more time just talking with other staff. The staff

I talk with may come from completely different backgrounds. I can't discuss legislation with them as if they automatically understand the issues without first

making sure they understand the basic terms. Once I understand their backg rounds, I can then explain the issues in their terms. Fu rt h e r, this "network i n g "

is used to understand what issues are of importance to these staff or their bosses,

i.e. the Congressmen. This also provides me with a framew o rk for finding comA P P L

S TORIES: JULIE A. POLLITT

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Even Politics is Project Work (cont’d)

page 1 3

“

Having done so

much strategic and

project planning, I

was able to pick up

Air Force documents

and easily understand

what was going on.

”
Q u e s t i o n

If nurturing interpersonal relationships is much of what you

do as a project manager, how

did you learn this skill?

A P P L

Issue 6 S TORIES: JULIE A. POLLITT

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Even Politics is Project Work (cont’d)

page 1 4

mon ground between our legislation and what issues they hope to solve. In re t u r n

their support helps to pass the legislation. 

To create legislation that intersects the best interests of both the U.S. public and

the Air Fo rce, I had to build relationships with the Air Fo rce so that they would

begin to trust me. That trust was important to obtaining an understanding of their

agency and their processes. I did this by meeting with people, proving I was know ledgeable, demonstrating my credentials, and empathizing with them by letting

them understand that I was from a Federal agency and understood the agony that

some agencies go through based on the legislation that comes out of Congress. I let

them know that re g a rdless of whether I wanted this legislation or the Air Fo rc e

wanted it, Congressman Hall was demanding it. Hence if it we re a cooperative

e f f o rt, then the final product would be something eve ryone could live with. 

Building relationships went beyond just what I was doing with the Air Fo rce or

Capitol Hill staff. One of the things you do is look outside the Hill for people with

the common interests of your congressman. Certain special interest groups ve ry

much want to see increases in science and technology spending at the De p a rt m e n t

of Defense. When you have the opport u n i t y, you work hand-in-hand with these

p a rties. One such group was the Coalition for National Security Re s e a rch. This is

a consortium that includes many universities. Un i versities have a lot of power on

the Hill. Because they are high profile constituents in their districts, they can go to

their congressional re p re s e n t a t i ve and say, "This is important." 

Projects continually rely on re v i ews to assure that the end product meets its

re q u i rements, i.e. solves the problems it was supposed to. Be f o re we submitted

the legislation, it was thoroughly re v i ewed. I had three or four different Air Fo rc e

organizations re v i ew it. I had different staff members in offices on the Hill whom

I thought had some expertise re v i ew it. I gave copies to all the Armed Se rv i c e s

Committee staff and took their input. I also sent it to some MIT professors who

had been on an Air Fo rce science and technology advisory board and found some

of the same conclusions as I had. This may sound similar to all the re v i ews yo u

h a ve to go through on a project, but the difference in this case was that I had to

initiate all of them. Formal re v i ews are not built into the congressional pro c e s s .

As a project manager I certainly understood the value of getting good re v i ewe r s

to look at your product, especially from a variety of experts. 

In some ways it's a ve ry different environment here on the Hill than it is at

NASA. Still, it is interesting to me to what extent preparing a new piece of legis-

“

On the Hill I’m continually working to

build social relationships as a way to mitigate the communication barriers to scientific and technical

issues. 

”
lation is also a project. Legislation has to be backed by a plan, it must have the

s u p p o rt of a team, it has to meet the re q u i rements of the customers and shareholders, it has to be thoroughly re v i ewed, and it has to be completed on schedule. When I set foot on Capitol Hill, I had no idea how much of what I had

learned at NASA was going to help me succeed with my legislative job! 

Lessons: 

• All (white collar) work is project work. 

• Project work is moving to center stage in our organizations. You cannot afford to be

a 10 in operations and a 4 in project work.

A P P L

S TORIES: JULIE A. POLLITT

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Even Politics is Project Work (cont’d)

page 1 5
A P P L

Issue 6

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 1 6

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Dougal Maclise has been a

member of the management

team on several projects at

NASA's Ames Research

Center during the last five

years. He is currently the

Team Manager of the Systems

Engineering Team for the

Integrated Vehicle Health

Management (IVHM) Project.

Before joining the IVHM team,

he served as Engineering

Manager for the Ve r t i c a l

Motion Simulator

Modernization project and was

Project Manager of the A RT I S

payload project for the ERAST

p r o g r a m .

S TO R I E S

The One Thing You Need to Know

by Dougal Maclise

A Mission De f i n e d

At the flight readiness re v i ew the day before we we re scheduled to fly, I had to

stand up and say, "We need a flight to know if we ' re re a d y." 

It was a sensor payload project. The payload, a digital camera and a computer,

total weight 17 lbs., was flying aboard the Pathfinder solar-powe red airplane, an

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). 

St e ve We g e n e r, who was in charge of sensor technology in the En v i ro n m e n t a l

Re s e a rch and Sensor Technology (ERAST) Program, had come to me about a

year earlier and said he needed a project manager. St e ve had a subset of pro j e c t s

under ERAST, and what he had in mind for mine was to take colored infrare d

images of the ground from the UAV and get "whatever" information we could

f rom them. The "whatever" we would fill in later. 

T h e re was just one re q u i rement: Take high-resolution images from the UAV and

put them on the Internet in real time. 

" One re q u i rement?" I asked incre d u l o u s l y. To me this was impossible. I'd neve r

had a project with only one re q u i rement. No r m a l l y, they came in vo l u m e s .

Why do you accept a project? T h e re are hundreds of reasons. Eve ry project manager has his own. This one I took because it seemed liberating when compared to

what I was used to as a project manager. What I heard St e ve saying was this:

" How you do it is up to you and your team." 

I remember the reaction of the team. They we re incredulous too. "He re it is--this

is all we ' re doing," I said when we we re all together at the first team meeting.

Eve ryone's eyes we re trained on that one sentence. I put it on a slide and pointed to it. 

T h e re we re 15 of us in the room, it was completely quiet, and then someone

asked, just like I had, "One re q u i rement?" 

Like St e ve, I pretended to be matter-of-fact about it. "Yeah." 

Most of the time the people generating re q u i rements tend to work down to the

design level. Early on in the project this costs a team expensive amounts of time

and doesn't allow them much flexibility. When it is possible to formulate re q u i re-
ments early and they stay the same throughout the project, then it probably pays

to formulate them early. But when projects are rife with uncert a i n t y, especially

technological uncert a i n t y, formulating re q u i rements too early in too much detail

can be a major mistake.

A P P L

S TORIES: DOUGAL M A C L I S E

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

The One Thing You Need to Know (cont’d)

page 1 7

But when projects

are rife with uncert 

f

“

a i n t y, especially technological uncertainty,

ormulating requirements too early in too

much detail can be a

major mistake.

”

Pathfinder aircraft litoff on altitude record setting flight of 71,500 feet over

H a w a i i .
You cope with uncertainty by not giving yourself too many re q u i rements up

f ront. One re q u i rement for me distilled the project down to what it was really all

about, and such simplicity made it so much easier to stay focused and trained on

the goal--despite the many difficulties we had. 

It sounds simple, just one re q u i rement, but trying to pull it off was anything but

that. We had countless problems to ove rcome, and each time we solved one, we

always seemed to find more. The reality is there was more than one re q u i re m e n t ,

many more, but these we re the ones we gave ourselves. 

Trusting Your Te a m

As a Project Ma n a g e r, you want to give your team as much flexibility as possible,

but the problem is with a project like this where there is so much uncert a i n t y, yo u

s u rely are going to lose sleep wondering how much you should be on top of eve ry

little thing. This was a project whose true name should have been UNCERTA I NTY because there was so much of it. One way we allowed ourselves to be flexible

was to build a competent, robust team. I had a deep trust in and respect for eve ryone who was on my team, I had to because I took great pains in selecting them,

and I let them do what they needed to get the job done. 

The greatest challenge of the project was the data network from the plane to the

Internet. First, I checked to see what radio links we could use from the plane to

the ground. T h e re we re two modems available at 9600 baud, one for each payload.

For an 18-megabyte image, it was going to take 4 1/2 hours to download. I pro bably had 6-8 hours of flight time. I could then only download 1 or 2 images per

flight. That wouldn't work. We needed a much faster connection. 

The plane also had a video link. Maybe we could use that somehow. Stan Ault from

HyperSpectral Imaging, Inc. volunteered to take on that challenge. He had a concept for converting the digital image data into a sort of barcode that he could encode

into a video signal that could be captured and de-converted on the ground. I told

him I would gladly leave the details to him. 

At the other end of the network, we would need a server that the public could connect to from the World Wide Web. Flight tests took place in Hawaii at the Pacific

Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on the island of Kauai. PMRF had a strong firewall,

and they weren't going to allow anyone from outside to get through, so we didn't

have an option of putting a website on a computer there at the base. 

A P P L

Issue 6 S TORIES: DOUGAL M A C L I S E

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

The One Thing You Need to Know (cont’d)

page 1 8

“

We had countless

problems to overcome, and each time

we solved one, we

always seemed to find

m o r e .

”
I gave this problem to Don Su l l i van to figure out. Don was an expert in netw o rking and computer applications. Don re s e a rched the Internet connections

and found they we re extremely complicated and fragile, but he was able to deal

with PMRF and got them to set up a connection for us through their firewall that

we routed back to a server at Ames Re s e a rch Center in California. The route was

to go from Kauai to Maui via Honolulu and then to the mainland by an underwater cable. It was all quite complicated, and thank God Don was on top of this.

It was one of those situations where keeping me blissfully ignorant was pro b a b l y

in the best interest of the project, simply because it was in the best interest of my

health. 

We also worried about the video link we we re using; it was the only visual link

that the flight crew had to the plane during most of the flight. For us to dow nload an image the flight team had to switch that video transmitter over to our

payload and take it off the video camera they we re watching. During that time

they had no visual way of monitoring the plane. It was sort of like asking the

pilot to close his eyes for about 5 minutes. 

The next problem with this link was that we could not test it completely on the

g round. When we ran a flight simulation, we found that there was reflection of

the signal off the ground that created too much interf e rence in the video signal

to be able to capture the digital data out of the images. We figured that once the

plane was in the air, this problem SHOULD be eliminated. 

Then there was the "real time" issue. The re q u i rement was to take high-re s o l u t i o n

images from the unmanned plane and put them on the Internet in real time. T h e

term seemed a bit nebulous to eve ryone. NASA has only a few web-operated payloads, and no one was quite sure what our benchmarks we re. When I asked St e ve

We g e n e r, he said nothing more than "Do the best you can."

Do or Di e

The day of the flight the morning sky broke clear and beautiful. We we re committed to a full day of flying whether the payload worked or not, and I knew it

would be a long day if things didn't go our way; it would be several hours wall owing in our failure. We had tried mimicking the system on the ground in several ways and could not do it. Ap p a rently only a flight would prove the system

and, by this time, we would only get one flight, one chance. 

A P P L

S TORIES: DOUGAL M A C L I S E

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

The One Thing You Need to Know (cont’d)

page 1 9

“

Now and then the

payload would hang

and all we could do

was tell the pilot to do

the therapeutic

r e b o o t .

”
The day before the flight there was a fire under the streets of Honolulu and it

burned up part of our Internet link. Fo rt u n a t e l y, Don had it under control, but

it was another close shave that I really didn't need to know about. When he told

me, I said, "What happened to our plan about not telling me what I don't need

to know?" I gladly stayed ignorant of a lot of things, but to be honest, I rarely felt

anything remotely close to blissful. 

One of the problems we could not solve up till the end invo l ved some glitches

with the software on the payload computer. The only solution we had for it was

what we called a therapeutic reboot, basically the same thing you do on yo u r

home computer when a software application causes the system to crash: you turn

off the machine. 

On the runway, as the plane was being rolled out, we tried to take a picture and the

system crashed. We rebooted, and prayed. Finally, just after take off, we managed to

get a picture and were able to put it on the Internet in about 24 minutes. Everyone-

-and I mean eve ryo n e - - b reathed a sigh of re l i e f, although I still kept my fingers crossed. 

The purpose of our mission was to look at the health of vegetation on Kauai. By

the brightness of the infrared bands in the images we captured scientists could see

h ow healthy the plant life was, and, while we we re in the air, instruct us to fly

over different areas and take more pictures. We learned from the scientists where

to go to get a shot of a broken irrigation line, where they thought there was an

o u t b reak of something, where there appeared to be an immature cro p, and anything else they wanted to see. 

Things seemed to be going fine once we we re in the air. Still, my stomach was in

knots. Now and then the payload would hang and all we could do was tell the

pilot to do the therapeutic reboot. Once the pilot got used to flying without his

video link, he seemed okay with this. We we re flying at 30,000 - 40,000 feet

m o s t l y, much lower than the high altitudes Pathfinder had reached when it set

the world altitude re c o rd. A 17 lb. payload doesn't sound like much, but the

plane itself without the payload weighed a grand total of 500 lbs. It's like the

mountain climbers say, 'Eve ry ounce counts.' 

We managed to get 16 pictures altogether. On the website we used to display

them they showed up as dots on a map. You clicked on the dot and this bro u g h t

up the picture. We we re able to get the image up on the Internet in just under

20 minutes. Not bad. No one was complaining we we re too slow. 

A P P L

Issue 6 S TORIES: DOUGAL M A C L I S E

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

The One Thing You Need to Know (cont’d)

page 2 0

“

I thought the high

drama was ended for

the day, but that was a

bit premature.

”
As night fell it looked like the mission was ove r, and quite a success it appeare d

to be. I thought the high drama was ended for the day, but that was a bit prem a t u re. On the way back to PMRF the winds we ren't dying down. The plane

was operating on batteries now, and, the sun having long set, it couldn't stay up

i n d e f i n i t e l y. The plane actually had to approach the landing strip flying backw a rds. The pilot did one last swing out over the breakers and there was ve ry little wing space between the water and the wing tip. In the last 50 feet the winds

died down enough for him to turn the plane around and land it coming in forw a rd. How close we'd come to losing the plane I don't think anyone cared to

contemplate. 

We we re all wrung out emotionally from this long day. Eve ryone just wanted it

to be over with. Yet there was one re q u i rement still to be met--the celebration!

Again, we had a clear objective and almost any plan to get there would suffice. 

Lessons: 

• On projects with a great deal of uncertainty it is best not to specify requirements too

early in the life of the project and thus limit the team's ability to be flexible in addressing the uncertainties. 

• A project manager must trust his team. As the overall team leader you must allow

team members to take the lead on issues in which they clearly have an expertise you

do not .

A P P L

S TORIES: DOUGAL M A C L I S E

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

The One Thing You Need to Know (cont’d)

page 2 1

Q u e s t i o n

In most projects, requirements

are formulated very early and

in great detail. Is this because

most projects actually have to

cope with low uncertainty, or

because upper management

does not tolerate high uncertainty (and therefore expects

the project team to behave as

if there is low uncertainty)?
A P P L

Issue 6

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 2 2

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

D r. Arnold Marder is the R.D.

Stout Distinguished Professor

of Materials Science and

Engineering at Lehigh

U n i v e r s i t y. Prior to joining the

faculty at Lehigh, he worked in

industrial research for 25

years. Dr. Marder is active in

the field of physical metallurgy,

and he and his group conduct

research in the area of high

temperature coatings for corrosion protection.

* ASM originally stood for American Society of Metals, but since polymers and ceramics are now also recognized, it was decided to keep the acronym and dispense with

the full name.

“

Having gone through

a Ph.D. program, academics often feel like

they have to look at

things based on formal principles.

”

S TO R I E S

A Good Fellow

by Arnold R. Marder

This year my friend Arlan Benscoter re c e i ved one of the highest honors in the

field of metallography. Arlan was awarded a fellowship by ASM In t e r n a t i o n a l , *

and he richly deserved it. 

But what makes Arlan's selection so re m a rkable--and controversial too--is that he

has no formal education or training in metallography. He is entirely self-schooled.

A letter of support from a former president of ASM speaks volumes for how

much Arlan has accomplished, considering his background: 

Arlan Benscoter is a special case for a fellow nomination in that he does not

h a ve an advanced degree and has followed a career path quite different fro m

u n i versity pro f e s s o r, industrial scientist, or manager. Ne ve rtheless he has made

outstanding contributions to the development of metallagraphic techniques,

the teaching of metallography, and service to ASM. 

Now h e re has Arlan's selection as a fellow been more controversial than in the

Ac a d e m y. Being a professor myself, I am not surprised. Having gone through a

Ph.D. program, academics often feel like they have to look at things based on formal principles. Arlan's approach to metallography is one of practical experience,

i.e. working with the microscope. A person can try to guess what has happened

to a material based on first principles, but someone like Arlan who can look

under the microscope and see what's going on, that is someone with a ve ry special skill, and a college education doesn't necessarily provide you with it.

This reaction to his fellowship is no different than what has been following Arlan

his entire care e r. I have been witness to it from the beginning. I have worked with

Arlan for 36 years, first at Bethlehem Steel, where I was a re s e a rch engineer and

he was a technician, and now at Lehigh Un i ve r s i t y, where I am a professor in the

Materials Science and Engineering De p a rtment and he works as a re s e a rc h e r,

assisting students with their experiments under the microscope. 

Arlan started at Bethlehem Steel a month before I did in 1965. I was fresh out of

college, and he was fresh out of the Army. His talents we re not developed at that

point--but then neither we re mine. Mo s t l y, he was carrying specimens for the
engineers at Bethlehem, and then he started to do some testing, and as a result of

the testing he started to look into the microscope and use it to evaluate what he

s a w. That led him into metallography, which is the process of looking at metals

in a light optical microscope. 

At that time I was also a part-time graduate student, studying for a Ph.D., and

as part of my dissertation Arlan was helping me evaluate some micro s t ru c t u re s .

On one particular alloy, he found some tiny cracks on the surface of the material that no one had ever paid much attention to before. These cracks we re always

passed off as artifacts. Arlan insisted that it was real cracking and had its ramifications on the fracture strength of the steel. I knew if we started examining this

it was only going to extend my dissertation, and at that point I wanted to get on

with my life. I was reluctant to indulge his curiosity, but he kept insisting that it

was important, and eventually he got to me. 

A P P L

S TORIES: ARNOLD R. MARDER

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

A Good Fellow (cont’d)

page 2 3

An example of the kind of art found under a microscope. 

Artist: Arlen Benscoter.

Together we looked at the cracks, and it turned out that they we re real. As yo u

can probably imagine, there was a good deal of skepticism about our findings.

He re we re two people coming out of now h e re, one a mere Ph.D student and the
other somebody without even a college education. In part i c u l a r, we we re sharply

c r i t i c i zed by Bethlehem's arch competitor at the time, US Steel. This led to what

Arlan and I still refer to as "the shootout" between Bethlehem and US Steel. We

invited one of US Steel's leading scientists to Bethlehem to perform an experiment with us. This scientist had claimed that what we we re seeing we re dust particles on the negative and we ren't really cracks, but when we performed the

experiment together, he saw we we re right and agreed with us. 

As a result of our work, people acknowledged that Arlan had done a good job, but

as far as recognition like awards or citations we re concerned, there was none.

Bethlehem Steel gave him a promotion, and he started working his way up to be

the key person in the metallography group at Bethlehem. In many ways, this has

been the story of Arlan's care e r. People privately re c o g n i zed his talents, but publicly

f ew we re willing to admit that someone could accomplish as much as he has without formal training. The amazing thing is he has never been discouraged by it.

He re is one little story to illustrate Arlan's special talent. ASM International give s

a w a rds eve ry year for photographs displaying the art and science of metallograp h y. T h e re are ten categories. Out of those categories they take the Best in Sh ow.

The first person to win the award in 1970 came out of our group at Be t h l e h e m

Steel. Arlan helped him put together those photographs. When Arlan came to

Lehigh, he started working with graduate students. One of our graduate students

won Best in Sh ow. Se veral years later another student of ours won the grand

p r i ze. Then the next year another of our students won Best in Sh ow. This is an

international competition. For any institution to win one grand prize is unusual,

to win two is ve ry unusual, but to win three--that is unprecedented. This competition is open to people who have been working in the field for 20 to 30 ye a r s .

Competing against students? In his typical way, Arlan refused to put his name on

any of the entries. Only the students' names we re re c o g n i zed as the winners. 

In 1996, he was given an award by the university for teaching excellence. T h i s

was for the best teacher in the engineering college at Lehigh. The students that

year felt that he was the best teacher they had ever had. What made this so

unusual was that he does not have a position as a professor in the depart m e n t .

He's the first person ever to get the award that isn't a pro f e s s o r. 

Some professors we re upset that someone without a degree could be picked as the

best teacher in the engineering college. Students don't seem to suffer the same

skepticism that certain faculty members are plagued by when it comes to re c o gA P P L

Issue 6 S TORIES: ARNOLD R. MARDER

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

A Good Fellow (cont’d)

page 2 4

“

Plenty of people

have high standards,

but Arlan just exudes

love of his work.

”
nizing Arlan's talents. Eve ry year in their exit interv i ews, inva r i a b l y, the students

point to him as one of the best experiences they have had in their four years at

Lehigh. 

As much as anybody in our department, Arlan has been instrumental in improving our reputation in the Engineering College. Years ago, for instance, the department was down to only five students per ye a r. One of the things we decided to

do to improve things was to invite pro s p e c t i ve students to open houses. It was

Arlan's idea to take undergraduates and put them on all the instrumentation. T h e

p ro s p e c t i ve students would go around to each of the demonstration rooms and

see our students working on all the instrumentation that Arlan had taught them

h ow to use. As a result, our enrollment increased significantly. Students saw this

as evidence that Materials Science and Engineering is a hands-on depart m e n t .

Why do I give Arlan most of the credit? One year the Associate Dean said no

m o re open houses. The next year's enrollment went down substantially. 

When I left Bethlehem in 1986 and joined the faculty at Lehigh, I was bent on

getting someone like Arlan to run the metallography lab. Who better to have

than Arlan himself? I went around asking people to support him, and I lost a couple of pairs of trousers wearing my knees out trying to get eve ryone to contribute,

but we got the money to support him and so then it was just a matter of getting

him interested in the position. 

Before Arlan came to Lehigh, it had an under-equipped microscopy lab. Having

known Arlan for 21 years, I knew how he would react. Bethlehem had a pretty good

set up that he had put together. Lehigh still had mostly one-eyepiece microscopes. 

" You want me to work here, with this junk," he said after I showed him around. 

Arlan and I had worked together at Bethlehem for a long time and I thought I

k n ew him well. I was pre p a red for this, so I said, "What's the matter, aren't yo u

up for a challenge?" 

That was all I needed to say, appare n t l y. He took the job. I doubt he's ever looked

back on leaving Bethlehem with re g ret. 

A month after he started working here, Sa n d y, his wife, said to me, "What did

you do to my husband?" 

A P P L

S TORIES: ARNOLD R. MARDER

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

A Good Fellow (cont’d)

page 2 5

“

Certainly he has

taught me that an

academic degree is

not a prerequisite to

being successful at

m e t a l l o g r a p h y — o r

anything, for that

m a t t e r.

”
I said, "What you mean? I'm just letting him do what he wants." 

"I don't understand what's happened to him," she said. "He comes home smiling. He comes home whistling. I've never seen him so happy." 

This is the real reason his students love him, I believe. Plenty of people have high

s t a n d a rds, but Arlan just exudes love of his work. I see it; the students see it;

e ve ryone who is exposed to him sees it. He just doesn't think about the time he

puts in because it's not like a job to him. This is his mission in life. It has nothing to do with collecting paychecks at the end of the month. 

My friend Arlan Benscoter has taught me a great deal about humility. Cert a i n l y

he has taught me that an academic degree is not a pre requisite to being successful at metallography--or anything, for that matter. While Arlan may not have the

academic pedigree, there is no way you could ever say to him, "What do yo u

k n ow? You don't even have a degree!" People like Arlan are special not just

because they love to learn, but because they learn in their own manner. And what

that entails generally is learning by experience. 

Lessons: 

• Those who are successful at helping others learn need not necessarily be formally

trained as teachers. 

• Those who love their discipline work hard at it because it fuels their passion.

A P P L

Issue 6 S TORIES: ARNOLD R. MARDER

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

A Good Fellow (cont’d)

page 2 6

Q u e s t i o n

In your opinion, is project management closer to art/craft or

s c i e n c e / t e c h n o l o g y ?
S TO R I E S

W h e n To Say No

by David Collins

Early in my care e r, I was asked to finish instrumenting the Hubble Sp a c e

Telescope as it traveled from California to Kennedy Space Center. I worked at

Kennedy and was inheriting the job from a re s e a rch lab at the Marshall Sp a c e

Flight Center, and I would be getting $85,000. 

Because of the size of the telescope, and the cost to transport by air, it was decided

( by whom, I'm not sure) to move the telescope to Kennedy by boat. The folks at

Marshall told me eve rything was fine, they've got it all set up for me, and all I needed to do was finish it up, just a little polish re a l l y, and we we re golden.

A P P L

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 2 7

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

David Collins is currently on a

detail assignment in the new

X-Flight Division at NASA

Headquarters. He has worked

for NASA at Kennedy Space

Center for over 19 years in a

number of capacities including

R e s e a r c h e r, Lead Designer,

Chief of the Instrumentation

Section, Project Manager,

Deputy Associate Director for

Technology Development, and

most recently as KSC's Senior

Systems Engineer. He has

been a member of numerous

teams influencing the changes

both within KSC as well as the

A g e n c y, including two reorganization teams and the "Faster,

B e t t e r, Cheaper" Te a m .

The Hubble Telescope seen here in the environment it was designed for.

" Ok a y, but I'd still like to go over the system and the re q u i rements and analyze

them," I said. 

I did an analysis, and what I found was a bear trap. I learned the system was ru nning on something far less than a state-of-the-art computer, had skimpy instrumentation, and had some serious limitations. How serious are we talking? We l l ,

e ve ry 90 minutes we had to shut down for 15 minutes. "This is the Agency's

p re m i e re mission," I said to myself, "and I'm supposed to instrument it to make

s u re it gets to Kennedy from California safely, and I'm losing 15 minutes of data
e ve ry 90 minutes." This didn't sound too good to me.

To make matters worse, the boat they selected to get it to Kennedy went by the

nickname of the "Rusty Scow." Conditions inside the hold of the ship we re far

less than favorable for the transport of hard w a re as sensitive as this. The hold of

course was where the telescope was going to be stored. I told my management I

thought air transport was the way to go. 

I could just see it. Hubble gets to Kennedy and it doesn't work. They analyze the

data and say yo u ' re missing 15 minutes of data eve ry 90 minutes. What's going

on? How can we tell what went wrong? 

I didn't want to be responsible for losing data. I also didn't want anyone to think

I was less than equal to a challenging project. I was still a young project manage r, and in the NASA that I came up in project managers we re not supposed to

turn down jobs. Good project managers accept all jobs. All jobs are good jobs.

Refuse a job and you jeopard i ze your future. 

I had accepted many "bad" jobs in the past, but this one was over the top. How

could I turn this job down and live to tell the tale? I'd better do some homew o rk .

How did the situation get this way? I put out feelers and learned that the lab had

accepted the job with too little budget because Hubble had had some financial difficulties. They had been given $250,000, the vast majority of which had been used

to purchase a re s e a rch grade instrument for the job, and one which naturally they

could use later at their lab. I learned that Marshall was responsible for Hubble in

all phases of the program, but that responsibility would be transferred to KSC for

its transportation from California to Florida when we accepted this job.

After thinking a while, it came to me. My issue was not the job or being re s p o nsible for Hubble; it was the constraints I was saddled with. The project was budgeted for $250,000, but I was not satisfied that this was an honest figure. I talked

with colleagues, more experienced project managers whom I trusted. I talked to

contractors. I got the best information I could get my hands on and sat down and

did an estimate of what I believed it would take to do the job right. It came to

$1.5 million. A little bit different than the $250,000, and a far cry from the

$85,000 they we re offering me. 

So now I had a good estimate, some background information and a bit of a story

as to how things had gotten this way. Now I needed an approach. Just because

A P P L

Issue 6 S TORIES: DAVID COLLINS

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

When To Say No (cont’d)

page 2 8

“

My issue was not the

job or being responsible for Hubble; it was

the constraints I was

saddled with.

”

“

I was still a young

project manager, and

in the NASA that I

came up in project

managers were not

supposed to turn

down jobs.

”
A P P L

S TORIES: DAVID COLLINS

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

When To Say No (cont’d)

page 2 9

“

Had I not done my

homework so that I

could lay it all out

before my Director,

the results could have

been drastically

d i ff e r e n t .

”

the job was impossible didn't mean that I wouldn't end up with it. I needed management to feel some direct ownership in the outcome. I needed either the funding to do the job right or to have management turn it down. I finally came up

with an approach. 

I went to my Di rector's office and said, "Si r, yo u ' re about to be responsible for the

Hubble Space Telescope, and I think there are a few things you need to know." I

went through the scenario with him, I laid out the pros and the cons, what budget was needed to do it right, and at the end of it he picked up the phone and called

Marshall. "You give us $1.5 million to do this or you can have it back." 

End of story: Marshall took it back. Fine with me. Just by the way, the telescope

n e ver traveled by ship. An aircraft brought it to KSC. 

T h e re are a couple of lessons here. One is you can say no, but do your homework.

When it is important to learn the pedigree of a project, especially when you are

not satisfied with the information you are given, then don't be lazy. Get to the

bottom of things. Had I not done my homew o rk so that I could lay it all out

b e f o re my Di re c t o r, the results could have been drastically different. Imagine that

the Hubble telescope got to Kennedy and didn't work. My career certainly would

h a ve been stunted. 

Two, it can even be good for a project manager to have a reputation for not

accepting eve ry job. After this people started saying about me, "He won't accept

a job unless he knows it can be done." As a result, people wanted to work for me.

If I took a job, my team believed it was doable--a great starting point. I see a lot

of jobs handed out where the team thinks, 'Dear God, this is not possible.' No t

a good way to begin. It also helped because management thought, "He's going to

g i ve us the straight scoop. He's not going to hold back on us." 

C o n t r a ry to what I originally thought, that saying no would end my care e r, in

this case it probably helped me. 

Lessons: 

• Do your homework. It may save you at the least from an embarrassment and at

worst from making a career-damaging mistake. 

• Doing what you believe is right and maintaining your integrity can enhance your

c a r e e r, even if it means saying No to a project

Q u e s t i o n

What did you believe were the

consequences of turning down

a project as a young project

manager? Would you have

said No?
A P P L

Issue 6 S P E C I A L F E ATURE: THERE A R E N O M I S TAKES. ONLY L E S S O N S

Hangar Bash

by Ray Morgan

Nobody wishes for misfortune or accidents, but if yo u ' re not too proud, and yo u

understand that plenty of great developments stem from a botched plan or someone's initial missteps, you begin to look for growth potential in accidents too. 

On the Pathfinder solar-powe red airplane project, we found that the application of

p ro c e d u res could allow a re l a t i vely fragile aircraft to operate safely in the stratosphere .

In September of 1995, we set a world altitude re c o rd for solar aircraft of 50,500 feet

at Ed w a rds Air Fo rce Base. Howe ve r, we had assumed that when the airplane was in

a hangar on the ground, it was inherently safe and we didn't need to worry about proc e d u res for its safety. We we re shocked out of this assumption fairly dramatically. 

In October we we re asked to display the Pathfinder at the Ed w a rds air show,

w h e re it would be parked in a hangar near two classified aircraft, the B-2 and an

F-117. Because these two aircraft we re still classified and under armed guard ,

they we re brought in at night after all the other aircraft had been placed in the

h a n g a r, and we re re m oved in the same fashion. 

Our crew chief told the attendant in charge during the day (when we brought the

Pathfinder in) that our plane was much more fragile than these others and that

he needed to be extra careful when moving it or moving the other planes aro u n d

it. He particularly emphasized the Pathfinder's susceptibility to wind, because it

was so large and light (100 feet in span, but weighing less than 500 lbs.). T h e

hangar guardian seemed quite responsible and we had no reason to doubt he

would do anything less than what we asked. All went well, until the show ended. 

During the night some other Air Fo rce guys came by to move the B-2 and the F117 to a different hangar. The guy we talked with about our plane wasn't there

and hadn't talked to these guys. They left the hangar doors open on 3 sides, and

that night there was a windstorm that exceeded 30 knots (so strong it blew ove r

the portable toilets). With all three doors open, the hangar became a giant wind

tunnel, and the Pathfinder was blown across the hangar and wrapped around the

F-117 next to it. In the collision, the spars of two mid-panels on the Pa t h f i n d e r

we re broken and much of the solar array on these panels destroyed. 

I have to admit - the next morning when I learned about the accident it cro s s e d

my mind that maybe we we re finished. T h e re's no way anybody could have

k n own whether NASA would give us the funding we needed to rebuild. NASA

sent a management team to conduct an investigation into the incident. When the

re p o rt came in, it was just as we had already determined. No one was to blame

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 3 0

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Ray Morgan has recently

retired as Vice President of

A e r o Vironment, Inc., where he

established the Design

Development Center in 1980,

the division of A e r o Vi r o n m e n t

that develops and produces its

aircraft, serving as Director

until April 2000. Mr. Morgan

has overseen more than 75

projects and the development

of over 50 unique vehicles,

including over 35 Unmanned

Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in his

tenure at A e r o Vironment Inc.

A e r o Vironment has been globally recognized as a pioneer in

solar powered and electric aircraft, and has placed 5 of its

vehicles in the Smithsonian

M u s e u m s .

“

I have to admit - the

next morning when I

learned about the

accident it crossed my

mind that maybe we

were finished.

”
A P P L

THERE A R E N O M I S TAKES. ONLY L E S S O N S

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Hangar Bash (cont’d)

page 3 1

“

We built a much better

plane, and we did so

because we had a

team that refused to be

broken by adversity.

”

for this accident but us. These guys who left the hangar doors opened didn't

k n ow how fragile Pathfinder was. 

T h e re's no question that we should have had someone with our plane the whole

time it was out of its home base. What was even more important was that we re co g n i zed that we needed pro c e d u res to protect the Pathfinder on the ground as

much as in the air. Had we not been as successful a team as we we re at that point

by focusing on continuous learning and improvement of pro c e d u res, we would

not have re c ove re d .

Because we had already had some success on our test flights, and demonstrated our

ability to learn from our mistakes, we were able to secure funding from NASA to

rebuild the airplane. In so doing, we got to experiment with an improved structural design, building a plane that was more rugged, durable and stronger.

An unexpected benefit of the accident was that we learned a tremendous amount

about our plane. It demonstrated the extraordinary risk of span-loaded aircraft in

that the loads they are exposed to on the ground typically exceed those seen in flight. 

For many projects, an accident like this could have been catastrophic. For us it

laid the foundation for pushing even higher into the stratosphere. We built a

much better plane, and we did so because we had a team that refused to be broken by adve r s i t y. We remained focused on learning from our mistakes. In fact,

the accident probably made us stronger because it proved we could count on each

other in the worst of times - as well as the best. 

As Rudyard Kipling advised, we "face triumph and disaster, and treat those two

imposters just the same." The Pathfinder team treated both triumph and disaster as

chances to learn and make things better. We learned more about our airplane, our

procedures, and ourselves... and, I think, made all three the better for the experience. 

After the hangar crash, the Pathfinder was rebuilt and flew to 67,000 feet, then

71,000 feet, and finally 80,000 feet, paving the way for the Helios Prototype, which

just this past summer set a record for all non-rocket-powered aircraft of 96,800 feet. 

Lesson: 

• Instead of blaming others when things go wrong, teams can rally together, and treat

a "disaster" as a learning experience, and a chance for improvement. Sometimes a

failure early on can enhance the probability of success in the long run. 

Q u e s t i o n

How does your team come

together to pull through adversity on a project?
A P P L

Issue 6 F E ATURES: W. SCOTT C A M E R O N

Going And Coming 

by W. Scott Cameron

Pre s e n t l y, I am in the process of adding and subtracting Project Ma n a g e m e n t

responsibilities to and from my current assignment, and I am developing strategies to execute these changes. As fate would have it, I recently stumbled acro s s

the 1994 publication by Dr. Alex Laufer entitled "In Quest of Project Exc e l l e n c e

T h rough Stories," which I had been fortunate to provide a few of the stories in

the book. I took some time to re read my stories and was somewhat taken aback

by how appropriate they we re to my current situation. I thought I'd share two

with you since we are in a changing world and thus always find ourselves either

"going or coming." 

Go i n g

I was being reassigned to a new project management position. Be f o re leaving the

p roject I was working on, I wanted to re s o l ve as many outstanding issues as possible for the new Project Manager to begin work with a clean slate. Prior to beginning this transition, I sensed the project team did not fully understand the engineering process we we re planning to begin or what eve ryone's roles would be in

this process. To add to my concern, some people had just joined the project team

and needed to be brought up-to-speed. 

I had several options on how to proceed with my transition. One would have

been simply to let the new Project Manager deal with the problem. Another

would have been to meet with the Operations and Plant Managers to share my

concerns about the project. Though this option would have been important for

its own sake, it would have supplied little detail to the project team and new

Project Ma n a g e r. The option I finally decided on was to provide the new and ve teran project team members with the right kind of information to do their jobs.

Thus, I opted to implement a "training" kickoff meeting in lieu of the planned

p roject kickoff meeting. 

My assumptions about the team's understanding of the project turned out to be

accurate. The action I took was the right response. By taking a day to train the

e n t i re project team and the new project manager on the future engineering

re q u i rements of the project, team members we re better able to ascertain the total

b readth of their roles as well as understand what stage the project had reached in

the engineering process. Mo re than eighty percent of the project team believe d

the project was further along than it really was. Howe ve r, at the completion of

the day of training, eve ryone understood additional work was re q u i red to meet

the project's needs, and they we re aligned on their responsibilities. 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 3 2

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

W. Scott Cameron is Capital

Systems Manager for the Food

& Beverage Global Business

Unit of Procter & Gamble. He

has been managing capital

projects and mentoring other

capital management practitioners for the past 20 years at

Procter & Gamble within its

Beauty Care, Health Care,

Food & Beverage, and Fabric

& Home Care Businesses.
In one-on-one discussions with project team members after this meeting, it

became clear that a hundred percent of the people in attendance did not fully

understand the engineering process, though none would have admitted to this if

asked in a group setting. Thus, the training provided an essential learning foru m .

As a Project Ma n a g e r, you must check your assumptions. Look for signs of uncertainty or misunderstanding because people don't always know what they don't

k n ow. 

Lessons: 

• You should not adhere religiously or blindly to the original plan; rather, based on a

continuous diagnosis of the situation, adapt it -- sometimes radically -- to fit the situation. 

• You should not consider planning assumptions to be facts. Rather, you should continually review their validity and be ready to quickly revise them. 

C o m i n g

Early in my project management care e r, I assumed project management re s p o nsibility for a multi-phased project from another Project Manager who re s i g n e d .

The Project Manager I replaced had been new to his position; he considered this

a simple project and was eager to try some innova t i ve techniques for completing

it. His execution strategy called for minimal engineering and construction effort ,

utilizing just a handful of manufacturing and engineering personnel to complete

relocation of existing equipment at small engineering cost. Both the project team

and upper management supported his plans. 

Un f o rt u n a t e l y, under this execution strategy, the first phase of the six-phase pro ject was thirty percent over its original capital budget, did not meet its original

s t a rt-up schedule, and did not meet the original target production goals until

t we l ve months after start - u p. The Project Manager I replaced resigned follow i n g

the first relocation. 

After re v i ewing the project status, I determined the project's original exe c u t i o n

strategy did not have the proper business focus, nor was the original capital cost

f o recast sufficient to successfully complete the remaining five phases. The original strategy had failed to guarantee there would not be any business interru ptions, it had focused on minimizing engineering costs instead of optimizing the

overall capital costs, and did not take into account the business importance of

each phase of the project. 

A P P L

F E ATURES: W. SCOTT C A M E R O N

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Going And Coming (cont’d)

page 3 3

“

Look for signs of

uncertainty or misunderstanding because

people don’t always

know what they don’t

k n o w.

”
Rather than trying to make the best of the original plan, I developed a new execution strategy, which included a formal strategy for completing the re m a i n i n g

phases. This new strategy defined engineering/project teams for all re m a i n i n g

phases and treated each as a separate project with specific cost and schedule targets. The new plan enabled the project teams to focus their energies and, theref o re, achieve the desired business results. Team members we re able to successfully relocate the businesses without having to shortship or delay business initiative s

with the trade during ve ry crucial time periods. 

As the Project Manager assuming responsibility for someone else's project, I

learned how crucial it is to carefully develop an execution strategy capable of

d e l i vering the business need. If the execution strategy is unable to deliver this

need, it is imperative for the Project Manager to have the flexibility to re v i s e ,

recalibrate, and convince management to alter the original plan. 

Lesson: 

• There is time for fixing a plan and there is time for devising a new plan. Often it may

seem easier to fix the plan rather than devise a new one, especially when upper

management supports a "fix-mentality". However, to succeed as a Project Manager,

you must be ready to stand by your convictions and confront upper management

when you believe starting anew is called for.

A P P L

Issue 6 F E ATURES: W. SCOTT C A M E R O N

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Going And Coming (cont’d)

page 3 4

“

[It] is imperative for

the Project Manager

to have the flexibility

to revise, recalibrate,

and convince management to alter the

original plan.

”
A P P L

F E AT U R E S

Are You On This Te a m ?

by Terry Little

One day, on an impulse, I asked the 80 or so folks working for me the following question in a staff meeting: "Say I was to line up eve ryone here by the

d e g ree to which each person was pulling his or her weight in supporting the

overall team; where would you be in the line? First ten or so? So m ew h e re in the

middle? At the end?" 

After a short silence they began to pummel me with questions. The dominant

one was, "Who measures the degree to which I'm pulling my weight?" 

After thinking about this for a minute, I said, "Your peers decide." 

Wow, did that reply generate a lot of angst. "My peers don't know what I do. "

" My peers don't think what I do is important." "My peers don't like me." "I

w o rk to please my boss, not my peers." "Others pull a lot more weight than I

do because they are workaholics and I have other priorities." "I just arrived and

it's unreasonable to expect that I know enough yet to carry my full weight." "I

can't pull my full weight until I get more training." 

My out-of-the-blue question had struck a ve ry tender cord. Once I extricated

myself from this cauldron, I reflected on what had happened and why. Clearly

people we re sensitive to how others perc e i ved their job performance. I found it

intriguing that folks seemed uneasy with the notion of having their peers judge

their performance in the context of the team. Despite all the rhetoric and head

nodding about the team's performance being more important than any one

individual's performance, folks really hadn't bought into that. Most had not

re c o g n i zed that just believing in the concept of a team was not enough.

Behaviors and attitudes had to change. 

My people had not yet learned that individual endeavors are meaningless unless

the team succeeds. They hadn't figured out that they cannot thrive if the team

does not--that teams must have the allegiance of eve ry member if they want to

win championships. 

Wow, I thought. This team stuff is a lot tougher to make happen than I had

thought. Saying it's so doesn't make it so.

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 3 5

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Terry Little is in the civil service with the Department of the

Air Force, where he has been

a program manager for five

major defense acquisition

e fforts. He entered the A i r

Force in 1967 and served on

active duty until 1975.

“

I found it intriguing

that folks seemed

uneasy with the

notion of having their

peers judge their performance in the context of the team.

”
A P P L

Issue 6 P R A C T I C E S

Open Newsletters

by Terry Little

I suggest all project and program managers consider publishing a new s l e t t e r

about their programs or projects for their team members. It doesn't need to be

f a n c y. I do mine as an MS Wo rd document. And it doesn't need to come out too

often. Yo u ' re not trying to compete with the local new s p a p e r. I recommend once

a month, but even quarterly would be better than nothing. 

The main point of starting a newsletter is to communicate with your team about

the project, but if all you are communicating is dry facts, yo u ' re not using this

tool wisely. Programs usually have other means of sharing facts. Your new s l e t t e r

should extend beyond the boundaries of the program. For instance, you can talk

about what clients feel, what upper management feels. Most often it's just the

p rogram manager or the people at the top that are interacting with clients and

upper management. By sharing this information with the team, you are bre a k i n g

d own silos and giving eve ryone a stronger sense that we are all working together.

I would suggest you send the newsletter to your contractors too, as they are also

p a rt of the larger team. 

To build trust, you must demonstrate your own trust in others. If you share yo u r

feelings about the project openly, eventually eve ryone will do the same.

Mo re ove r, trust is built when you make yourself vulnerable to others. People ask

me why I do this. I tell them, "Because leaders lead by example." 

Pro c e d u re

• Take one hour each month to sit at the computer and write an informal open

n ewsletter to your team. Include your thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes and

wishes. 

Be l ow are samples of a newsletter I publish for members of my team in the Jo i n t

A i r - t o - Su rface Standoff Missile (JASSM) Pro g r a m .

JASSM NEW S L E TTER, 25 Fe b ru a ry 1999

Need for Better In t e r - Team Coord i n a t i o n

During our last staff meeting I highlighted the fact that communication among

the team needs improving. What I want to do to improve this situation is to start

holding coordination meetings among the team leads twice we e k l y. For now I

want Tim to chair the meetings, with Jim A. as the alternate. We will start the

meetings on Tuesday morning @ 0800 and Friday afternoon @ 1400. So m e o n e

f rom the F-group may attend, but the meetings are really for the team leads. Each

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 3 6

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Terry Little is in the civil service with the Department of the

Air Force, where he has been

a program manager for five

major defense acquisition

e fforts. He entered the A i r

Force in 1967 and served on

active duty until 1975.
team lead should be pre p a red to spend a few minutes telling eve ryone else the

t h ree top issues that their IPT is working on, and, for the Friday meeting, the

upcoming events for next week. The meeting should last no more than an hour

and the team leads should be responsible for communicating re l e vant information to the other team members. I expect full attendance (i.e., if a team lead is

not available there should be an alternate). 

Im p rov i s a t i o n

I have found that one of the keys to innovation is to be willing to improvise. T h a t

is, if something seems at first glance to make sense to do, then the best thing to

do is to try it and see if it works. If it works, great. If not, then try something

else. Fear of making mistakes is paralyzing to pro g ress. For virtually eve ry t h i n g

we do, making a mistake has no permanent consequences. 

Re q u i rements Cre e p

I recently learned that there is work underway to have a field-installable Te s t

In s t rumentation Kit (TIK). I have a simple question. Why? Maybe it's more convenient? Maybe it will make the operational testers happier? Maybe, maybe...

W h e re is the re q u i rement and who is going to pay? We have a re q u i rements cont rol process. So far as I know, this has never been vetted by that process. Eve ryo n e

on the Government side had better get used to the fact that yours truly is going

to deal ve ry, ve ry ruthlessly with re q u i rements growth irre s p e c t i ve of where it

comes from and how reasonable it may appear. We have neither money nor time

to deal with growth in re q u i rements now. Maybe later. Not now.

JASSM NEW S L E TTER, 28 Ma rch 1999 

Disappointment at Launch De l a y

Like you, I was quite disappointed at the delay of our first launch. I am unclear

on the exact reasons for the delay, but I presume that there we re some good re asons for it. I am certain that we will soon be in a position to resume the launch.

The occasion of the delay gives me an opportunity to reiterate a point that I have

p reviously made and will continue to make. Schedule is our most import a n t

priority; it will remain so from now until our launch date! This does not, of

course, mean that we do something stupid to achieve schedule. Re c overing fro m

an imprudent action could take up a lot more schedule than a little delay to lowe r

the risk. Eve ry development decision will have to consider a number of factors,

including risk, cost, etc. Howe ve r, among those factors, schedule must be the

most prominent. I re a l i ze that this runs counter to the "do not fail" mentality

A P P L

PRACTICES: T E R RY L I T T L E

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Open Newsletters (cont’d)

page 3 7
that is part of our acquisition culture. But not failing does not equal succeeding.

T h e re are a number of reasons why schedule is so important. The most obv i o u s

is that the users have been waiting a long time to get this capability when yo u

consider the program history; their patience is not infinite. Second, the re c e n t

e vents in Yugoslavia have increased schedule pre s s u re. The Air Fo rce only has the

C A LCM as a standoff weapon and it has a somewhat limited capability compare d

to what we could offer. The user sees future "Yugoslavias" as being the most likely scenarios for future application of airpowe r. He wants JASSM ye s t e rday! T h i rd ,

we have made an absolute commitment to a 40-month development--six more

months than Lockheed proposed. It was not easy to sell the system on that extension, but we did. Should it become apparent that we are not going to meet that

n ew expectation we will begin to hear a hue and cry that JASSM is "just another typical government program". It will affect our user support and, ultimately,

our ability to get money. No one should forget that the user does have some

a l t e r n a t i ves to JASSM if it appears that we are in major schedule trouble (e.g.,

S LAM, air-launched TO M A H AWK, hypersonic missiles, etc). These may not be

better performance or cost alternatives than JASSM, but painting them as better

schedule alternatives could easily do us in. Anyone who thinks that the manuf a c t u rers of potential JASSM alternatives won't try to exploit any major schedule

p roblems we have simply doesn't understand the current enviro n m e n t .

Remember the users' re q u i rement is for a capability not a JASSM! Fo u rth, the Air

Fo rce's acquisition leadership has high confidence in our ability to execute. We

cannot erode that confidence and expect to continue to enjoy the level of support

that we have had. Fi n a l l y, Lockheed's extremely attractive bids for pro d u c t i o n

hinge critically on our meeting schedule. Should we slip our schedule to the

point that either Lockheed will significantly raise those bids or that "the system"

b e l i e ves that Lockheed will significantly raise those bids (a much more likely outcome), we will have much bigger problems than we can handle. 

Something To Be Proud Of

This Friday I learned that Mrs. D, over numerous objections, has issued an Air

Fo rce policy that past performance will be weighed at least equally to the highest

ranking factor in eve ry source selection the Air Fo rce does. While there are many

who can see how to do this if we we re just buying fuel, spare parts, housekeeping services, etc, the major objections came from those arguing that this policy

was impossible to implement on complex acquisitions. To those who raised these

objections, Mrs. D had a one-word reply: JASSM. We can expect that many will

begin calling us to help them figure out how to do this. We will, de facto, become

the model for others to emulate. I am asking Jackie to put together a briefing on

A P P L

Issue 6 PRACTICES: T E R RY L I T T L E

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Open Newsletters (cont’d)

page 3 8
e valuating past performance that we will offer to eve ry Product/Logistics Center

acquisition support office. Unlike what we have previously done in telling our

s t o ry, this briefing will tell others how to do it rather than merely telling them

what we did. We will talk about what we did only as an example. For reasons that

I don't fully understand, many of the people in our system have to have eve rything laid out for them--they can't extrapolate from what we did to what they

should do. Hopefully Jackie can help with this. In the meantime eve ryone in the

Program Office should be rightly proud of our pivotal role in this new and long

ove rdue policy. I consider it a great tribute. In c i d e n t a l l y, one of the re c o m m e ndations from the Group I have been working on for the past few months is that

this elevating of past performance should become policy DoD wide. 

Re q u i rements Cre e p

I have previously addressed my concerns about creeping re q u i rements and the

effect that they could have on our program. We have set up a Re q u i re m e n t s

C o n t rol Wo rking Group (RC WG) to deal with this issue. Many see this as a user

issue. Howe ve r, the users we deal with have not been and are unlikely to be culprits in any cre e p. I am beginning to set my sights on others in our process as

" c reep culprits" in particular the test community, aircraft program offices and

outside Government offices. I want to emphasize two points. First, I demand that

e ve rything that looks like or smells like re q u i rements creep go to the RC WG .

This is true re g a rdless of whether that "something" reflects a creep in deve l o pment re q u i rements or re q u i rements for the production system. We may choose

to accept the re q u i rements change, but it will be a collaborative, deliberate decision that considers all the ramifications of the change. Second, I hold each team

lead accountable for identifying potential creeps in re q u i rements in his or her

a re a .

JASSM NEW S L E TTER, 19 April 1999 

On Being A Te a m

A few weeks ago I went home to Dallas to visit my Mother and Dad. Although

I have not lived in Texas in more than 30 years it is for me, as it is for many native

Texans, still home. As I made my way from the airport to my parents' house in

heavy traffic my mind was as far away from work as it ever gets. While I was

momentarily stalled on a fre eway I noticed that the car in front of me had a

Dallas Cow b oys sticker on the back window. As I began to move again, I idly

began to count Dallas Cow b oys stickers on other cars as they passed me or I

A P P L

PRACTICES: T E R RY L I T T L E

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Open Newsletters (cont’d)

page 3 9
passed them. By the time I got home I had counted a grand total of four. T h i s

was somewhat amazing to me, because I could remember a time when virt u a l l y

e ve ry car in Dallas had such a sticker. I began to reflect on the reasons for this

change and concluded that was noticing all the stickers in the Cow b oys' "glory

days"--America's Team, Super Bowl champs, etc. I was struck by how eve ryo n e

on the sidelines seems to want to identify with a winner, but wants to disengage

or criticize when the winning stops. Human nature, I guess. 

What about the people on the team? It's the same human nature at work, but the

results must be different. When there's a loss or a series of losses, it's natural for

team members to want to assign blame, disclaim ow n e r s h i p, and criticize or re d efine the intra-team relationships. Won't work. The team becomes dysfunctional.

Being a part of a team demands that eve ryone on the team own eve ry outcome

in equal measure. Ir re s p e c t i ve of whether the outcome is good or bad, eve ryo n e

must share responsibility for it, or else leave the team. When the outcome is not

what we would have liked, it's tough. But that's precisely the time when functioning as a team is most important. It does no good to belabor adversity or look

in the rear view mirro r. All we can affect is what's in front of us, not behind.

What we accomplish in this program, I am convinced, hinges not on individual

team members, but on how well we function as a team. We can't let our togetherness depend upon whether someone else has a window sticker.

A P P L

Issue 6 PRACTICES: T E R RY L I T T L E

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Open Newsletters (cont’d)

page 4 0
A P P L

I N T E RV I E W

ASK talks with Sherry Buschmann

A round Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Sh e r ry

Buschmann likes to say she's "just one of the guys." She started working for

NASA at Marshall in 1985, the same year she re c e i ved her Bachelor's degre e

in electrical and computer engineering from the Un i versity of Alabama in

Huntsville. At Marshall, Sh e r ry has worked on the Ad vanced Sp a c e

Tr a n s p o rtation Program, the Astrionics Laboratory, the International Sp a c e

Station design team, and the Solar X-Ray Im a g e r, a solar imaging telescope

that was launched aboard a weather satellite. In 2001, she earned a Masters of

Science degree in Technology Management from M.I.T. / Sloan, with a thesis

on knowledge management. 

Sh e r ry says she looks up to those in NASA who are "risk takers," those who

a ren't "afraid to make decisions or try something no one else has done before . "

C o n s i d e red by many inside the Agency to be one of NASA's future leaders,

Sh e r ry says she is ready to meet the challenges ahead with a sense of purpose

as well as a sense of humor. 

A S K : I remember reading in Project Management Success Stories: Lessons of Pro j e c t

L e a d e r s h ow you once took aside someone who was driving a forklift carrying an

e x p e n s i ve piece of hard w a re and explained to him what he was handling, what it

was supposed to be used for, how it would affect his life. As a result, he tre a t e d

the hard w a re like it was the most precious thing he'd ever touched. That story

stuck with me. It seemed like something most project managers wouldn't do. 

Bu s c h m a n n : Some managers think they can just tell people what to do and

they'll do it because a manager gave the ord e r. That's one type of management

style, but I've always felt like as a true leader it's important to explain to people

why things are important to you, and if you ask for what you want instead of

demanding it, yo u ' re a lot more likely to get it. 

A S K : Is that what characterizes your management style? 

Bu s c h m a n n : Yes. I have always placed a high premium on leadership, and leading is different than managing. Not all leaders have to be managers. I've work e d

with people who've been just wonderful leaders, and they probably had no formal management authority whatsoeve r, but you could tell that they we re the ones

leading the group or leading the cause. 

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 4 1

“

I have always placed

a high premium on

leadership, and leading is different than

m a n a g i n g .

”
A S K : How does one re c o g n i ze the re a l p roject leaders? 

Bu s c h m a n n : When there's a problem to solve or a decision to be made, people

automatically look to that person because they know that they can rely on him

or her, especially if there are difficult times ahead. These are leaders not for their

own benefit, but for the benefit of the project or the team. They don't put thems e l ves out there first.

A S K : Sometimes bad things happen to good projects. Ad versity strikes. What is

the role of a leader then? 

Bu s c h m a n n : First, you have to re a s s u re the team that you haven't lost confidence

in them. Yo u ' ve got to say as soon as possible, 'Ok a y, this happened, it's unfortunate but let's understand why it happened and how we ' re going to work

t h rough it.' You keep them focused on what's important, and that's solving the

p roblem. A lot of times the people who get the most excited about the situation

a re actually quite re m oved from what's going on in the project. It's the leader's

job to be out there making sure they are informed and know we have a plan to

a d d ress the situation. You don't want your team to worry about their managers

finding out about the problem from someone else. You want them focused on the

solution. 

A S K : What do you say to those managers two levels up? 

Bu s c h m a n n : Gi ve us time to figure things out, mainly. Let us look at it and see

what we can do, and whatever happens I'll make sure that you know eve rything. 

A S K : Do you say it that calmly? 

Bu s c h m a n n : Well, someone has to be calm. Howe ve r, calm is not a word usually used to describe me! Se r i o u s l y, I believe that communication counts for eve rything. I don't think you can get anywhere by not being open with people. 

A S K : How have you matured over the years as a project manager? 

Bu s c h m a n n : Early on I re c o g n i zed that I had a hard time delegating. I now try

to put myself in the position of someone else and say, how would it feel if I was

tasked to do something and somebody was looking over my shoulder the whole

time? I wouldn't like that. That's helped me be able to say to someone, "This is

A P P L

Issue 6 I N T E RV I E W

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

ASK talks with Sherry Buschmann (cont’d)

page 4 2

“

I don’t think you can

get anywhere by not

being open with

p e o p l e .

”
the job that needs to be done. T h e re are lots of ways to get it done. It's up to yo u

to decide how to do it." I'm the kind of person whose nature it is to get into

things up to my elbows. That's the way I've been my whole life. I've got to re a lly watch myself on that. 

A S K : What can a project manager do to re c o g n i ze things like this about him or

herself? 

Bu s c h m a n n : On one project we did some exe rcises in understanding our personality types, like the Mye r s - Briggs test. We didn't know each other ve ry we l l ,

and I thought this would be a good way for us to find out about people's

s t rengths and weaknesses and the types of personalities we had working together.

Mo re than anything, it gave us an opportunity to talk about and learn what was

i m p o rtant to each other. 

A S K : How did you come up with the idea to do this?

Bu s c h m a n n : Up until that particular program I had always been the kind of person who says, 'Gi ve me the program and get out of my way.' This was an in-house

p roject, which meant that we we re responsible for the design, manufacture, and

test with ve ry little contractor invo l vement. We would be working ve ry closely for

the next several years on a challenging task with a tight budget and schedule. To

accomplish our objectives, I needed to get the team to come to a consensus on

issues quickly. I wanted us to develop a team environment built on trust and

open communications. So how was I going to do that? I didn't really know the

a n s we r. We brought someone in who did some facilitating with some activities

like this and we found out some interesting things about ourselves. It was a re a l

e ye opener. 

A S K : In what ways was it eye opening for you personally? 

Bu s c h m a n n : I'll never forget that one of my traits was that I am impatient. T h e

team thought it was a bad thing. I thought that was a good thing! I've always felt

a sense of urgency, especially around things that I am passionate about. I

thought, why would anyone want to be patient? I've never understood the

e x p ression, 'Patience is a virtue.' It brought home to me how I could feel something about myself and the team could feel something entirely different. No, I

guess I'm not calm or patient. 

A P P L

I N T E RV I E W

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

ASK talks with Sherry Buschmann (cont’d)

page 4 3

“

I hope that my sense

of humor never abandons me, that I don’t

get so serious I forget

how to laugh.

”
A S K : How difficult has it been to change your tendencies? 

Bu s c h m a n n : Well, like I said about delegating, I have to work on it. It's not

always easy, but I think that you can, if you know people's perceptions of yo u .

My point is, you need to pay attention to that. T h e re are some things about me

that I'll never change. I hope that my sense of humor never abandons me, that I

don't get so serious I forget how to laugh. My honesty, for instance--I'm rather

s t r a i g h t f o rw a rd to a fault. I don't really want that to change, maybe just soften a

bit. I don't want to get so good at spinning something, or sugar-coating, that it

l e a ves me unable to communicate the true essence of what I need to say. At the

same time, I hope that with age comes grace, and maybe I'll become a little more

graceful in my presentation of my thoughts and my ideas. T h e re are other things

I do want to change, like delegating responsibility and understanding that eve ryone does not share in my sense of urgency. When things are going smoothly, it's

e a s y. It's when things start falling apart that I tend to fall back into old patterns. 

A S K : I know you feel strongly about the importance of having a sense of humor.

How does that help you as a project manager? 

Bu s c h m a n n : It's the only thing that keeps you sane sometimes. You can be near

the end of a hard w a re test that has taken 14 days, 24 hours a day, and something

can go wrong. Now what do you do? You can stamp your feet and rant and rave ,

but that doesn't make things any better. I'm not saying you should laugh at yo u r

mistakes, but if you can find something humorous to get you through the hard

times, yo u ' re going to come out a lot healthier on the other end. If you can't

laugh at yo u r s e l f, things that yo u ' ve said and mistakes yo u ' ve made, I think

yo u ' re going to have a hard time in life in general.

A P P L

Issue 6 I N T E RV I E W

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

ASK talks with Sherry Buschmann (cont’d)

page 4 4
A P P L

CONFERENCE REPORT

Conference Report: 2001 Masters Forum

by Todd Post

Bo rn Under a Good Sign 

The 2001 Master's Fo rum was held at the Do u b l e t ree Hotel in Tysons Corner,

Virginia, and NASA project managers from eve ry center we re on hand. As they

i n t roduced themselves, we learned about the variety of work being done at the

d i f f e rent centers, the years of experience most of these managers have, and sometimes what signs they we re born under. For instance, Dr. Ed w a rd Ho f f m a n ,

Di rector of the Academy of Program and Project Leadership (APPL) and chief

sponsor of the Fo rum, is a Ta u rus. So we re many others in the room. Could there

be any connection between the success of this year's Fo rum and the pre p o n d e rance of Ta u ruses who we re pre s e n t ?

Say what you will about astro l o g y, but the success of the Fo rum is no bull. Listen

to what some people we re saying. 

Dennis Grounds, a Project Manager at Johnson Space Center (JSC), re m a rk e d :

" It re i n f o rced my observation that NASA has excellent people and exc e l l e n t

p roject managers." 

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASAsource for project management ASK Magazine

page 4 5

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Todd Post is the editor of A S K

Magazine and works for

E d u Tech Ltd. in Silver Spring,

Maryland. He recently had an

article published in K n o w l e d g e

M a n a g e m e n t on ASK Magazine

and the use of storytelling as

part of the Knowledge Sharing

initiative at NASA.

You can contact Todd at

t p o s t @ e d u t e c h l t d . c o m

and tell him what you think

about this issue of A S K .

John Hicks, a NASA project manager from the Dryden Flight Research

C e n t e r, apparently thought the Masters Forum was being held in Hawaii, not

Washington, DC.
Don Margolies, Project Manager at Go d d a rd, wrote: "The synergy is terrific." 

Jackie Green, a Project Manager at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), said: "The

p resenters provided rich food for thought. I especially enjoy the small gro u p

and one-on-one discussions that the meeting allows. The small gro u p / o n e - o n -

one discussions provided the opportunity for real digging into the details and

analyzing each person's thoughts and solutions. They provided that time for

reflection that is crucial for growth. The Fo rum also provided time and opportunity for mentoring. To learn of experiences of managers across NASA and

other agencies is invaluable." 

Craig Lawrence, a non-NASA participant from IDEO, wrote: "I had an incre dible experience at the Fo rum. Thank you ve ry much for allowing me to attend.

As an outsider to NASA, I was ve ry appre h e n s i ve about how I would be

re c e i ved, and whether or not I could contribute. Well, I was blown away by the

kindness and openness of eve ryone invo l ved. I thought the content was ve ry

re l e vant to me and to my work at IDEO. The issues you face at NASA are universal, and I think it is wise of you to address them in this format, and wise to

include outsiders such as myself. The idea of storytelling is ve ry powe rful, and

the stories we re great. Even when they we ren't applicable to me, they we re still

e n t e rtaining and interesting. I plan to suggest a similar event at IDEO." 

Context is Key

The buzzword at this year's Fo rum was context. Chris Turner raised the subject

during her keynote address the first night, asking participants, "Does being in a

drab looking store make you want to shop there?" Turner's argument, that context "is about transforming stale corporate environments into learning spaces--it

is believing in the capacity humans have for making imaginative bre a k t h ro u g h s -

-it is about creating learners and inquirers--it is about practicing improv i s a t i o n , "

is discussed in more detail in her book, All Hat and No Cattle. Read a re v i ew by

Michelle Collins in our last issue. 

The first night, along with Turner's address, there was an hour-long presentation by

four team members who worked on the Pathfinder solar-powered airplane as part of

the Environmental Research and Sensor Project (ERAST). The ERAST program has

since morphed to include new projects and new managers. Presently, the bestknown ERAST project is the Helios solar-powered aircraft, which nearly scraped

through the stratosphere this summer, approaching a height of 100,000 feet.

A P P L

Issue 6 CONFERENCE REPORT

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Conference Report: 2001 Masters Forum (cont’d)

page 4 6

“

The buzzword at this

y e a r’s Forum was

c o n t e x t .

”
Jenny Ba e r - R i e d h a rt was the ERAST Program Manager in the mid 90s. Sh e

i n t roduced the presentation, telling us how ERAST has evo l ved, and then handed off to Ray Morgan, formerly a Project Manager of Ae ro Vi ronment. Ae ro

Vi ronment is the company which designed and flew the Pa t h f i n d e r. Morgan then

handed off to Jeff Bauer of Dryden Re s e a rch and Flight Center, who handed off

to Dougal Maclise of Ames Re s e a rch Center. They all reiterated Ba e r - R i e d h a rt ' s

main point that it was the teamwork between NASA and the contractor, Ae ro

Vi ronment, which made this alliance work and allowed the Pathfinder project to

s o a r. Ha rking back to what Turner was saying, they made it clear that it was the

context of openness and cooperation created by the Program and Pro j e c t

Managers that empowe red eve ryone to stretch beyond the limits of what they

thought they we re capable of doing. 

The Pathfinder presentation and Chris Turner's speech set a high standard on the

first night. Next morning's presenters woke up ready to meet the challenge. T h e

day began with a presentation by Alex Laufer, who talked about the need for two

types of practices, standard 'best' practices and unique practices. See his column

in this issue for more about this duality. 

A P P L

CONFERENCE REPORT

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Conference Report: 2001 Masters Forum (cont’d)

page 4 7

“

What impressed me

most about the presentation were the personal relationships of

the team and how that

helped them to maintain their focus.

”

Alex Laufer, ASK Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, leading a discussion.
In the first block of presentations by Project Managers, we heard from Charlie

Stegemoeller of JSC and Ma rty Davis of Go d d a rd, both of whose pre s e n t a t i o n s

originated as stories in previous issues of ASK. Sam Thurmon of JPL also spoke

in this first block, and we hope soon to turn his talk into a story for an upcoming issue of ASK. Perhaps it is unfair to say so little about any of the individual

p resentations, but there is not enough room here to cover all of them adequatel y. If I may indulge myself about one, howe ve r, I would like to say a few word s

about Michael Hecht's because I think it offers some concise insights into the

e n t i re agenda.

Successful Projects Mean People Wo rking To g e t h e r

I found some of the most compelling moments at the Fo rum during He c h t ' s

p resentation about the Mars En v i ronmental Compatibility Assessment (MECA)

p roject he led out of JPL. What impressed me most about the presentation we re

the personal relationships of the team and how that helped them to maintain

their focus. Hecht described being with his family and watching firew o rks on

Fo u rth of July 1997. While they we re watching the firew o rks, his eye was trained

A P P L

Issue 6 CONFERENCE REPORT

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Conference Report: 2001 Masters Forum (cont’d)

page 4 8

ASK contributor this issue Julie Pollitt talks with Ames Project Manager

Julie Schoenfeld during one of the breakout sessions.