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IN THIS ISSUE

Leaders Who Challenge the Status Quo in this Issue of ASK by Todd Post

About the author

Todd Post is the editor of ASK Magazine and a member of Edutech Ltd, a diversified management consulting firm providing technical services to Government and private sector clients. He has written for many publications both in print and online. To contact Todd send him an email at tpost@edutechltd.com

and tell him what you think about this issue of ASK.

Mention status quo in a room full of project managers and you're likely to

see a few people wincing. Note that no one yet is talking about a particular policy or regulation. It's just the word Status Quo itself and all that it connotes that

turns the mood sour.

You don't need to be a linguist to understand the difference between denotation and connotation with a word like Status Quo in your vocabulary. Webster's

defines Status Quo as "the existing state of affairs." Well, there's nothing pejorative about that. But why do so many of us hear something else? "An untenable

existing state of affairs" sounds more like it...or "the sterile conditions around

here"...or "the stifling reasons I don't enjoy my work anymore."

Perhaps you have your own definition.

In this issue of ASK, we consider the Status Quo and what it connotes for

several exceptional project managers. Our articles address what it takes to challenge the Status Quo in the face of all sorts of pressures and constraints, bureaucracy and intransigence. We find several solutions, all tailored to the unique circumstances that our authors encountered as they smashed their way through the

status quo bedrock in their respective organizations. Michael Jansen found inspiration in his youthful experiments with the junk collected by his parents and

stored in the family's garage; Steven Gonzalez and his colleagues at NASA's

Johnson Space Center looked to the future for their inspiration--about a hundred

years; and Joan Salute turned inward to her core values. These are just some of

the people and stories you'll find in this issue of ASK.

I suspect if you've ever been in a situation where you've wondered why you

can't change things around you then you'll draw plenty of inspiration from these

articles. Don't forget to send us your own examples of challenging the status quo,

which we'll post in the next issue's Loop Section. Tell us why the Status Quo

makes you shiver when you hear that word, or why not.

Enjoy the issue and thanks for being part of our readership.

Todd Post 
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FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK

I Would Prefer Not by Dr. Edward Hoffmann

Dr. Edward Hoffmann

Dr. 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.

One of my favorite lines from literature is, "I would prefer not."

The words are spoken by a character in Herman Melville's short story

" B a r t l e by the Scriven – A Story of Wall Street." In it, a productive office is

tossed into turbulence based on one employee's simple but powerful response

that he "prefers not" to do an assignme The employe e, B a r t l e by, is a quiet,

u n a s s u m i n g, s t e a dy wo r ke r, yet disagreeable to new tasks. His boss, the narrator of the story, tries to force Bartleby to ch a n g e, but the latter simply wo n ' t .

The narrator's actions, b e h av i o r s, considerations and strategies to alter

B a r t l e by provide the framework of the story, a brilliant illumination on the

challenge of teams, projects and leadership.

I wondered recently if I have a greater understanding of Bartleby today than

when I first read the story in high school--years ago. What have I learned? How

would I have reacted to Bartleby? Since Melville published the story in 1853,

there have been numerous offerings on how to lead. Experts on the subject have

offered all kinds of models, prescriptions, guidelines and advice. Books promise

to offer anyone the straightforward secrets on how to motivate, guide, coach,persuade, inspire, and lead. Follow these six simple steps and voila...we're on the way

to becoming just like Lincoln, Grant, Lee, Moses, or Attila the Hun.

To answer my own questions, I turn to an early episode in my NASA career.

Actually, it was the first day of work. I was going through security and waiting

on a line to be fingerprinted. I heard laughter. When I reached the front of the

line (the sharp reader will note based on my need to stand on a line for new

employees that I am dating myself) I realized this happiness was coming from
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the woman who was doing the fingerprinting. She was laughing and congratulating all new employees. I remember her energy and pride in working for NASA.

She assured me that I was the luckiest person on earth. NASA was a great place

to work--all her family and friends were so impressed!

The woman had a tank-full of high-octane energy and enthusiasm. For me

this moment defined the critical essence of work - PASSION!

Having a passion for what you do is the critical ingredient in any successful

work environment or task. High-energy people always look for ways to succeed.

They brighten up a project and provide the necessary enthusiasm.

All of the other attributes of leadership are clearly important, but to me passion is the one essential. During our most recent Knowledge-Sharing meeting on

the west coast, we discussed the importance of passion. Reflecting on the discussion, I'm reminded of Bartleby and realize that "preferring not to" is a condition

lacking passion.

Leadership is about PASSION. It is about people who choose to do something

because it is important to them. We all came to NASA with this passion. The

secret to project leadership is how to keep the passion flowing.

FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

A Tale of Two Change Agents by Dr. Alex Laufer

“While the big budget clearly 

invigorated the opponents, it did not

help the proponents.”

Money does not fight for you! 

Alan, a division head in a large R&D organization, together with Bob, a

department head in this division, had worked intensively, and for a long time, to

obtain a $20 million-dollar development budget. This was the largest development budget ever allocated in the organization, and it was granted to create a

new research unit in the department headed by Bob.

The new research unit was supposed to make the R&D organization more

competitive. For years the organization enjoyed little competition, and only in

recent years has the situation changed. Half of the research unit's budget was

allocated for building a new lab and purchasing new research equipment. The

other half was supposed to cover the cost of hiring and maintaining the

researchers for the first five years.

Two years later, and after $2 million had been spent on the project by Bob,

the recently appointed new head of the organization, cancelled the plan for the

new unit and transferred the balance of the budget to another division in the

organization. 

Why was this project cancelled? Surely, it was not due to shifting research

priorities. The demand for research in the field of the proposed new unit had

only increased during these two years.

In turned out that several senior researchers in the department headed by

Bob were fiercely opposed to the project. Some of them went on record saying

that the new unit would compete for resources with their respective research

areas, and in the long run might even bring about a complete shut down of their

areas of research. 

How did Bob handle this opposition?

He conducted endless meetings with the

opponents. The meetings were lengthy and

polite, but mostly unproductive. He was

trying to gain the support of the great

majority of the opponents. Alan, his boss, was not aware of the opposition within the department, and being busy with other new projects did not bother Bob

for a long time.

Bob divided the project into two sub-projects -- building the new lab and
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Dr. Alexander Laufer

is the Editor-in-Chief of the ASK Magazine and a member of the Advisory Board of the NASA Academy of

Program and Project Leadership. He is a visiting professor of the Civil Engineering Department at the

University of Maryland at College Park and a Professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Technion-Israel

Institute of Technology.

purchasing equipment -- and hired new personnel. He nominated two junior

researchers to assist him in managing the two sub-projects, but he did not delegate authority and remained very active in leading both sub-projects.

Bob spent a lot of time trying to recruit researchers to the new unit. Though

the salaries he offered were above the going rate, new researchers did not join. It

turned out that they were very reluctant to join a department where several of the

more prominent researchers voiced a strong opposition against the new unit.

Since these candidates were in high demand all over, they could easily find other

employers, and they clearly preferred a supportive research atmosphere to higher salaries.

Though Bob was very committed to the creation of the new unit,since he still

had to run the existing department, his time for the new project was limited. At

the end of the first year Alan found out that the project was virtually stuck. He

asked Bob to nominate a senior researcher from the department,somebody without other administrative duties, to lead the project. Bob refused, and Alan, apparently still impressed by Bob's vital contribution in the early stages of securing this

large development budget, did not press the issue.

More precious time passed and the project failed to make any visible

progress. When the new head of the organization took office, two years after the

project was authorized,he conducted a quick inquiry. He found that Bob was very

systematic in his recruiting effort, and while not even one new researcher was

hired, Bob had already interviewed the entire pool of potential candidates. That

is, the chances for recruiting quality candidates in the near future were virtually

zero. Therefore, to make sure that additional money would not be wasted on additional research equipment, he terminated the project and transferred the money

to three more promising departments in another division.

The inquiry found that the unprecedented huge budget amounted to a false

perception of power and self-confidence. As a result Bob and Alan became complacent, failed to establish critical alliances, lost their sense of urgency, and did

not push hard and fast enough to overcome opposition. The inquiry underscored

the necessity of following through, i.e. implementation, and that it is impossible

to move forward if you try to please everyone all the time. As the head of the

organization concluded: "While the big budget clearly invigorated the opponents,
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it did not help the proponents. Money can't serve as your change agent. It does

not fight for you!" 

"Go ahead and publish a cancelling ad" 

At about the same time that Alan and Bob were conceiving and planning the

creation of the new research unit, Alan was involved in another change. He was

planning the creation of a program that would focus on attracting and employing excellent co-op students. While the organization had a well developed cooperative education program,for years there were talks within the division of establishing a program for attracting the best students. And for years this initiative

was aborted again and again because the different departments within the division could not agree on the parameters of the proposed new program. This time,

due to the fierce competition for quality new hires, Alan decided to create a new

centralized unit to design and run the program.

Alan asked Judy to lead this co-op project. Judy, a young researcher who was

recognized as an emerging star, held several meetings with the heads of the

departments in the division. In principle, they all agreed to the project, but three

months after project launch, Judy found herself exactly were she was at the onset.

Judy submitted several different plans for consideration by the departments, but

since the tradition was to reach a wide consensus, and no plan was embraced by

all departments, nothing was approved. Moreover, since the departments did not

trust the new central unit to treat them evenly, each one was worried that the

"other department" would be treated more favorably with the allocation of the

excellent co-ops.

Judy decided that she must act. She prepared a plan in which she attempted

to best represent the needs of the various departments and submitted it to Alan

for approval. Alan approved it and submitted it for approval to the head of the

entire organization. When Judy heard from Alan that the head of the organization approved her plan, she published a big ad in the local newspapers. The ad

described the highlights of the program,including the special benefits for the coops. Since she did not have money appropriated for the project, she charged the

cost of the ad to her own research budget. 

The next day Judy was summoned to

the deputy head of finance. He scolded

her, using the harshest language possible.

Judy knew that by the book he was right.

Though she had the consent of the head

of the organization, she knew that officially to activate the program she needed approval of the heads of the departments and the entire forum of upper management, including the deputy head of

finance.

But she also knew that she was right. Everyone agreed that the organization

badly needed the new program. Everyone also knew that using the formal way

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

“ E v e ryone also knew that using the 

formal way for approval, the program

would have never seen the light of day”.
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for approval, the program would have

never seen the light of day. So she was

ready to take the risk. Instead of backing

off or apologizing she stood firm. Quietly,

but firmly, she told the deputy head of

finance: " You can go ahead and publish a new ad that will cancel my ad."

Two years later when Bob's plan was abolished and the $18 million was

transferred to another division, Judy's new unit was thriving and other divisions

were waiting in line to learn from her how to implement a similar program in

their divisions.

In an era characterized by fierce competition and frequent change, all major

projects, technological, business, and organizational, require a significant shift in

thinking, beliefs, and behavior. Therefore, no project leader can be successful

without the willingness to challenge the status quo. It appears the larger and

older the organization, the greater the need and difficulty in challenging the status quo. The main lesson of these two tales is that the willingness and ability to

challenge the status quo, despite the personal risks that it entails, is very often the

most important factor in the success of a project.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

“It appears the larger and older the

organization, the greater the need and

difficulty in challenging the status quo.”
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STORY: JOAN SALUTE

Listening to the Voice Inside by Joan Salute

Joan Salute

is the Associate Director of Aerospace at Ames Research Center. She has managed many NASA projects

including those involving flight testing of thermal protection materials, commercial technology, commercial

applications of remote sensing, and remote sensing science projects.

Like most of us, I've had to think hard about what makes for a successful

project manager. Haven't we all read, or written out for colleagues, lists of

requirements? I bet we can recite them in our sleep. Project managers need the

ability to: 

· Plan 

· Schedule 

· Budget 

· Monitor 

· Control 

· Etc., etc., etc.

I don't know about you but I have a hard time with these lists. Of course

these abilities matter, but for me just one stands out as the defining characteristic of any good project manager, and this is one usually not included in the list or

easily encapsulated in a single word. That characteristic is his or her willingness

to challenge the conventional way of doing things.

This is something all good project managers do by nature, I think--what

we're hardwired for, if you will. Look back over your own life and I bet you'll see

that it is something you've been doing from a very early age. In school, we didn't confine ourselves to 'staying within the lines' even when our teachers judged

this as disruptive, and perhaps even suggested we were behaving inappropriately.

As a project manager, I've been in situations where I've had to rethink the

conventional ways of doing things. On the first hardware project I managed, for
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11

instance, there were just five months to get from funding to flight. The pressure

on us was tremendous, and, given the timeframe, made for a very high chinning

bar. The project involved testing an ultra-high temperature ceramic material for

use on reentry vehicles. If the project was successful, the results could lead to revolutionary changes in the design and protection of spacecraft. Not only was it a

high profile mission for our team but also

for the Center. At Ames we normally

developed material and payloads and let

other Centers fly them for us. This was our

first chance to handle the entire flight

experiment. That we were operating under

such a tight timeline meant there was no room for error.

One of the biggest challenges to our success turned out to be the machining

of some specialty materials. We had a two-week period scheduled for this.

Everything seemed to be going well at first. We located a vendor on the East

Coast,and their computers read the files we sent. After five days the vendor called

to say the output was not coming out like we had hoped. 

Roaring along until then,the team's morale took a nosedive as attitudes from

the top down fell flat. Once the shock wore off it was apparent that if something

didn't happen quickly we'd be paralyzed. No one had faith we could turn it

around. Our Chief Engineer was saying things like, "We gave it our best shot," as

if he was admitting we should throw in the towel. 

I needed to make something happen before things got completely out of my

control. When the leaders announce they are giving up, the rest of the team has

little incentive to press on. "We gave it our best,but it just couldn't be done" might

be the dignified way to say you're resigning yourself to defeat, the status quo

response, but I had no intention of giving up yet. I was already thinking how best

to engineer our recovery.

I adopted the attitude that we were going to find someone else to machine

the materials, and it would get done on time. It was going to be a huge test of my

leadership skills. The timeline we'd been given for the project was enough of a

test--now I had to find time to recover in a schedule designed with no room for

error. Despite the skeptical looks I got,I forged a plan and proceeded as if this was

business as usual.

Business as usual? Well, hardly. We started out by going through the phone

book. Three of us worked the phones and called every vendor in the book.

Nineteen of twenty had no idea what we were talking about. When we mentioned

the name of the material,they either were not willing to take the risk or the timeline was too short. The one out of the twenty who did recognize the material

would say something like, "You know, I attended a conference awhile back where

there was someone who worked with that type of material," and that led to another twenty calls.

After a long phone trail, we finally found two companies, each of whom

could do part of the job. The end of the story is, we got the materials machined

STORY: JOAN SALUTE

“It’s true you have to choose your 

battles, but if you’re not willing to fight

you don’t win any.”
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and met our schedule.

I'm proud that the team got back on

track and we accomplished our goal. For

that to happen, it required me to deliver

on what I said I could do, which was to

deliver to a tight schedule. This is what served as the impetus to get the others

back on track. Often times challenging the status quo is about simply believing

in oneself.

To make things happen you also have to fight sometimes for what you

believe in. Again,think back to when you were a kid. Remember how sometimes

you got one of those teachers who respected you for your individuality and who

appreciated your commitment to sticking to your core values.

I've been in situations that tested my core values. On another project I was

leading, we had what looked like plenty of time from funding to flight. It was a

straightforward mission. All we intended was to launch a vehicle modified to

include experimental materials, study it as it reentered the atmosphere, and then

recover it. The Pentagon informed us that because our mission "appeared" to conflict with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), we may not be able to

recover our vehicle. We would need explicit Pentagon approval to recover our

vehicle, but their expectation was that approval would be granted. A two-month

approval process dragged on for eleven months without approval or denial. We

proceeded to design the flight as if we'd be allowed to recover the vehicle.

They finally approved recovery of the vehicle, but stipulated that our data

must remain classified. You can probably imagine my frustration. After waiting

this long for the first decision, I had to decide was it worth it to fight this decision. Whereas some project managers might have gotten fed up and accepted the

ruling, the status quo, I dug in my heels and said no, I've got stamina to keep

going and I'm going to fight this one. It was a NASA flight experiment for the

Aerospace Industry and for NASA--we needed this data. I estimated the value of

the mission would drop by 80 percent if the data were classified. 

It's true you have to choose your battles, but if you're not willing to fight you

don't win any. It was a risky strategy, perhaps a bit bold, but our team truly

believed the data met the requirements for non-restricted distribution. As it

turned out, we won them over.

Everyone has to adopt his or her own theme song. For me on this project, it

was one that was popular on the radio at the time. The refrain went, "I get

knocked down,but I get up again." It just seemed to fit how I felt on this mission.

They tried to knock me down, but I kept coming back. You need to adopt your

own fight song. Make it one you draw strength from. Where to find that

strength? Start by looking at your core values.

As it was, my song played on like a broken record. On this same mission I

got knocked down again. Another national lab approached us with an offer to

develop and provide GPS equipment to track our reentry. They had been looking

for funding for a long time to develop their GPS equipment. There was pressure

STORY: JOAN SALUTE

“ Remaining focused on the core

requirements is critical to meeting

costs and schedule.”
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13

on me from the Air Force to accept the offer. The Air Force had helped us out in

the past, and now wanted this from us. No one could believe it when I turned the

offer down. The pressure to accept came down even heavier when the other lab

offered us the equipment for a greatly reduced price. Again, I said no.

In cases like this, knowing what NOT to do can be as important as knowing

what to do. I haven't once regretted the decision I made in this case. It was

uncomfortable to be the 'bad guy' in this instance, but I said no because I felt it

would have diverted our personnel resources and distracted us from our mission.

Strong leadership requires making unpopular decisions sometimes. The status

quo thing to do would have been to try and keep everyone happy, but I drew a

straight line in my mind as to what I saw was necessary to achieve a successful

mission and never wavered, and we did have a successful mission, I believe,

because we remained focused. Remaining focused on the core requirements is

critical to meeting costs and schedule.

You can't always do what people want you to and expect to be loyal to your

own core values. There will always

be somebody with a competing

interest there to challenge you on a

judgment call. You've got to decide

who you want calling the shots for

you, yourself or someone else. That's why I believe challenging the status quo

means challenging yourself to 'Do the right thing.' When you know what's right,

you only need listen to yourself.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. A characteristic of any good project manager is his or her willingness to challenge the conventional way of doing things. 

2. To make things happen you also have to fight sometimes for what you believe in.

3. Knowing what NOT to do can be as important as knowing what to do.

STORY: JOAN SALUTE

“You’ve got to decide who you want calling the shots, yourself or someone else.”
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STORY: STEVEN A. GONZALEZ

It’s All About Passion by Steven A. Gonzalez

“I cannot put my finger on a single

event, but I no longer felt the passion I

once did.”

Antonio Stradivari, creator of the great Stradivarius violin, is widely regarded as one of the world's master craftsmen. Nearly 300 years after his death the

village of Cremona in Italy where Stradivari lived and worked is still imbued

with his spirit. Violinmakers from all over the world continue to visit there to pay

homage to his genius.

I learned of this, ironically, at a management conference four years ago. We

were shown a video about a present day American violinmaker who had made

his own pilgrimage to Cremona. To visit the home of the greatest of all violinmakers, he believed, was the best possible way to experience "true passion" for

his craft. 

I mention this story because it signified a turning point in my life. I had been

with NASA for nine years when I attended the conference and saw this video. It

occurred to me afterwards that I too longed to feel passionate about my work

again. 

At the start of my NASA career I had no shortage of passion. I believed I was

at the center of the most amazing technological advances in science. The

Command and Control Center at the Johnson Space Center--could there be a

more exciting and glamorous assignment for a young engineer who'd spent his

boyhood fascinated by space travel and the Apollo missions? 

NASA was an amazing place then,

brimming with excitement and passion,

teeming with people who believed there

was no end to where their creative energies could take them. But something

changed in me over those nine years. I

cannot put my finger on a single event,but I no longer felt the passion that I once

did. 

When I returned home from the conference, I stewed about my feeling for a

couple of weeks. I told my wife I've got to turn things around. I said I would give

myself a year, and if nothing changed I was going to leave NASA. I was too young

and had too much energy to allow my spirit to languish in a place I no longer felt

passionate about.

Looking around me, I saw a different NASA than the place I had come to

nine years ago. NASA was not immune to the effects of government downsizing,
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15

and the team that worked in the development of the Mission Control Center

(MCC) had been reduced dramatically. As the emphasis for privatization and consolidated government contracts grew, we were struggling to understand what was

happenening at NASA. To many of us, it seemed like we no longer had the technical skills to validate that what the contractors were telling us was true. We were

relying on their expertise. What was our future? Did we even have a future at

NASA? Rather than rocket scientists, I felt we were more rocket contract managers.

Weeks passed and I agonized over what to do. Engineers know how to talk

about projects and budgets, but when the subject turns to how we feel, well, passion isn't the kind of word you hear used around NASA very often. Every time I

considered approaching a colleague, I worried I would be seen as a complainer,

or worse, laughed at. Finally I sent an email to the other 19 members of the team

and asked point blank, "Do you still feel passionate about your work?" 

I dreaded opening my email after that, but it turned out to be better than I

ever could have hoped. The response was an overwhelming expression of solidarity. Yes, let's talk about it, everyone said. And so we did. 

At our first meeting we shared with each other why we had come to NASA,

the dreams we had when we walked through the door our first day however many

years ago that might be. Our reasons for being here were universal.

Everyone believed we'd be on Mars

by now, or we'd be colonizing the

moon. The farthest reaches of the

galaxy would forever be expanding as long as we had the imagination to see a

way there. It was tremendously empowering for everyone, and for me it was an

affirmation of everything I believed I still could feel.

All of us wanted to try and recapture that sense of excitement we once had.

We began by asking each other to define his or her own vision. We put these on

a white board and attempted to synthesize them into one unified, collective

vision that could work for us all. 

We decided to go beyond the near term, so the vision we plotted had to take

us beyond the next decade, beyond the next two decades even. We selected the

STORY: STEVEN A. GONZALEZ

Steven A. Gonzalez 

is the Chief of Operations Research & Strategic Development at the Johnson Space Center. Prior to this

position he was the System Engineering Lead for the Mission Control Center and the Project Lead for the

QUEST (Qualification and Utilization of Electronic Systems Technology) lab.

“Rather than rocket scientists, I felt we

were more rocket contract managers.”
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year 2076 as a target date, the tercentenary, a date that symbolized another watershed in our nation's coming of age, one that was so far in the future that it could

continue to fuel our dreams for the rest of our careers.

Do we sound crazy? Like kids? Perhaps we were, but not one of the adults on

our team doubted our seriousness or believed we lacked the resolve to go the distance.

Next, we identified everyone's role in bringing the vision to life. In essence,

what we hoped to accomplish was no less than a complete paradigm shift in

NASA's current operations strategy for exploring space. Presently we send small

teams into space with a large support team on the ground. By 2076 we believed

we could put large numbers of people in

space and take Command and Control

with them. Our mission, as we saw it, was

to come up with a plan to achieve the

infrastructure and technology that would

make this vision a reality.

Once we knew what we wanted to accomplish, the vision began to take

shape as a lab, the Qualification and Utilization for Electronics Systems

Technology (QUEST) lab. The symbolism of the word QUEST was important. It

signified that we were striving to go beyond what we were doing, what we could

do, beyond the Space Station, beyond inhabiting Mars, all the way to whatever

new technologies could emerge by the year 2076. 

The bitter reality of it all was that there was no money for this. We went to

management and explained our vision, and they said it sounds great but we've

got Station and Shuttle challenges, and right now we can't fund this. The reality,

and we were not naive about it, was that we were also still expected to be fulltime contract managers.

This did not deter us or force us to scale back our vision in any way. We reckoned we just had to find alternative sources of funding. We determined the best

way to do this was by seeking partnerships with private industry. We knew we

had an attractive offer to make to industry. By presenting them with a chance to

be in NASA's Mission Control Center, we knew they had a strong incentive for

taking us seriously.

It worked. Before we knew it, companies like CISCO, Xiotech, Silicon

Graphics and Sun wanted to partner with us. In short order we obtained over a

million dollars worth of equipment in technology transfer agreements. Suddenly,

our team was working with the latest and best technology, and suddenly it was

like being a young starry-eyed engineer again, pushing the envelope, learning

new things and getting core competencies back. 

Four years have passed since I sent out that email. As you can see, I didn't

leave NASA. QUEST has provided me, as well as many of my colleagues, with an

outlet for our dreams and creativity. We take seriously the vision we have plotted

and are working together to make it a reality. Those readers who feel an affinity

with the struggles our group has undergone, ask yourselves where are you right

STORY: STEVEN A. GONZALEZ

“Before we knew it, companies like

CISCO, Xiotech, Silicon Graphics and

Sun wanted to partner with us.”
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now regarding your own passion for your work? Perhaps it's on you to take the

risk and find others in your office or Center who will join you in your quest. If

you do choose to go this road, and there is no question it is the road less traveled,

just make sure the vision you forge with your colleagues is a democratic one, that

it embraces everyone's vision. I wish you the best on your journey.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Visionary leaders are willing to take the initiative to render a dream into reality.

2. Once you identify where you are regarding your passion for your work, take risks in finding others who will join you on your own QUEST.

3. In this era of scarce resources, effective partnerships can take you a long way.

STORY: STEVEN A. GONZALEZ
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18

STORY: ROY MALONE

Reforming a Mindset by Roy Malone

Roy Malone 

serves as the Director of the Logistics Services Department at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). His

responsibilities include planning and directing a program of logistics, technical, and institutional support

to the research, development, and program management activities of MSFC. 

“My thinking all along has been to

involve everyone in the reforms, and

that includes the contractors as well as

the civil servants.”

My new job looked great on paper, head of Logistics Services at Marshall

Space Flight Center, but I had to wonder when I arrived did they expect me to

manage an office or perform miracle cures? 

Fortunately, I had great support from upper management for my reforms.

My new boss was new also and had warned me about the effort required to turn

things around. I needed her support because what I found on close examination

was not encouraging. Most disturbing to me was the way people were being

stretched beyond their limits. Many people were doing things in areas where

they hadn't been trained. Not surprisingly, they were unhappy. Morale was so

low I felt like I needed a life support system to keep it from expiring altogether.

That was only a routine examination. Cut inside and I discovered an organization damaged by years of broke n

processes and neglect. A number of procedures hadn't been changed since 1989.

Just imagine a property pass system in

today's world that doesn't provide for the

long-term loan of laptop computers.

Maybe that was okay in 1989, when few

laptops were going in and out of the Center, but in 1998 you're a long way from

working faster, better, cheaper when people can't get their mobile equipment in

and out of their offices without obtaining a new property pass every quarter.

The first step was going to be revitalizing my coworkers. There was no way

I could reform this office by myself. I had to convince them that the status quo

was unacceptable, which shouldn't be hard, but the tough part would be getting

them to see WE could change it--and not just because it was good for the image

of the Center. This would make everyone's life better. Complaints would

decrease, the processes would run smoother, and, most important of all,their jobs

would be easier.

"Together, we're going to change the way people take care of their property

at Marshall," I declared, sounding the battle cry. By saying this with conviction, I

got enough people to take me seriously and the others were at least willing to fol-
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19

low along.

What I prescribed was a forward-looking approach. I said it doesn't matter

what happened before, nor does it matter who was to blame. To emphasize that

we were starting out fresh, I did something they had never done before at

Marshall. I implemented a Departmental Employee-of-the-Quarter program for

people to see that doing good work had its own reward.

Although MSFC did not have a formal Employee of the Quarter program, I

was able to enact the program informally with the approval of my management.

We did it the McDonald's way, putting a plaque up in the office and adding the

names to it quarterly. People also got their picture on the wall, a certificate, and

lunch on me. To guarantee it would be taken seriously, we used an employee-nomination process. It was the only way to reinforce that this was "our" effort,and the

result was it was embraced by everyone.

Getting extraordinary things done in an organization is hard work. Leaders

have to believe they can make a difference, but they also have to enlist others'

support,and they have to recognize the contributions of these people or they will

never motivate them to perform. 

Our Employee-of-the-Quarter program was so successful I expanded it to

include contractors. Now we have a Contractor-of-the-Quarter program too. My

thinking all along has been to involve everyone in the reforms, and that includes

the contractors as well as the civil servants.

In this same way, we introduced employee satisfaction surveys. We started

with the civil servants and are now expanding this program to include contractors as well. The best way to get anyone to care about a home or an office or an

agency is to create a sense of ownership. I felt we could do that by allowing people the opportunity to identify how to improve things at the Center. Again,it was

important to make clear that the vision of what the Center could be was theirs as

well as management's.

As the leader in this reform effort,I knew it was critical that I set the tone in

the office. Enthusiasm rubs off, after all. First thing every day I stopped by people's offices to say good morning. At first many were taken aback. What's wrong?

Had they done something they should be reprimanded for? That was the sort of

attitude that existed before I got there. People started to loosen up once it became

clear that I was just coming around to say hello, that's all. 

I believe a key factor in leading any reform effort is getting people to trust

that you care about them. As people's comfort level increased, we were able to use

these visits to address office issues they otherwise wouldn't have brought up. It

was important first to let them know it was safe to do this. It's hard to imagine

anyone feeling safe when the only time the boss comes to visit them is to tell

them what they're doing wrong.

One of the things I was concerned about when I stepped into this job was

that people in the office were being asked to perform their duties without adequate resources. Since coming to NASA I've watched as people are thrown into

the breach. They're usually successful at what they do because they're intelligent,

STORY: ROY MALONE
20

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talented people. But that doesn't make it right. You build a team by helping each

other out, and that means running to someone's defense when they need help. It

pays big dividends in the long run because then you've got everyone helping

each other, and that is the glue that holds the team together. Once that attitude

takes hold, nobody sees him or herself isolated any longer when problems arise.

I have many examples of what I mean by people required to work with inadequate resources. For example, when I came on board with Logistics Services,

some folks in the office were still working on 386s--at NASA! I heard about a

woman on my floor assigned to work on some of our databases with only a 486,

while I had a Pentium. Who needed the

better computer, her or me? I immediately requested that the computers be

swapped. It's far more important to me

that the people I work with have the tools

they need to do their jobs than that I have

the biggest, baddest machine on the floor.

One thing we felt we had to do center-wide was train people on what property management was all about. But the last thing we wanted was to drag everyone into an auditorium for a two-hour lecture. People were busy--they had projects, sometimes multiple projects, going on. To make the training convenient for

them, we built a web-based program. I helped design it myself, an interactive program that quizzed and evaluated them as they worked their way through it.

People appreciated this. The comments we got back said it was an excellent way

to conduct a training, and they suggested other programs use this approach. 

This touches on one of our biggest reforms of all, getting folks in the office

to put customer service on their agenda. When I first came on board, there was

little to no customer focus. One way I tried to put it on the agenda was by telling

"Sea Stories." These were just stories I brought up to try and get others to see that

exceeding customer expectations was something in itself worth striving for. The

stories could be anything. Usually, they were just things that happened to me during the day or over the weekend. For example, I bought windshield wiper blades

from a guy at the Auto Store. He asked me where my car was parked and I pointed to it in the parking lot. He took the blades out to the car, popped out the old

ones, put the new ones in, and then while we were standing out there talking, he

asked if there was anything else I needed. He didn't have to go out into the parking lot and put on the new blades, but he was focused on exceeding my expectations and making sure I was a satisfied customer. Where do you think I'm going

next time I need something for my car? 

Stories like this I hoped would inspire people to do something extra for people. These could be simple things, like sounding extra friendly when they

answered the phone, building cordial relationships with the people in other parts

of the Center, treating our contractors as team members too. The attention people pay to the customer is probably the most visible difference in how our office

operates now from when I started. This customer satisfaction emphasis was reinSTORY: ROY MALONE

“It’s hard to imagine anyone feeling

safe when the only time the boss

comes to visit them is to tell them what

they’re doing wrong.”
ASK MAGAZINE: For Practitioners by Practitioners

21

forced by sharing comments from pleased customers at our monthly staff meetings. One employee who adopted this new practice was almost always recognized.

During the meetings I would say "and here is an email from a happy customer

who wrote, Mr.--," and I would pause and the entire group would say his name.

This encouraged others to take pride in being recognized for taking care of their

customers.

We've made lots of changes and we've got lots of people to agree the difference has been worth the effort. Many of those old outdated procedures I referred

to earlier are in the process of being

r e formed. During one major process

improvement effort, we used facilitated

process improvement sessions with

employees, contractors and customers to

identify over 500 process improvement

opportunities in a 16-week span. We have

already implemented more than 250 of them. 

The overarching challenge in reforming an entire office is changing the

mindset. You get there slowly, but it can happen. I think our office demonstrates

this. To challenge the status quo, you have to inspire a shared vision. Once you do

this, enable others to act, and never cease to model the way yourself. Do this from

the heart and amazing things can happen. 

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Successful change comes from employing a complementary set of principles: Challenge the

Process, Inspire a Shared Vision, Enable Others to Act, Model the Way, and Encourage the Heart.

These principles derive from The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things

Done in Organizations, by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner.

2. Actions speak louder than words. People will draw inspiration from seeing you 'walk' what you

'talk' and thereby follow the path you lead.

3. Stories provide concrete examples of the values you want to instill. Be sure to draw from other

areas of life besides just what's going on at the office.

4. Let people know their work is appreciated by recognizing and rewarding those who make a difference.

STORY: ROY MALONE

“The attention people pay to the 

customer is probably the most visible

difference in how our office operates

now from when I started.”
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22

STORY: MICHAEL C. JANSEN

Garage-Style Engineering by Michael C. Jansen

“We were assured that, despite our

budget constraints, almost anything

was possible.”

Judging by my conversations with peers in the industry, it is striking how

many engineers grew into their professions by tinkering with junk in their families' garages. Objects of surprising simplicity and utility were created by eager,

inventive young minds, from the stuff stored by can't-let-it-go-to-waste parents.

Along the way we learned, and developed a passion for engineering. And it was

no big loss if a "junk" contraption didn't work...

Where does that creative, pioneering, seat-of-the-pants engineer in us go as

we mature? 

Only rarely, it seems, does this approach survive the "real world." For example, several years ago one of the engineers in my organization had an interesting

idea in reaction to a problem he heard about. Several of the International Space

Station (ISS) technical communities needed to collect various types of on-orbit

data to validate their respective math models. The necessary instrumentation had

been eliminated from the ISS Program during previous budget-cutting exercises.

To reinstate even a tiny fraction of the originally requested instrumentation at

this late stage of the design cycle would be cost-prohibitive.

Prompted by the Loads and Dynamics community, the ISS Prime contractor

estimated alone the integration costs to exceed $24 million for a greatly scaled

back complement of accelerometers. Although everyone involved cringed at the

cost estimate, they knew that the traditional approach of routing wiring, scarring

the existing hardware designs for instrument installations, and redoing the myriad drawings and interface documents

could indeed be that expensive. Everyone,

that is, save my colleague, who wondered

why nobody seemed to be considering the

use of wireless technology. He knew of a

small local company that specialized in

wireless applications, and which had developed some spread-spectrum radio

technology under a NASA Small Business Innovative Research grant. They had

produced a low-cost transceiver for him that functioned very well during a recent

Shuttle flight experiment. 

His idea was simple: incorporate similar technology into small, instrumented boxes that could be velcroed wherever needed on the ISS with a minimum of

integration effort. If the boxes were made inexpensive enough,they could be dis-
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23

posable, which would allow a non-redundant system design. If a box failed, simply pull it off and replace it, or cluster several of them in each desired location

and remotely activate the redundant units in turn upon failure of the active unit.

The possibilities were exciting indeed.

I was asked to lead the exploratory project to determine the feasibility of this

approach, then build a prototype system, conduct a flight experiment, and, if

appropriate, convince the ISS Program to approve the addition of a multipurpose

instrumentation system based on this concept. The problem was that discretionary funds were exceedingly tight that year and my organization could only

afford a shoestring budget--maybe $50 thousand if I was lucky. It was an impossible undertaking in a conventional sense; one of the instruments we were interested in cost $23 thousand per unit!

STORY: MICHAEL C. JANSEN

Michael C. Jansen 

is currently the Manager for Launch On-need at Johnson Space Center in the External Carrier’s Office of

the International Space Station Program Office. Mr. Jansen began his NASA career as a Johnson Space

Center co-operative education student in 1982 while attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, from

which he obtained his Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering in 1985.

I met with the wireless company's president,a gentleman with an exuberant,

entrepreneurial attitude, who served to energize my "team" (a solitary veteran of

the previous flight experiment) and me. We were assured that, despite our budget constraints, almost anything was possible. Were it not for this company's

demonstrated ability to follow through on its claims, I would have been highly

skeptical. 

Instead, I remembered a friend's experience. Faced with a six-figure cost for

a wave facility test to determine which of several ISS crew-return-capsule designs

would be most seaworthy, he built his own wave tank with a few sheets of plywood, foam rubber, some plastic sheeting, and a scavenged wash-machine motor

and mechanism. For a couple hundred dollars, he narrowed the design options to

two.

I shifted mental gears and adopted a more can-do attitude.

Hence, our project quickly took on a garage-style feel. Since size minimization was critical to our design concept, we scoured the vendor ranks until we

found one that made automobile airbag accelerometers the size of pencil erasers.

By modifying the signal processing, the mechanism could be adapted to measure

the much lower acceleration levels we were interested in. One problem was

solved--for $50 a pop.

Similarly, we bought and modified other items until, after a scant three

months, we had two working prototype wireless instrument boxes the size of a
24

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double-thick pack of cigarettes, complete with accelerometers in three axes, pressure transducers, radiometers, solar-power rechargeable battery cells, radio transceivers, and data processors. Included in our hardware set was a similar-sized

transceiver to plug into a standard flight laptop computer from which we controlled the system. All this came to under $40 thousand, including a preliminary

round of vibration and thermal-vacuum testing.

The various managers to whom we demonstrated our prototype marveled at

the real-time, dual display of acceleration, pressure, heat flux, and temperature

data marching across the laptop screen almost as much as at the price tag. A second generation of smaller production

units was estimated to cost $1500 per unit,

and a comprehensive ISS instrumentation

system based on this technology wa s

priced at an order of magnitude less than

the $24 million the ISS Program had

choked on previously. We were strongly encouraged to proceed with a flight

experiment. 

We developed the blueprints for a flight experiment that would test the system by measuring the effects of the Shuttle's reaction control jets as they plumed

the Russian space station Mir. Upon conducting initial negotiations with our

Russian counterparts, and with the local Extravehicular Activity Office that

would have to design the space-walk activity necessary to install our hardware on

Mir, I developed a schedule and budget for the flight experiment and charged the

hill. 

I soon found that the ISS Program was willing to accept my proposal for a

risk mitigation experiment to be flown on an upcoming Shuttle-Mir mission but

that I would have to bring my own funding. Here was the Catch 22: the ISS

Program was unwilling to fund the development of a system it had no official

requirement for, and it was unwilling to acknowledge on-orbit instrumentation

as being a requirement until a low-cost implementation was available.

Upon looking for solutions across the Agency,I learned of a project with similar goals as ours at another NASA center. They wanted to develop a wireless

instrument system to measure structural dynamics and had secured science

funding to develop such a system, which they wanted to test on the ISS. It was

the perfect match: We had hardware but no money; they had money but no

hardware. The other project's manager eagerly accepted my proposal to combine

our projects.

Upon gaining approval for this combined risk mitigation experiment, I left

it to accept another assignment, taking with me a new attitude inspired by my

experience with garage-style engineering. Our original project,after several incarnations, spawned several wireless instrumentation projects that now support the

Shuttle and ISS Programs. All of them are producing more versatile and easily

integrated flight instrumentation hardware than conventional aerospace methods allow. They're beating convention with shorter development times and draSTORY: MICHAEL C. JANSEN

“We had hardware but no money;

they had money but no hardware.”
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25

matically lower development and integration costs as well. 

Perhaps we should do more of our work in the garage.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. It pays to remember the let's-try-it pioneer attitude that drew us to our profession and, likely, to

our employer.

2. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth a million; prototype early and often

not only to mitigate risk, but to help management understand the true feasibility/potential of your

concept. It's hard not to get interested in an idea when one sees it embodied in a functional piece

of hardware! 

3. The use of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components, combined with an informal quality

control/configuration-management environment, enables Faster-Better-Cheaper prototyping.

STORY: MICHAEL C. JANSEN
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26

STORY: HECTOR DELGADO

Open the Door and They Will Come by Hector Delgado

Hector Delgado 

is Division Chief of Process Tools and Techniques in the Safety, Health and Independent Assessment

Directorate at Kennedy Space Center. He has received many honors and awards including the NASA

Exceptional Service medal, the Silver Snoopy Award and various Achievement Awards.

How do you reallocate funds without people feeling like you're taking away

"their money"? If the money is being used efficiently, reallocation is a moot point;

but if efficiency is not the case in your organization, you've got a corrosive situation that must be addressed.

At the Kennedy Space Center we needed to find a process by which all the

sacred cows could be identified. Given the legacy of the organization,it was clear

that one possible solution would be to adopt an "Inclusion Solution" to the

process. That is, have our customers, developers, and contractors included in the

process, so that they would feel this was not just an exercise to take away "their

money."

I attempted to do just that in 1999 when I transferred to the Engineering

Development Directorate at KSC. I was asked to head the Development Project

office. I viewed it as an opportunity to shake up the system--because, in my view,

this was a system badly in need of shaking up.

Here's what I'm getting at. Picture this: KSC's career engineer returns home

from work at the end of the day and is greeted by a spouse who asks, 'So, Honey,

what did you do today?' The engineer replies, 'Oh, it was just like any other day.

I watched.' 

Watching, I'm afraid, has become all too commonplace at KSC. It seems like

most of our career engineers are getting paid to watch contractors do the handson engineering work; what at one time we were doing in our own labs, we now

are delegating to people outside the Agency. Sure we provide insight,and I don't

have any problem with that,but the future for the career engineer at KSC did not
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27

look very bright in 1999. Many were asking themselves, "Am I going to become

obsolete?"

The situation had to change because for an institution to survive and flourish, it has to use the talent within (otherwise you threaten the very existence of

the institution). There was plenty of talented NASA people whose boredom and

frustration would eventually undermine the promise of what NASA originally

meant: exciting, cutting edge, hands-on engineering work. To lose the talent within an institution like NASA is in essence to kill it. What kind of institutions do

you have when there is no institutional memory? Facilities remain standing, but

the lifeblood inside has been pumped dry.

In my new job, therefore, I considered it the first order of business to find

ways to come up with funding for new development activities for the career

engineers at KSC. Historically, the Engineering Technology Base (ETB) budget

was used for operational support of core capabilities as well as program support.

I wanted to use my position to put new projects back in the hands of our civil servants. I believe the opportunity to branch out into other projects and research is

upon us, especially as the shuttle program relinquishes more of the day-to-day

processing responsibility to the private sector, but it is up to us to seize this opportunity while it lasts. To do so would

require looking at all of our current

projects and deciding which ones

to jettison to make room for reinvestment.

My strategy was simple. I needed to convey that diversification and re-investment did not mean taking away "their money." Instead, I wanted people to see

that this was a realignment of "our" resources, and this process belonged to all.

Getting them to see this was going to be the tough part. Naturally, you have to use

dialogue--which isn't easy, because remember, engineers want solutions, not talk. 

My team consisted of myself and two other KSC veterans, David Collins and

Oscar Toledo. We started by being there all the time. And we were, ladies and gentleman, until late at night, every night. You've heard the expression "Build it and

they will come." In our case it was "Open the door and they will come."

"You can't reallocate this money--the project will come to a standstill, we

won't be able to launch. And besides, it's MY money!" 

We heard them out to the bitter end. At every opportunity, we explained why

we were doing this. Besides the fact that we were all going to lose our jobs if we

didn't change, we talked about realigning with our customers' needs, developing

technology to support present and future needs, providing more opportunities for

civil servants to participate in hands-on development activities. We talked and we

talked until we felt like we had these lines memorized and were saying them in

our sleep.

Another important part of the strategy was to put together a team that would

look at how all project money was being spent at the center. The team consisted

of division chiefs, project managers, customers, and contractors. We reviewed all

STORY: HECTOR DELGADO

“Over several months, we dismantled

and reassembled the entire budget.”
28

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of the projects and found that a number of them were inactive. The projects were

cancelled, or the project managers were given the chance to reclaim them. Few

did, incidentally.

The process progressed to a line-by-line review of every project, every budget, and every procurement at the center. It sounds time consuming, and it is, but

this was absolutely necessary. We brought

together the customer, the developer, and,

where applicable, the contractor to have

an open and meaningful discussion about

every project, and gave those with a vital

stake in that project a chance to defend it.

Over several months, we dismantled and reassembled the entire budget. In

order to obtain final buy-in from everyone, we held a project review with customers, developers and contractors. We scheduled the meeting at the Beach

House--a mini-conference center at KSC used by senior management for retreats-

-to make sure that everyone was feeling good and loose before the fur started flying.

It wasn't nearly that bad,however. In fact,It was fun,it was stimulating, and

in the end there were no broken bones or bloody noses.

Together, we identified ten technical product areas for investment and partnering with different programs and private industry. The "my money" attitude

had magically transformed into "our money." And "our money" resulted in a

development budget of $2.2 million in new investments in applied research and

an additional $1 million in laboratory capital. 

By creating a process that was driven by inclusion, open dialogue and clearly defined goals, the team realized an outcome that managed to overcome deep

entrenched norms and suspicion. We had to go about it like this because we were

challenging years of tradition, radicalizing a "business-as-usual" mentality.

Not everyone at KSC was enamored of our work. A significant number of

people at the Center couldn't wait for me to find another job. When you challenge people to change, sometimes the only reaction you get is a steadfast resistance to change. But let's not leave off like this--for that's only one reading. The

majority of people at our Center, I believe, are much happier, prouder, and feeling good about their future. At KSC we now watch a lot less and do a good deal

more of the work we came here for in the first place. For those of us at KSC who

prefer to read the story this way, sharing risk, responsibilities and ownership has

been a tremendous success.

STORY: HECTOR DELGADO

“When you challenge people to change,

sometimes the only reaction you get is a

steadfast resistance to change.”
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29

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Persistence pays off--if you are not willing to go ALL the way, you better not start.

2. Be inclusive, even if it takes more time. People will lower their defenses when they know they

are being heard. 

3. Put together a team to lead the change. The entire team must understand the situation and be

able to articulate a unified message.

STORY: HECTOR DELGADO
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30

FEATURE: W. SCOTT CAMERON

Four Ways I Battle The Untenable Status Quo by W. Scott Cameron 

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.

“I can only take so much whining

before I mentally shut down and begin

to ignore what a person is telling me.”

1. A Time to Whine

As I mentor/coach Project Managers (PMs) and others, I have established a

10-minute maximum whining limit for our meetings. When the 10 minutes are

up, the person has a decision to make--either say "Thanks, that helped me get a

lot of things off my chest," or start to create a proposal on how to change the situation that is causing the problem. 

This sounds cut and dried, but the 10-minute rule has proved very helpful to

me. I can only take so much whining before I mentally shut down and begin to

ignore what a person is telling me. I meet with 3-5 people daily; thus, I am still

getting more than the recommended daily dosage of whining. Over time, the people I meet with have begun to understand

the 10-minute rule is an effective one. It

provides them with either a defined "venting" space or an opportunity to formulate

a proposal to change the status quo.

2. Change Things You Can Control 

The balance between time spent at work and at home is a recurring topic in

my 1:1 meetings. Recently, a project manager (PM) complained he couldn't keep

up with his e-mail/paper work because of all the interruptions he has in the

office. After 10 minutes, I asked him what would it take for him to better manage this situation. He felt working at home and coming to the office later in the

morning would improve this situation. I asked what was stopping him from

doing this. He indicated he always came to work at 7 a.m. and would feel funny

staying home as his co-workers would see he wasn't in his office. After thinking

about this, he realized it was his routine keeping him from alleviating this situation. Thus, he proposed to change his work routine. Now he uses uninterrupted

time at home to manage his workload. This was no small feat, as changing a personal routine is hard, but if it accomplishes what you want it is worth it.
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31

3. Seek Ways to Use Innovation to Your Advantage 

There are many tasks to which you can apply your energies to effectively

change the status quo at work and in your personal life. There are only 24 hours

a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Thus, you need to pick the items you

want to change in your personal and work life carefully.

I have always believed it best to strike a balance between my work and my

personal life. To put too much into one and not enough into the other always

leaves me feeling unsatisfied with myself at the core. At this stage of my life and

career, you would expect I would have it all worked out by now. Not so! To achieve

the balance I require, I've found I must constantly tinker with the scales.

Here is an example of how I used an innovative solution to help me at a time

I felt "unbalanced." During portions of my career I have traveled in excess of 80

percent of the time on business. I don't dislike travel, but there was a time when

I felt a desire to minimize it. I thought it was killing my personal life, so I considered the alternatives.

One of my bi-weekly trips then was to Phoenix for project reviews. This was

before the days of videoconferences and web cams--but after the telegraph was

invented. I spent 3 or 4 days a month traveling to and from Phoenix and sitting

in project reviews. I had to change this and proposed a different communication

vehicle to the person I was working with. I proposed we invest the money the

project spent on my travel to buy a video camera. He could then videotape the

site and the process-and-packing construction areas we normally toured before

our meetings and send me the tape. I'd review the tape in my office, and then we

would conduct a conference call and

accomplish in less than four hours what

normally took 3 or 4 days per month of

travel. It was a success and I felt satisfied,

both at home and at the office.

4. Understand the difference between Status Quo and Folklore 

Procter & Gamble, in my opinion, has a very robust way of obtaining project

funding. In a nutshell, you write a proposal stating the business needs/benefits

and its financial impact,and then you gain your hierarchy's approval or rejection.

Many PMs complain it is too hard to obtain project funding. When asked why

they feel this way, they eventually admit they do not understand the funding

process. Their bosses also do not always understand this process but are generally willing to give the PM their personal experience (folklore), saying something

like "You can't do that because I've never done it that way!" 

I try to have people understand what the status quo really is versus what others think it is (folklore). Once you understand what the status quo is, you are in

far better position to either change it or whine about it--10 minutes max!

FEATURE: W. SCOTT CAMERON

“I have always believed it best to strike

a balance between my work and my

personal life.”
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32

When I talk with project managers the question I get, perhaps more than

any other, sounds like this: "I want to do things differently, but my boss is just

not receptive. What can I do?" That question is always troubling to me because I

have no ready answer.

Certainly people clinging to the status quo resent change and,oftentimes, the

advocate of change too. This is so everywhere, but especially in Government,

where an aversion to managerial risk abounds; plus, in Government, there is

often a greater premium put on not failing than there is on truly doing something better.

So what do I say? One answer is, of course, to "go-with-the-flow." Many project managers choose this course because it's easier, less frustrating or less risky

to them personally than being an advocate for change. For those whom the status quo is unacceptable, I have some thoughts that they might find useful.

Persistence P ays Off

Don't give up right away if your boss rejects your brave new idea for change.

Repackage it differently and have another go. One successful approach I have

found is to add an "escape provision" to

the proposal. Show your boss how, if your

idea begins to go awry, that you can revert

to the status quo without a major catastrophe or embarrassment. 

Another approach that can work is to

show your boss how championing your idea will personally benefit him. Most

often this means illustrating how implementing it will make him look good to his

bosses. Tie your idea to the coat tails of some speech, document or policy emanating from the Agency's senior leadership. Another suggestion is to shower

your boss with detailed analysis about why your idea will produce a better outcome than clinging to the status quo. Such an analysis may be nothing more than

quantitative speculation but can be persuasive. Unfortunately, many managers,

FEATURE: TERRY LITTLE

Some Thoughts On Challenging the Status Quo by Terry Little

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 efforts. As a civilian employee, he has been an operations research analyst, a

program director for a classified program, a deputy program director for both a large, multiple-program

office and a Navy-led joint program office, and a weapons development planning manager.

“If you can’t muster the courage to

stay until the bitter end, then don’t

pick the fight!”
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33

especially those coming from scientific or engineering backgrounds, do not trust

intuition or judgment as a basis for decision-making. Analysis works for them

especially if there are numbers. Besides, if you have a lot of supporting analyses,

your boss will know that you are earnest about your idea. 

Finally, it really helps in selling your idea to a reluctant boss when you can

drum up some allies or collaborators. These cannot be just anyone, but persons

whom your boss is likely to find credible. Many bosses will resist any new idea

coming from one person but will begin to embrace it when others also tout it as

"good." It's called the "bandwagon effect," and it often works to good effect. 

I would be derelict here if I didn't point out that being persistent in the face

of bureaucratic obstacles implies being courageous. Challenges to the status quo

threaten many people, their sense of self-worth, their belief that what they are

doing is important, and, in some cases, their jobs. When bureaucrats feel threatened they fight rather than flee. The fight almost surely will be a relentless street

fight where ad hominem attacks, whisper campaigns, and email wars are the

norm. Commonly, those who feel threatened by change use the "chicken little" tactic, whereby they tout the worst imaginable outcome of a change as the most likely outcome. It takes true fortitude and passion for the agent of change to keep

from withering in the face of fire. If you can't muster the courage to stay until the

bitter end, then don't pick the fight!

Selectively Challenging the Status Quo 

In all our organizations there are doubtless many processes, practices and

policies that need changing. My natural tendencies are to either go after them all

in hopes of winning one or two, or to single out those that appear to offer the most

promise for a dramatic improvement. Both

approaches are probably doomed to fail.

Challenging everything at once marks you

as a "Don Quixote," someone who tilts at

every windmill and is simply a dreamer. In short, you appear to lack credibility

and no one takes you seriously.

The second situation, identifying those changes that would seem to offer the

most improvement, is sinister in its allure. The problem is that such changes are

likely to be the hardest to implement. In some cases they may involve statutory

changes that are near impossible to make happen at any reasonable time. Look

for what's doable--changes where the decision authority is clear cut--changes

where it will be easy to secure influential allies--changes that can be implemented fairly quickly without having to get everyone and his brother to approve--

changes that have some sort of precedent.

I've seen my own power to affect change grow over time. By succeeding at

small changes, I have gained the credibility necessary to take a crack at larger

changes. I admit it's tough to be patient, but in the long run patience pays off.

FEATURE: TERRY LITTLE

“By succeeding at small changes, I

have gained the credibility necessary to

take a crack at larger changes.”
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34

FEATURE: TERRY LITTLE

Right:

"Hot Shot," lithograph by Robert Rauschenberg

depicts the Space Shuttle.
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35

Focus on Execution 

Any proposal for change can generate endless debate and consume enormous energy when deciding whether it is a good idea or not. As the advocate it's

tempting to believe that getting approval to do something different is the end of

the battle. Not so! It's only the beginning.

I have seen a lot of change proposals that seemingly were good ideas turn

into disasters after the wheels came off during implementation. A few years ago

I proposed to make past performance the most important factor in a big-dollar

source selection of offerors. I knew it made eminent sense and resented that it

was such a tough fight to get "the system" to agree. It was a major mindset change

to have a factor other than cost or technical as most important. Nonetheless,

after extensive dialog I won the battle,

but as we got into actually doing the

evaluation it quickly became apparent

that I had vastly underestimated the

complexity of doing what I proposed.

Truly, "the devil was in the details." I had become so enchanted by the philosophical need for the change that I failed to come to grips with the pragmatic aspects

of implementing it. What pulled us through were sheer doggedness and some

luck. 

Ultimately the test of whether a challenge to the status quo is a move forward

or backward is not resolved by debate; results are what matter. And make no mistake, if you challenge the status quo it follows that you must be accountable for

and own the results, good or bad. If you can't do that, then keep quiet. Our system has more than enough critics willing to whine about the status quo but

unwilling to accept accountability for the results.

FEATURE: TERRY LITTLE

“It’s tempting to believe that getting

approval to do something different is the

end of the battle. Not so! It’s only the

beginning.”
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36

CONFERENCE REPORT

Lessons From the Blind & Lessons in Leadership:

Knowledge Sharing East & West by Todd Post 

Todd Post is the editor of ASK Magazine and works for Edutech Ltd out of Silver Spring, Maryland. He has written

for many publications in print and online.

Todd Post demonstrates ASK magazine to KS participants.

Dr. Alexander Laufer has a model called IQ Plus. Basically, if you bring experienced people together to talk,share stories, and test new ideas, the collective IQ

of the group is greater than any one individual's IQ.

I had the pleasure of observing IQ Plus in action by attending my first APPL

Knowledge Sharing Conference in December. Project managers from NASA

Centers around the U.S. gathered to talk about project management,to listen and

connect their experiences, to explore innovative concepts, and to discuss new

tools.

The first two days, December 4-5, were in Atlanta, December 6-7 in San

Francisco. The conference is held in two locations so that NASA project managers

on the East and West Coasts do not have to travel far from their Centers to attend. 

In Atlanta, keynote speaker Terry Little, Program Director for the Joint Airto-Surface Standoff Missile Program and one of the Defense Department's most

seasoned program managers, raised the temperature in the room with his intera c t i ve presentation "Cheaper, Fa s t e r, Better In Action." Following opening

remarks by Dr. Michelle Collins and a brief presentation on APPL activities

abroad by Dr. Edward Hoffman,Mr. Little led a spirited discussion for nearly two

hours on managing risk, working in teams, selecting contractors and cultivating

relationships with them. He also spoke about such wide-open issues as what does

"leadership" mean in terms of project management. Dr. Laufer introduced Terry

Little as 'the most radical and most creative Project Manager' in the Air Force. At

55, Terry Little's most radical feat may be his longevity in the Air Force. He has

been challenging the status quo in the Air Force since 1967, and it is obviously a 

role he relishes, advising his audience "Deal

with barriers and obstacles ruthlessly." 

After the keynote presentation and the

discussion that followed, we moved to a cozier location outside the conference room in
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37

front of the Emory Center's magnificent stone fireplace. As the warmth of the fire

helped folks to unwind, I seized the opportunity to get some feedback on ASK

Magazine.

It was a great opportunity for feedback because several of those who had articles in the magazine were present. Richard Day, whose Best Practice on "Supplier

Integration" appears in the first issue, sat down and I showed him his article laid

out for the first time. Another person who came by was Steve Gonzalez, a softspoken project manager from Johnson Space Center, who read the articles with

interest and then graciously thanked me for showing him the magazine.

None of us in Atlanta was prepared for the stunning presentation Steve gave

the next morning entitled "What About the Passion? The Changing Face of

NASA." Presentations were ostensibly about "The Role of Systems Engineering in

the Faster, Better, Cheaper Era," but if that's how they began, there was no telling

where any would end up as audience participation dictated the discussion more

than anything.

In Steve's presentation, he talked about how a group of engineers in the

Command and Control Center at Johnson built a working lab out of a dream of

what they thought NASA should become by the year 2076. Part of their intention

was to regain systems engineering skills they felt they'd lost to contractors who

now had greater control of the hands-on work at the Center. But that was only the

half of it. The real story was the courage and conviction of Steve and his colleagues

who put together a plan that basically redefined the cutting edge at NASA. 

In San Francisco, where the conference

resumed next day, D r. Robert Sutton,

Professor of Management Science and

Engineering at Stanford University and coauthor of The Knowing-Doing Gap with

Stanford colleague Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer, gave

the keynote address. Sutton and Pfeffer's premise is that despite the expensive

and time consuming efforts of many companies to try to improve their organization through education and training, and by hiring management consulting firms

and reading all the latest research,the bottom line is that few actually bring about

any significant change in their management practices. Pfeffer and Sutton sought

to find out why there is such a discrepancy between a company's best intentions

and their actual accomplishments. NASA project managers had plenty to say

about this, but out of respect for those who let it all hang out I'll be discreet and

just note you should have been there.

CONFERENCE REPORT

NASA project manager Dougal Maclise at Knowledge Sharing West in San

Francisco.
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As in Atlanta, the second day began with a diverse group of presentations.

These all came under the broad heading "Challenging the System," and what the

project managers came up with was as idiosyncratic as you'd expect given such

freedom to be inventive.

"Poignant" is not a word we expect to use about a presentation at a NASA

conference, but that may be the best word to describe Dougal Maclise's presentation, "Lessons from the Blind," about his first job after graduating college and

working for the Portland Public Schools as an equipment designer for handicapped children. Dougal read a story about working with a blind boy named

Bobby Smith, helping him to walk alone from his house to school.

On a cursory reading of the story there would appear to be no apparent relationship between a blind boy and NASA project managers, but as we discussed

after Dougal's reading, we considered it as metaphor for the challenges faced by

project managers daily. What made the story so compelling was the many ways

it could be interpreted, and the project managers who had the good fortune to be

there appeared to have no lack of imagination in coming up with interpretations.

Everyone seemed to be able to relate to the plight of the blind boy, and to

Dougal's plight as well. 

Interestingly, no presentation in either Atlanta or San Francisco elicited as

much participation as this one, in part, I'm sure, because of its novelty. I was 

blown away by how creative the project managers were about what could be learned from

parables so seemingly unrelated to NASA.

Indeed, as the title of the story makes clear,

there were lessons to be learned from the

blind, and we studied them. 

Both the Atlanta and San Francisco meetings ended with a group discussion

of an article by Secretary of State Colin Powell entitled "18 Lessons on

Leadership." Project managers were put together in small groups to discuss 6 of

the 18 lessons. "Lessons" may not be the best word to describe them, however.

They were more like aphorisms, ranging from familiar advice such as "Don't be

afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyards" to glib musings of the

sort "Command is lonely" and "Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." 

Project managers read the assigned lessons and discussed their relevance in

terms of their day-to-day experiences at NASA. Thinking back to Dr. Laufer's theory of IQ Plus, I would argue it's group activities like this that provide the greatest opportunity to realize the utility of collaboration, dialogue, and story telling.

CONFERENCE REPORT

In San Francisco, KS participants discuss Colin Powell's "18 Lessons on

Leadership."
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39

The individual presentations are great,interesting, compelling, and sometimes, as

in the cases of Dougal Maclise and Steve Gonzalez, spellbinding; but the most

value for the buck at a conference like this seems to me to be these group activities where everyone is involved. The more people involved, the more knowledge

there is to share.

For me, attending the conference certainly increased my appreciation of the

challenges faced by NASA's best,and it emphasized the importance of knowledge

sharing as a professional development tool. It was also a great introduction to

many people I look forward to meeting again and learning more from about project management and its ups and downs. See you at the next one.

CONFERENCE REPORT
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40

PRACTICES: OWEN GADEKEN

Cross-Training Within the Project Team by Owen Gadeken 

Dr. Owen Gadeken 

is an experienced project manager, educator, author, and consultant. He serves as a Professor of

Engineering Management at the Defense Systems Management College (DSMC) located at Fort Belvoir,

Virginia.

Background 

Project teams are often hampered by internal conflicts between team members from different functional organizations. What happens is that team members form stereotypes and make snap judgments about what their colleagues are

doing and why. This conflict typically occurs between technical project members

and contractors. To prevent this kind of conflict from undermining the project, I

believe it is helpful to set up short cross-functional training sessions that allow

project team members to explain the key elements of their job to the other members of the project team. The intent of these sessions is to: (1) establish closer

cross-functional working relationships among project team members; (2) identify dysfunctional gaps and overlaps between team members; (3) raise the general

level of project knowledge among team members; and (4) raise the level of trust

and openness among all project team members.

Procedures

1. The project manager sets up a series of team meetings over the course of

the project for each team member to summarize his or her role on the project. 

2. A format is established that includes the team member's major responsibilities, key inputs from other project team members and outsiders, and key outputs to the others and to the project itself.
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41

PRACTICES: OWEN GADEKEN

3. The project manager (or designated focal point) convenes each session

with a brief review of the project goals, asks one or more team members to make

their presentations, and then facilitates a discussion of issues and actions to

improve the interface between all team members.

4. This process continues as the project progresses so that team members

have periodic opportunities to brief each other on their contributions and discuss

their working relationship.

"Go for the Stars" oil by P.A. Nisbet depicts the essence of a launch.
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42

Background 

At times we become so involved in a project that we forget about the customer. What the customer requires, needs, and expects of us should always be the

driving force behind our efforts. Such thinking leads to the logical conclusion

that recruiting the customer's active involvement is a critical component of project management. Without question the customer should be part of the development team. One way to integrate the customer into the development team (civil

servants and/or contractors) is to set up a partnership. This will be different from

the traditional customer-supplier relationship. This type of arrangement is not

always possible depending on contractual and/or disclosure obligations of the

project. When the project manager is at liberty to do so, he or she should seriously engage the customer. In my experience, I have always found that even in

extremely technical and politically challenging projects, the customer has been

the key to the successful implementation of the project. 

Procedures

1. The customer and supplier should agree on a partnership for the purpose

of developing the product or providing a service. The partnership should require

the customer to provide personnel with appropriate backgrounds to actively participate as members of the project management team, the subsystem development teams, and the integration and validation team (the teams could vary based

on project needs). The supplier must create an environment in which the development team accepts the customer and there is open communication between all

parties.

· From the start,establish that the customer is a member of the development

team. 

· The customer/supplier team (CST) is responsible for the Formulation Phase

in the definition of requirements, budgets, timelines, performance, and expectaPRACTICES: OSCAR TOLEDO

Partnering With the Customer by Oscar Toledo 

Oscar Toledo 

is the Associate Director for Technology at the Kennedy Space Center and has received the NASA

Exceptional Service Medal.
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43

PRACTICES: OSCAR TOLEDO

tions.

· The CST is involved in the architecture development/evaluations, trade studies of cost, performance, and schedules.

· The CST is involved in the generation of the baseline project plan containing performance, cost, schedules, and risk assessments.

2. The customer and the project manager are together involved in the

approval phase of the project. This is a relationship of collaboration, not a customer-to-supplier relationship.

3. The CSTs have joint responsibility for the Implementation Phase of the

project. 

· The customer works side by side with the supplier and is held accountable

with the rest of the team for meeting milestones.

· The customer is actively involved in risk, performance, schedule, and cost

trade-offs made during implementation and for keeping open communications

with management. 

4. The customer also has a critical role in the Evaluation Phases throughout

the development cycle.

· The customer is one of the key players in the evaluation process, providing

valuable insight, acceptance, and sharing in the responsibility for project status

and any redirections.

“The Immersion," depicts astronaut training in the Neutral Bouyancy Simulator at Marshall Space Flight Center. An

Astronaut is practicing EVA activities on a mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope.
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INTERVIEW: TIM FLORES

ASK talks with Tim Flores

Tim Flores

has been a key project manager and leader at NASA Ames Research

Center for the past 10 years. Mr. Flores is currently completing a

Master of Science degree in System Design and Management at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since joining the Agency in August 1990, Tim Flores has spent the better

part of his career at the Ames Research Center in Northern California. Presently,

he is one of an elite group of NASA project managers enrolled in a System Design

and Management program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

We caught up with Tim last December at an APPL Knowledge Sharing

Meeting in San Francisco. He flew in from Cambridge for the two-day conference and had to rush back immediately afterwards to prepare for end-of-semester finals. Despite his hectic schedule, he seems relaxed and pleased to try and

be everywhere at once.

ASK: What motivated you to enter the MIT program at this point in your

career?

Flores: I love learning. By learning I mean both professional and self-development. Before I came to MIT, I was constantly trying to learn more about project management and how to be a better leader. In a way, it was like they invented this program for me. I was trying to do it on my own, but couldn't find time

to go to school.

ASK: Was it difficult to go back to school after being out for more than a

decade? 

Flores: The difficult part was I forgot the time commitment involved to

study full time. But I got used to that again pretty quickly. I didn't have much
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45

choice.

ASK: I would expect the project managers enrolled in this program are all

academically inclined. Great students when they were in college. Was that a prerequisite?

Flores: It's funny, I don't think of myself as academically inclined. In high

school I could have easily been voted 'Least Likely to Succeed' in my class.

ASK: Probably not "least likely."

Flores: You didn't know me in high school.

ASK: Okay, but there must have been some change in you at some point. Few

people go from being Least Likely to Succeed in his class to being in an MIT graduate program.

Flores: I changed a lot when I went into the Army. I got some discipline and

realized the life I was leading wasn't what I wanted. 

ASK: How did you go about changing yourself?

Flores: I started by doing little things for self-confidence, saying things to

myself like, 'Today, or this week,I'm going to speak in front of a group if I get the

chance.' It was mostly about holding my head high and believing in myself.

ASK: How did you become a successful project manager?

Flores: I'm very driven. I think all successful project managers are. You've

got a lot of responsibility and it can be overwhelming at times. No one else is

going to drive you, and people are looking to you for leadership.

ASK: Was there a turning point in your career at NASA when upper management decided you were someone to start grooming for a leadership position?

Flores: Probably the single biggest event in my career was in 1997 when I

was a member of the Tiger Team in the 12-foot pressure wind tunnel. If the Wind

Tunnel was going to be successful, we knew we needed to put together a better

training program than what we were currently offering. I took over the training

with very little time to get it done. I had to be very careful in conveying that the

earlier training wasn't done well. I got them to accept that, and we ran the training for 6-weeks with more than 100 people involved. That was a pretty big deal

because no one had attempted such an ambitious training program in such a

short time frame. In the end we accomplished way more than we ever thought we

could. That was probably the point at which people began to notice me.

ASK: At MIT you've met a lot of other successful project managers. What's

the biggest difference between managing

a project at NASA as opposed to managing

one in private industry?

Flores: At NASA we have a lot of programs where it's one strike and you're out.

You can't afford to make a mistake in that

environment. You've got to be very meticulous about the details you look at and

the way you review things. In private industry, depending on the size of the company, you may or may not have process guidelines to follow. For example, a midsize software company I know of, does not do risk management at all. They deal

INTERVIEW: TIM FLORES

“Before I came to MIT, I was constantly

trying to learn more about project management and how to be a better leader.” 
46

ASK MAGAZINE: For Practitioners by Practitioners

with what they can when they can and don't spend any time with such things as

fault trees or other such strategies.

ASK: Did you ever feel like a fish out of water with these other project managers from private industry? 

Flores: At first I found myself a lot of times converting things in class. I

thought, 'Okay, how do I convert this principle to the way government does

things?' Eventually, I relaxed and found myself thinking it's not that different

really. In government there's sometimes more bureaucracy to deal with but the

value of the process is the same. I think it comes from the fact that the Agency

is very much in the eye of the public. We like to think of ourselves as setting the

standards so we tend to be very meticulous and sometimes over-constrained.

ASK: Isn't bureaucracy a huge obstacle?

Flores: I tend to think that it's the end results that are most important. When

you achieve results in government, it doesn't always matter how you got there. I

think the government does allow their project managers to be creative. When

they're achieving results and they're doing

it safely, the ability not to play by the rules

and be creative is there.

ASK: What do you think will be the

biggest difference in how you manage

after you finish the MIT program?

Flores: Hopefully, being creative at

using the new tools I've learned. My tool bag is going to be full, just full. One of

the first things I want to do is start separating out those tools to determine which

ones are appropriate in what situations.

ASK: Can you offer an example of how you would use one these tools? 

Flores: Well, one example would be in trying to understand what the problem is you must solve. A lot of times you assume the problem posed to you is the

correct one. Sometimes the customer doesn't know exactly what they want. That

may require taking steps backwards to understand what the customer's needs

are. Imagine a testing situation: you set everything up in advance to solve the

problem you thought it was, and then you find out you have to make many adaptations to solve what the real problem is.

By spending more time questioning the

customer early on, that's a better use of

your time and theirs. The key is asking the

right questions early.

ASK: Is persuading a customer of

what they want a common problem?

Flores: More often it's persuading your team,getting them to see the big picture, and then conveying the importance of customer satisfaction. You always

have a customer whether it's your direct manager, the public or someone else.

One of the things I try to do in situations like this is get people to see the 'Big

Picture.' You try to get them to understand the objectives of the entire program,

INTERVIEW: TIM FLORES

“I’ve always tried to stave off dissension, so I will take the time to sit down

and explain to anyone the decisions I’m

making when they don’t understand.”

“By spending more time questioning

the customer early on, that’s a better

use of your time and theirs.” 
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47

the wider context factors for the Agency or the Center, the unique constraints

we're operating under--that sort of thing. You convey that information so that

hopefully they understand your decisions. If they understand why I made a decision, it's more likely they'll buy into the decision. 

ASK: What tools do you use to do this?

Flores: Communication is the big one. Being able to talk to people in a nonthreatening way and explain why you're making the decisions you are making

and also by making them feel that their opinion counts. When you have dissension in the ranks that's always dangerous. Success depends on a team effort. I've

always tried to stave off dissension,so I will take the time to sit down and explain

to anyone the decisions I'm making when they don't understand. They may not

always agree with me, but they appreciate the effort I'm making and that matters

in reinforcing that we're a team and we all need to be what's going on and why.

ASK: So what are your plans once you finish at MIT and return to NASA?

Flores: I want to lead Agency programs. In the future I hope there will be

opportunities to step up as one of NASA's leaders. That's what I'd like most.

INTERVIEW: TIM FLORES