A P P L

IN THIS ISSUE

Teaming with Possibilities

What makes a successful team? This issue our contributors look closely at the

he

ks

ost

nd

his

subject and come up with several answers. Wo rking on team chemistry is t

" Ac t i vation Energy" Dr. Owen Gadeken's story is about. Scott Cameron thin

it's getting to know people one to one. Tony Ma t u ro says it's getting the m

out of your support staff. Dr. Michael Hecht finds the best people he can a

builds the team around their talents. 

Te a m w o rk is a theme we explore often in ASK, but never so directly as in t

issue. You'll not only find formulas for building successful teams, you'll see examples of ones in action, strategies for how project managers can motivate their

teams, and expert advice on how to choose who to work with and who not to

w o rk with. 

It seems like all the stories make one common point: eve ryone on a team counts.

Few project managers can pull off a project alone, and when the whole team is

p e rforming to eve ryone's potential, the chances of pulling off a successful pro ject goes up exponentially. 

If that doesn't seem like enough by itself, listen to this... 

Discerning fans of ASK will note the last two issues our Special Fe a t u re was

" T h e re are no Mistakes, Only Lessons." We have not abandoned this feature, but

for now we want to broaden our re p e rt o i re. This issue we add a new Sp e c i a l

Fe a t u re, "My Me t a p h o r," starting with Paul Espinosa's article "My Big Wa l l "

about his rock climbing adve n t u ress on El Capitan in Yosemite National Pa rk. If

you think getting to Mars is work, read what it's like to scale a 3,000-foot ro c k

face. 

This issue we ' re also welcoming two new members to our Re v i ew Board, Hu g h

Wo o d w a rd and Jody Kusek. Hugh and Jody are our first re v i ewers from outside

NASA, and we are delighted to have them on our team. Read their bios on the

ASK Re v i ew Board page and see why we feel privileged to have them on our

team. 

Hope eve rything is copasetic with you and your team. But if it's not, be sure to

take notes on this issue of ASK. 

Todd Post 

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

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 3

Todd Post is the editor of A S K

Magazine and works for

E d u Tech Ltd. in Silver Spring,

Maryland. He recently had an

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

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

Magazine and the use of storytelling as part of the

Knowledge Sharing initiative at

N A S A .

You can contact Todd at

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

and tell him what you think

about this issue of A S K .
A P P L

Issue 7 F R O M T H E D I R E C TOR’S DESK

Sounds like Team Spirit

by Dr. Edward Hoff m a n

I recently accompanied my son Dan to one of his guitar lessons. As I sat in a separate room, I focused on the music he was playing and the beautiful, ro b u s t

sound that comes from a we l l - p l a yed guitar. Later that night, I woke up aro u n d

3 am. I tend to have my best thoughts at this hour. The trouble is I usually ro l l

over and fall back asleep. This time I was still awake an hour later, so I got up

and jotted some notes down in my study. 

I was thinking about the pure, honest sound of a we l l - p l a yed instrument. Fro m

t h e re my mind wandered into the realm of high-performance teams and successful projects. (I know this sounds we i rd, but this is the sort of thing I think about

at 3 am. Maybe you have your own we i rd thoughts around that time.) 

Consider a team in relation to music. It seems to me that a crack team can

a c h i e ve a beautiful, perfect unity in the same way that a band of brilliant musicians can when they're in harmony with one another. With more than a little satisfaction I have to admit, I started to think about the great work performed for

you by the Knowledge Sharing team, including this magazine you are reading. 

O ver the past two years I personally have re c e i ved some of my greatest pleasure s

as the APPL Di rector from the Knowledge Sharing activities - the Ma s t e r s

Fo rums, NASA Center visits, ASK Magazine. The Knowledge Sharing team

e x p resses such passion for their work, just like great musicians convey their passion in the music they play. In the case of Knowledge Sharing, there are many

factors that have made this so enjoyable (and hopefully worthwhile for NASA). 

T h ree ingredients come to mind -- ingredients that have produced a signature

sound. 

First, through the crazy, passionate playing of Alex Laufer, Michelle Collins,

Denise Lee, and Todd Post, I always know that something startling and original

is going to come out of their activities. This team has consistently done things

that are unique and innova t i ve. For me, best of all is that they are always try i n g

to improve on what they've done before. 

Second, success in any endeavor stems from people who know how to interpre t

a composition to sound beautiful when played in a different style. For Know l e d g e

Sharing to work, it must be adapted, re i n t e r p reted, shaped and played with at the

centers. In this re g a rd, we ' ve been blessed with another crazy, passionate, inspire d

a rtist named Claire Smith. Claire has turned Ames Re s e a rch Center in California

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 4

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

Dr. Edward Hoffman is

Director of the NASA Academy

of Program and Project

Leadership. He is responsible

for the development of program

and project leaders and teams

within NASA. Dr. Hoffman

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

You can contact him at 

ehoffman@hq.nasa.gov.

Issue 7 March 2002
into APPL-west. She is so good and committed to what she does that I just re f e r

people to her whenever they have questions about implementing project management development at the field level. 

Fi n a l l y, any great effort re q u i res talented people working behind the scenes, the

people who formulate a business approach and know how to manage the money

so that the music gets heard. I have known many brilliant and cre a t i ve people

with a ton of ideas that never take off due to an inability to work the business.

Again, the Knowledge Sharing team has been fortunate to have competent and

passionate people, specifically Tony Ma t u ro and his pro c u rement team at

Go d d a rd Space Flight Center, to make sure the process is in place to support the

e f f o rt. This kind of support is eve ry bit as crucial as the activity itself, and the

e f f o rts and creativity that go into successful pro c u rement and contracting is a

vital ingredient of this successful team. 

When I consider the Knowledge Sharing effort, I hear the sound of great music.

You can't tell me there isn't a connection between inspired musicianship and the

accomplishments of a great team. Not when I've heard it with my own ears. 

A P P L

F R O M T H E D I R E C TOR’S DESK

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Sounds like Team Spirit (cont’d)

page 5
A P P L

Issue 7 LETTER FROM THE EDITO R - I N - C H I E F

A "Sweet 16" Of Rules About Te a m w o r k

by Dr. Alexander Laufer

The following "Sweet 16" rules included here derive from a longer paper by

APPL Di rector Dr. Ed w a rd Hoffman and myself entitled "99 Rules for Ma n a g i n g

Fa s t e r, Be t t e r, Cheaper Projects." Our sources consisted mainly of "war stories"

told by master project managers in my book Simultaneous Ma n a g e m e n t :

Managing Projects in a Dynamic En v i ro n m e n t ( A M ACOM, The American

Management Association, 1996). The Simultaneous Management model was a

result of 10 years of intensive re s e a rch and testing conducted with the active participation of master project managers from leading private organizations such as

AT & T, Du Pont, Ex xon, General Motors, IBM, Mo t o rola and Procter &

Gamble. 

In a more recent study, led by Dr. Hoffman, we learned that master project managers in leading public organizations employ most of these rules as well. Both

studies, in private and public organizations, found that a dynamic enviro n m e n t

calls for dynamic management, and that is especially clear in how successful pro ject managers think about their teams. 

1. Two parties (and certainly more than two) of a speedy project launched with

incomplete information will find it impossible to sustain an ongoing relationship

based on a fixed agreement that was made between them at the beginning of the

project. A more flexible mechanism, based on teamwork and collaboration, is

needed to handle the unexpected changes that are bound to arise. Therefore,

contracting should emphasize cooperation rather than risk allocation.

2. Project success depends on successful teamwork. Establishing a multifunctional group with team spirit facilitates both communication and coord i n ation, and it promotes strong loyalty to the project. Such a team can make

quality decisions that re p resent all disciplines.

3. No real teamwork can take place in an organization that maintains the traditional division of labor, because R&D, marketing, engineering and pro d u ction people are loyal primarily to their re s p e c t i ve disciplines, departments and

managers. T h e re f o re, breaking down the organization's functional walls is the

minimum essential condition for teamwork. 

4. Assign people for the duration of the project. Team member continuity is vital

for better accountability and commitment. Since team knowledge lies in the

s h a red viewpoints and experience that team members develop over an extended period, greater continuity means better decision-making and faster projects. 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 6

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

D r. Alexander Laufer is the

Editor-in-Chief of A S K

Magazine and a member of

the Advisory Board of the

N A S A Academy of Program

and Project Leadership. He is

also a visiting professor in the

Civil Engineering Department

at the University of Maryland

at College Park and Dean of

Civil Engineering at Te c h n i o n -

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

You can contact him at

allaufer@askmagazine.org. 

Issue 7 March 2002
5. Master project managers pay great attention to the size of their project team.

They create the smallest team possible that includes all the necessary skills. 

6. A project team should first concentrate on getting to know one another and

then on deciding on how best to function as a team. Sharing clear expectations, appreciating cultural differences between organizations, and understanding the different rew a rd systems of these organizations will reduce the

time it takes to form a finely tuned, effective team. 

7. Trusting relationships are conducive to full and open exchange of information

within the team. In contrast, when project parties distrust each other, they

withhold re l e vant information and distort intentions, thus adding uncert a i nty to the project. Trust reduces the cost of planning and monitoring transactions between organizations. 

8. Once you stereotype a team member, prejudice shapes what you see and how

you act. Thus, initial opinions of the individuals entering the project are important in shaping its final outcome. These initial opinions can force the pro j e c t

into a spiral of increasing or decreasing trust. T h e re f o re, if possible, don't select

team members who start the project distrusting you. Build trust incre m e n t a l l y

by making statements of intent, which express your desire to trust the other

p a rt y, followed by actions that support and comply with these statements. 

9. You should make sure that members of your team feel dependent upon each

o t h e r, and share a belief that they are mutually responsible for project re s u l t s .

A group of people who don't feel dependent upon each other is a committee,

not a team.

10. You can't manufacture extraord i n a ry team performance merely by designing

the right stru c t u re, selecting the right people, providing the right vision and

rew a rds, and facilitating the right work processes. All these are ve ry helpful,

but to achieve peak team performance you must develop rich, intimate, and

emotional relationships among skilled people who trust one another and who

e n j oy spending time with one other. 

11. Dedicated teamwork does not re q u i re the ultimate sublimation of the individual. On the contrary, as a leader you should empower team members to

be constantly at their peak by giving them the necessary discretion and

autonomy to make things happen. 

A P P L

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

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

A "Sweet 16" Of Rules About Teamwork (cont’d)

page 7
12. Having members with diverse professional orientations and different organizational interests and cultures can have only negative implications, and this

is the reason why projects and conflicts are always bound to be synonymous.

True? No! Definitely false. In a collaborative environment these differe n c e s

may provide the crucial positive edge that leads to innova t i ve solutions. 

13. Don't ignore space and neighborhood management. Teams must spend a lot

of time together, especially at the beginning. The chances are considerably

better that geographic proximity allows people to come to appreciate and

e ven like one another. Also, in co-located teams many informal face-to-face

interactions occur daily. This frequent face-to-face communication clarifies

understanding and accelerates speed. 

14. Don't overlook the intangibles, such as team culture, language, and ritual.

They help create team identity, establish a sense of ord e r, build team spirit,

release tension, and cope with time pre s s u re and uncert a i n t y. 

15. If you are having fun, you aren't working, right? No -- that's absolutely

w rong! Look for the many natural opportunities to celebrate team accomplishments and hard effort. Use these events to give team members the high

visibility and special recognition they have earned. In successful teams, fun

both sustains and is sustained by team achievements. 

16. To sustain performance, teamwork re q u i res constant massaging. T h e re f o re ,

t h roughout the project life cycle, master project managers ensure alignment

on project objectives, assess team functioning, and re n ew team energy.

Read all of the "99 Rules for Managing Fa s t e r, Be t t e r, Cheaper Projects" at

h t t p : / / 2 1 6 . 1 4 1 . 1 9 6 . 2 / N A S A / L a u f e r / 9 9 Rules.htm 

A P P L

Issue 7 LETTER FROM THE EDITO R - I N - C H I E F

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

A "Sweet 16" Of Rules About Teamwork (cont’d)

page 8 Issue 7 March 2002
Teaming is so common in today's project management environment that most of

us assume it comes naturally. We further assume that when presented with meani n gful and challenging work, project teams will naturally engage in pro d u c t i ve

activity to complete their tasks. This assumption is expressed in the simple (but

false) equation: Team + Wo rk = Te a m w o rk. 

Although this equation appears simple and straightforw a rd, it is far from true for

most project organizations whose reality is a complex web of institutional norms

based on individual achievement and rew a rds. This is illustrated by the ve ry first

successful team experience from my early Air Fo rce care e r. As a young lieutenant,

I was sent to Sq u a d ron Officer School, which was the first in the series of Air

Fo rce professional military education courses I was re q u i red to complete during

my care e r. We we re immediately formed into teams of twe l ve officers. Much of

the course featured competition between these teams. 

As the most junior member of my team, I quickly observed the tremendous pressure

to show individual leadership capability. At one point early in the course, almost

everyone in our group was vying to become the team leader. This conflict was so

intense that it caused us to fail miserably in our first outdoor team building exercise.

We spent so much time fighting over leadership that we were unable to complete

any of the events on the outdoor obstacle course. This complete lack of success was

so disheartening to me that I gave our team little hope for future success. 

What followed was a ve ry intense period of bickering, conflict, and even shouting

matches as our dysfunctional team tried to cope with our early failures and find

some way to succeed. Sl owly some real leadership emerged from the more senior

members who we re also experienced pilots, and an informal sense of teamwork

and organization took shape. When we began to have some success in team competitions, the momentum grew. As evidence of our total turn-around, we successfully completed all events on our second try at the outdoor obstacles near the end

of our course. Our team even won the chief of staff trophy as the best overall (academic and athletic) team in the course. The most surprising part of this turna round was that it emerged from almost complete frustration as we slowly and

e ven painfully worked through our conflict to develop a sense of teamwork. Mo s t

of the other student teams in our course also performed poorly on their initial

team activities but did not improve as significantly as the course went on. 

British physician and re s e a rcher Wi l f red Bion (Experiences in Gro u p s, 1961) disc ove red that there are powe rful psychological forces inherent in all groups that

A P P L

S TO R I E S

Activation Energy

by Dr. Owen Gadeken

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 9

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

D r. Owen Gadeken G a d e k e n

is a Professor of Engineering

Management at the Defense

Systems Management College

(DSMC) where he teaching

Department of Defense program and project managers.

He recently retired as a

Colonel in the Air Force

Reserve where he was senior

reservist at the Air Force

O ffice of Scientific Research.

Owen is a member of the

Advisory Board of the NASA

Academy of Program and

Project Leadership and a frequent speaker at project management conferences and

s y m p o s i a .
REACTANTS

N2 + 3H2

TIME

CHEMICAL

ACTIVATION

ENERGY (E)

PRODUCTS

2NH3

E

Source: 

Chemistry in Context

G. Hill & J. Holmer,

1989

(Figure 25.15, p.426)

d i ve rt them from accomplishing their primary tasks. Examples of these forces are

over dependency on the leader, splintering off into subgroups or cliques, and

fight or flight (engaging in or fleeing from intragroup conflict). Simply stated,

most teams are dysfunctional by nature. To ove rcome these restraining forces and

use the potential power of the team, greater emphasis must be placed on establishing and maintaining group cohesiveness. This relationship is expressed in the

revised (true) mathematical equation: Team + Wo rk (on the Team) = Te a m w o rk .

This "work on the team" is akin to a concept in chemistry called "activation energ y." Ac t i vation energy is particularly significant to me since I remember it was the

one concept I missed on a college chemistry final exam. So this time I want to get

it right. Most chemical reactions (see Fi g u re 1) re q u i re infusion of energy to drive

the reactants to form new products. We can be thankful for this or our enviro nment would be much more unstable with many spontaneous reactions occurring.

Using this analogy, we can then superimpose the classic stages of team building on

this same graph (see Figure 2). Forming is the entry level with storming* and norming* using a much higher level of non task-oriented energy. Most teams spend much

of their time storming in what Wilfred Bion identified as the natural restraining

forces present in all groups. To overcome these natural restraining forces and move

over the "hump" to high performance, team "activation energy" is required.

As my Air Fo rce Sq u a d ron Officer School team confronted our conflicts openly,

we actually got much worse before we got better. This proves to be a hallmark of

A P P L

Issue 7 S TORIES: DR. OWEN GADEKEN

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Activation Energy (cont’d)

page 1 0

“

Simply stated, most

teams are dysfunctional by nature.

”

“

We spent so much

time fighting over

leadership that we

were unable to complete any of the

events on the outdoor

obstacle course.

”

Issue 7 March 2002

Figure 1.
FORMINGTEAM

TIME

TEAM (INEFFICIENT)

ACTIVATION

ENERGY (E)

Source: Teams in

Context

O. Gadeken, 1996 (EFFICIENT)

HIGHPERFORMINGTEAM

E

Storming Norming

high performing teams: openly confronting their conflicts rather than smoothing

them over or concealing them as hidden agendas. Teams unwilling or unable to

d e vote the energy to working through their conflicts will remain on the storming

and norming "roller coaster" with most of their energy dissipated in nonpro d u ct i ve activity. My Air Fo rce Sq u a d ron Officer School team was able to move ove r

this hump but only through some ve ry intense storming. 

To be successful, project teams must work as hard on their team as they do on

their projects. Only then will they have the "activation energy" to reach and sustain high perf o r m a n c e .

Lessons: 

• To be successful, project team members must work as hard on the team (relationships and processes) as they do on their project. 

• Openly confronting conflicts (rather than smoothing them over or concealing them as

hidden agendas) is a hallmark of high performing project teams. 

* Storming. This stage of team development is often marked with interpersonal

conflict. Members may form alliances resulting in subgroup competition and conflict, and questions may arise about both the task and process of the team.

* Norming. In this stage of team development, the team establishes guidelines for

their group processes, and commitment develops for achieving team goals.

A P P L

S TORIES: DR. OWEN GADEKEN

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Activation Energy (cont’d)

page 1 1

Q u e s t i o n

Do you have your own example

of how team “activation energy”

worked for (or against) you?

Figure 2.
A P P L

Issue 7 S TO R I E S

How I Love My 80 Percenters

by Anthony J. Maturo

Don't ever take your support staff for granted. By support staff, I mean the people in personnel, logistics, and finance; the ones who can make things happen

with a phone call or a signature, or by the same token frustrate you to no end by

their inaction; these are people you must depend on. 

I ' ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to cultivate relationships with my

s u p p o rt staff that work to the advantage of both of us. The most important thing

that I have learned working with people, any people--and I will tell you how I

learned this in a minute--is there are some folks you just can't motivate, so forget it, don't try; others you certainly can with a little psychology and some effort ;

and the best of the bunch, what I call the 80 perc e n t e r s, you don't need to motivate because they're already on the team and performing beautifully. 

The ones you can't change are rocks. Face up to it, and just kick them out of yo u r

w a y. I have a reputation with the people who don't want to perform or be part

of the team. They don't come near me. If someone's a rock, I pick up on it right

a w a y, and I will walk around him or her to find someone better. 

The ones who can be motivated I take time to nurt u re. I consider them my pro jects. A lot of times these wannabes are people who want to help but don't know

h ow. Listen, you can work with them. Lots of people in organizations have the

mindset that all that matters are the regulations. God forbid if you ever work outside those regulations. T h e y ' ve got one foot on that regulation and they're holding it tight like a baby holds a blanket.

What yo u ' re looking for is that first sign that their minds are opening. Us u a l l y

you hear it in their vo c a b u l a ry. What used to sound like "We can't do that...the

regulations won't allow it...we have never done this before," well, suddenly that

changes to "We have options...let's take a look at the options...let me re s e a rc h

this and get back to you." 

The 80 perc e n t e r s you want to nurt u re too, but they're already on the team. T h e

80 perc e n t e r s k n ow the regulation, but if there is a problem because of a re g u l ation, they will still tell you, "Don't worry about it, I've got it under contro l . "

These people don't see themselves as guardians of the regulations. Instead, they

see themselves as customer service re p re s e n t a t i ves. Two 80 perc e n t e r s on my team

a re Hettie Courtney at Go d d a rd Space Flight Center and Debbie Randall at

NASA He a d q u a rters in Code B. Thank you, ladies, ve ry much. You are the best. 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 1 2

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

Anthony J. Maturo is the

deputy director of NASA's

Academy of Program & Project

Leadership. He is responsible

for the management of contract arrangements and day-today operations. In addition, he

has a beautiful wife named

N a n .

Issue 7 March 2002
Back to Ba s i c s

I said I would talk about how I learned to work with support people. My gre a test education came before I was at NASA in what may seem the unlikeliest of

places. While I was an elementary school principal in Fa i rfield, Connecticut, I

learned that my best ideas could never be implemented unless I had my support

people at the school behind me. These we re people like the janitors, the cafeteria

w o rkers, the school nurse, the librarians, the bus drivers. For example, if I wanted the kids to be proud of the school and take care of it, the rooms had to be kept

tidy and neat. If Sam the janitor didn't line the chairs up, what did that tell the

kids about how the adults felt about the school?

He re's another example. I wanted eve ryone who worked for me to respect each

o t h e r, so I instituted a "switch day" twice a ye a r. I would be the third grade

teacher for a day, and she would be principal. The school nurse would teach gym,

and the librarian would work as the cafeteria monitor. Eve rybody got a chance to

experience a day at the school from someone else's perspective. The point was to

s h ow that we we re all working as a team and that eve rybody was contributing. 

What kind of rew a rds did this yield? I remember going into the cafeteria one

time and seeing a group of first graders spilling milk all over themselves. You eve r

open up one of those milk cartons kids are expected to drink out of? Well, yo u

should try one day, because it's not easy. 

I wanted the kids to have a good lunch period. I didn't want them spilling their

milk all over themselves. I wanted them to be comfortable, so that when they got

back to their classrooms they could settle down, they we ren't frustrated, and it

wasn't a burden on the teachers. This meant I had to ask the teachers on duty in

the cafeteria and the cafeteria workers to help the kids open their milk cart o n s .

The teachers didn't want to pay for this later with disturbances in their classrooms because the kids we re frustrated. Someone was going to have to clean up

the mess, and that was going to be those cafeteria workers. People could see that

what affected one person spilled over (pun intended) into other people's work. 

When you ask people to do more than what's narrowly defined by their positions, you have to be willing to show you too will step outside the box .

Sometimes when it was real cold outside I would tell the teacher to go inside and

I would stay out on the playground to watch the kids. They knew I was doing

them a favor because their contract stated that they had to be out there with the

kids. Doing things like this made it possible to get the same kind of help in

A P P L

S TORIES: A N T H O N Y J. MAT U R O

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASAsource for project management ASK Magazine

How I Love My 80 Percenters ( c o n t ’ d )

page 1 3

“

The ones who can be

motivated I take time

to nurture. I consider

them my projects.

”
return. For example, I wanted the teachers to come out and meet the students

when they got off their busses in the morning, especially in the cold when there

was ice on the ground. The kids could slip as they got off the bus. I knew the

teachers pre f e r red to be in their classrooms, or in the teacher's lounge, smoking

and drinking coffee. I could have bullied them, but I believe nurturing people is

a better way to get them to move to where you want to go. I kidded around with

them. I bought them little boots to we a r. They saw me out there too. 

A P P L

Issue 7 S TORIES: A N T H O N Y J. MAT U R O

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

How I Love My 80 Percenters ( c o n t ’ d )

page 1 4

“

When you ask people

to do more than

w h a t ’s narrowly

defined by their positions, you have to be

willing to show you

too will step outside

the box.

”

Issue 7 March 2002

Astronauts stand out from the rest of the team, but no one would get off the

ground without the hard work of the unsung 80 Percenters.
By and large, what I found is that if you start nurturing people, if you re s p e c t

them and try to understand them, they will try to understand you too, and

e ve ryone starts playing as a team. 

My 80 Pe rc e n t e r s, And How T h ey Wo rk For Me

It's always tough when a person I've nurt u red and has become an 80 perc e n t e r

has to leave. I had this happen recently with a gal in Pro c u rement. At the start

she was a wannabe, and I worked hard with her. To come that far, I hated to lose

h e r. She left to take care of her sister who had cancer. What can you say? A person's got to do what she has to do. I could gnash my teeth and get all fru s t r a t e d ,

but that doesn't solve my problem of filling that void. 

The person we brought in to replace her I've been working with for a few months

n ow, and she's coming up to speed. It's a great feeling I get when I know the

change has occurred, like the first time I ask them to bend around the re q u i rement, and I don't hear any objection to this. 

You know that people are on the team when you hear them say, "He y, do yo u

mind if I take a cut at this first?" When they come to me and say, "He y, To n y,

did you ever think of doing it this way?" At that point I know they're on the

team. When I start hearing that, the commitment, the passion, the understanding, it's there and they're motivated. 

When yo u ' ve worked with enough people as I have, you have a cadre of experienced 80 perc e n t e r s a round to help out when newcomers arrive. "Look, this is

h ow you deal with To n y," they told my girl in Pro c u rement. "Yeah, he's a pain in

the butt, but this is what he needs, and this is why he's got a lot of pre s s u re on

him." Now it's not just me anymore doing the nurturing. It's just like when I was

a school principal. You want the team to see all our work as interdependent and

that helping each other is as important as helping me. The more staff you have

who see it this way, the easier your job becomes in bringing people along.

It's The Nu rturing, St u p i d

It's not enough just to work with them, and then leave them alone. You can do

that, but if you really want to put a crack team in place you must continue to

n u rt u re them. The way you do this is by recognition. 

W h e n e ver I can, I try to show I appreciate their contributions. For instance, I

h a ve some young ladies who handle my invoices. Right before their eva l u a t i o n s

A P P L

S TORIES: A N T H O N Y J. MAT U R O

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

How I Love My 80 Percenters ( c o n t ’ d )

page 1 5

“

No one works harder

than he who is proud

of his job, and people

who are recognized

for a job well done

can’t help but feel

proud. 

”
Q u e s t i o n

Do you remember an experience where having a good

relationship with a person in a

support position made a significant difference on a project?

A P P L

Issue 7 S TORIES: A N T H O N Y J. MAT U R O

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

How I Love My 80 Percenters ( c o n t ’ d )

page 1 6

come up, I will talk with their managers and tell them what a great job they are

doing for me. I bring Ed Hoffman, the APPL Di re c t o r, to visit them when he

stops by. "You know who this young lady is?" I say to him. "She's the one who

takes care of all of our invoices. She's done a hell of a job. Tell them how many

you missed." "I didn't miss any," she says. "See that, Dr. Hoffman. This is the

kind of person you have working for you." I make sure that he understands the

people he rarely notices are contributing to the success of his program. 

You want people to feel like they are part of a team, and understand that their

contributions to the team matter. Respect the people you expect things out of

and you are much more likely to get more than you bargained for from them. No

one works harder than he who is proud of his job, and people who are re c o g n i ze d

for a job well done can't help but feel proud. It's what we ' ve learned works in

m o t i vating kids at school, and it works with adults in their jobs. 

Su p p o rt staff is the backbone to project work. Project managers who see their

contributions and re c o g n i ze them are improving the whole team's chances of success. 

Lessons: 

• Figure out the people you need to nurture. A few people are not worth the effort, but

most definitely are, and you can save yourself a lot of time and aggravation if you

determine early on who can be motivated. 

• It pays to nurture people and help them understand their importance to the overall

value of the team. 

• Respect people and you are much more likely to get more than you bargained for

from them.

• Don't disregard lessons in life from previous experiences. What you learned in these

d i fferent situations may be transferable to your current work.

Issue 7 March 2002
A P P L

S TO R I E S

Keeping the Deal

by Dr. Michael Hecht

On the 4th of July 1997, I lay on a blanket with my family at a firew o rks display

near our home in Los Angeles, California. The pyrotechnics, they tell me, we re

dazzling. I wouldn't know. My attention was fixed on a tiny orange dot in the sky

- Mars. 

A month earlier, NASA had released an Announcement of Op p o rtunity for a

s u p p l e m e n t a ry payload on the Mars Su rve yor Lander mission scheduled for

launch in 2001. The Human Exploration and De velopment of Space (HEDS)

organization had been authorized to make the most pre l i m i n a ry of inve s t i g a t i o n s

into the feasibility of sending humans to Mars. Among the requested inve s t i g ations was an opportunity to study the dust and soil of the Red Planet, emphasizing possible hazards to human explorers. I spent that summer of '97 working on

a proposal for the project I would eventually lead, the Mars En v i ro n m e n t a l

Compatibility Assessment (MECA). MECA was selected in Fe b ru a ry of '98. We

p romised to deliver four new instruments by April 2000 with a modest budget of

$5M. I suppose we we re too inexperienced to know any better. 

Assembling the team

This is a story about some of the people who created MECA. Like the Su p e r b ow l

champion New England Patriots, the MECA team was built from castoffs, organizational misfits, and a few superstars that had been overlooked in the draft.

The 5-7 core members we re mostly "technologists," the nomenclature we use at the

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for R&D scientists in non-space disciplines. We we re generalists, not specialized engineers, and we had little or no flight

experience. We we re cre a t i ve, but not ve ry good at following instructions. But this

was a good time for innovators and problem solvers. JPL was rolling out "fasterbetter-cheaper" projects, replacing one-a-decade mega-missions with a flotilla of

m i c ro-missions, and implementing our own brand of corporate re-engineering. 

Veterans of the great observatories, of Cassini, Galileo, and Magellan, we re in many

ways no better pre p a red than we we re for this new way of doing business. We took

the most motivated people we could find and built an organizational chart aro u n d

them. I pushed people out of their professional comfort zones, encouraging them

to grow in other areas. As the technology expert, I presented budgets and schedules

at our re v i ews, while the schedule and budget expert re p o rted on technical

p ro g ress. I aimed to have at least two people capable of doing eve ry job. 

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 1 7

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

D r. Michael Hecht is project

manager and a co-investigator

for the Mars Environmental

Compatibility A s s e s s m e n t

(MECA). He has been with

N A S A since 1982 at the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

In his previous assignment

with NASA's New Millennium

Program, he was instrumental

in defining the "microlander"

that was adopted as NASA's

New Millennium Program Deep

Space 2. Dr. Hecht is a member of the ASK Review Board.
I secured a large room adjacent to a laboratory, setting up desks along the walls

and a small conference table in the middle. No walls, no dividers. I didn't forc e

people to give up their offices, but I did move eve rybody's computer to his or her

n ew desk. It was re m a rkable how fast they followed! We we re constantly togethe r, each of us listening with half an ear to eve ry meeting, conversation, and phone

call. T h e re was no such thing as priva c y, but we we re enormously efficient. We

didn't need staff meetings to know what was going on, and few potential mistakes or opportunities went unnoticed. We spent two years in close company, and

d e veloped an intimacy that got us through hard times.

While many engineers can competently design and build instruments, I felt that

our unique challenge was to find the 100 gremlins waiting to trip us up. Fi n d i n g

a mistake was a good thing, it meant one less gremlin to worry about. And

notwithstanding JPL's institutional fervor for process-based management and

t h o rough re v i ew, that last gremlin can only be found by a particularly dedicated

individual waking up in alarm in the middle of the night. My job as Pro j e c t

Manger was to cultivate that attitude of ow n e r s h i p. 

You Gotta Ha ve He a rt (and So c c e r )

I thought I knew all about Mitch Shellman until his funeral. That's when I

learned about the fellow who, late in the Vietnam Wa r, dropped out of the Gre e n

Be rets and joined the medics because that was the only available avenue to the

f ront lines. About the veteran who clawed his way up from custodian to contract

n e g o t i a t o r. About the quotes from Mother Te resa peppering his logbooks. Ab o u t

his passionate commitment to youth soccer. 

Mitch never doubted that, despite his lack of technical education, he would

someday be a Project Ma n a g e r. I signed him on because he was willing to do

w h a t e ver it took, and because he had somehow learned an enormous amount

about building and managing flight instruments. To the institution, he was a

contract negotiator from pro c u rement. To me, he was In s t rument Ma n a g e r,

Deputy Project Ma n a g e r, and friend. Tenacious and tireless, he turned on the

lights in the morning and was the last to leave at night. It took us a year of argument with management about his credentials before he was transferred to a technical division. A week later, the day after Christmas, he died of a heart attack in

his drivew a y. The toughest thing I ever had to do as a Project Manager was to

come in on Ja n u a ry 2 and say to the rest of the team, "Let's get back to work." 

A P P L

Issue 7 S TORIES: DR. MICHAEL H E C H T

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Keeping the Deal (cont’d)

page 1 8 Issue 7 March 2002

“

We took the most

motivated people we

could find and built an

organizational chart

around them.

”
The Wit and Wisdom of Tom Me l oy 

Twenty years ago a doctor gave Tom Me l oy six months to live. That doctor is no

longer with us but Tom, well into his eighth decade, shows no sign of slow i n g

d own. An expert in the physics of particles (the gritty va r i e t y, not the subatomic

ones), Tom had last worked for NASA in the Apollo era and was now comfortably ensconced in an endowed chair at West Virginia Un i ve r s i t y. When I asked

him to be the MECA Principal In vestigator (P.I.), Tom's response was "You don't

want me, I'm an emotional cripple." His wife of 50 years had died 3 months

b e f o re. But I convinced him of the therapeutic value of the new challenge, and

neither of us ever re g retted it. 

Unlike other P.I.'s, Tom was not the project architect, the autocratic decisionm a k e r, or even the scientific guru of MECA. He was, quite simply, our mentor

and our inspiration. No person or task was of lesser importance to him than any

o t h e r. Eve ry visit to JPL began with his asking me "whom should I take to dinA P P L

S TORIES: DR. MICHAEL H E C H T

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Keeping the Deal (cont’d)

page 1 9

The MECA team pictured here at their home base, NASA’s Jet Propulsion

Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
ner?" And whoever it was, sponsor or secre t a ry, technician or engineer, would

come in the next day with re n ewed motivation and appreciation of their role in

our unusual project. 

Tom never forgot that, to the rest of the world, ours was the most extraord i n a ry

of opportunities. At our first meeting he reminded us that we had "an opport unity to place a tile in the corridor of history." He coached me on how to manage

when your project is "long on prestige but short on cash." He taught me that, on

a small team, eve rybody needs someone who can step into their shoes at a

moment's notice. He taught me to be parsimonious with the written word, to

banish adjectives, to never say "ve ry," and to avoid starting sentences with "the."

Tom always said, "Managing is parenting." He was, I'm sure, one hell of a parent. 

Keeping the De a l

My first presentation as a project manager featured a slide that said, "Keep the

Deal." By this I meant not just the deal with our sponsors, but with our team,

our contractors, our management, and ultimately with the American people.

MECA depended on subcontractors to make several of our instruments. I made

a point to find contractors who we re big enough to do the job but small enough

to care about us. It was my objective to treat these contractors much the same as

we treat our in-house technical organizations, and vice versa. I tried to react eve n -

handedly to ove r runs, schedule slips, and product failures, and to be equally willing to help them out when they we re in trouble. I encouraged them to tell me

about problems, concerns, and innova t i ve ideas. I re m e m b e red to ask the contractors regularly how they we re making out - we re they making money or losing

money on the contract? I tried to find other ways to help them out, by writing

a rticles for their trade journals or helping them with proposals. As a rule, the

MECA contractors outperformed their in-house counterparts, and we formed

personal relationships that have outlasted the project. 

Pa rt of the deal was encouraging our team members to enjoy their lives outside

of the Laboratory. I encouraged people to make working late the exception, not

the rule, and to take their two weeks of vacation eve ry ye a r. A Project Ma n a g e r

who can't accommodate the 4% schedule margin those vacations re p resent just

hasn't planned ve ry well. 

I made a point to set a personal example, not to try to prove that I could work

A P P L

Issue 7 S TORIES: DR. MICHAEL H E C H T

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Keeping the Deal (cont’d)

page 2 0 Issue 7 March 2002

“

I made a point to find

contractors who were

big enough to do the

job but small enough

to care about us.

”
longer hours than anyone else. I made sure that nobody was so indispensable that

we couldn't do without him or her. At JPL's suggestion, we declared (and

e n f o rced) "meeting-free" weeks during prime vacation time. We re m e m b e red to

knock off early for the occasional beer, to go off for lunch, or to turn a long discussion into a walk in the woods. 

Did it work? Only part i a l l y. MECA was under-funded and over-ambitious, and

people will do what's necessary. Two team members filled up their "non-working" time with grueling degree programs. But five babies we re born into our

small project, so folks must have spent some time at home! 

Loss and Legacy 

Lynne Cooper, who rescued us in mid-project by replacing Mitch Sh e l l m a n ,

taught me about legacy. Legacy is not, as I had imagined, just about hard w a re

and software delive red and documented. It is equally about skills learned, methods evaluated, students inspired, and people trained and educated. 

Nearly three years of our lives felt swept away when our mission was scru b b e d

after the loss of Mars Polar Lander. My grief for the loss of MECA, in a smaller

w a y, lives in the same place as my grief for the loss of my friend Mitch. T h i n k i n g

of either can bring a momentary, crushing sense of weariness. It can also bring an

u pwelling of pride. This isn't, after all, a story about a failure. We kept our deal

and left our legacy. 

Lessons: 

• Build your organization chart and your team norms around the talents and personalities of your staff. 

• Gently broaden perspectives and build a sense of ownership by assigning responsibilities outside people's comfort zones. 

• Establish an understudy at every position, including your own, to allow for vacations,

illness, or reassignment. 

A P P L

S TORIES: DR. MICHAEL H E C H T

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Keeping the Deal (cont’d)

page 2 1

Q u e s t i o n

What does it take for an entire

organization to ‘keep the deal’?
A P P L

Issue 7 S TO R I E S

The Idyllic Wo r k p l a c e

by Tony E. Schoenfelder

How many of us have worked in organizations where the discipline was so rigid

and unyielding that it would send even a Marine Corps Drill In s t ructor scre a ming into the night? How many of us have worked in organizations where sightings

of senior management we re sporadic and rare, and any other interactions we re by

appointment only? Or, how many of us have worked in organizations where yo u r

role, absent specific direction, was to be seldom seen and rarely heard? And how

many of us have worked in organizations where seemingly light itself was not permitted to escape without the acquiescence and approval of the director? Sa d l y,

t h e re are organizations that embody some of these conditions, and the re s u l t a n t

a d verse effects on employee pro d u c t i v i t y, creativity and morale are profound. 

But what if you could work in an organization in which there was little hierarc h y, where rank and seniority played no part, where there we re no closed meetings or doors, where eve ryone knows what was expected of them, and where creativity was not only tolerated but encouraged and celebrated? Was there ever such

a place? T h e re was, and it was known as NASA's Space Station Task Fo rce. I was

f o rtunate enough to work there for a time, and I would like to tell you how this

organization with few apparent rules led to incredibly high levels of employee satisfaction and fulfillment, and yielded work products of enduring quality. 

On May 20, 1982, NASA Administrator James M. Beggs established the Sp a c e

Station Task Fo rce under the direction of John D. Hodge. The Task Fo rce was

charged with the responsibility for "the development of the programmatic aspects

of a Space Station as they evo l ve, including mission analysis, re q u i rements definition and program management," and was authorized to draw on Space St a t i o n

activities at the NASA Program Offices and Field Centers. No additional conditions or directions we re prov i d e d .

Hodge knew that in order to accomplish the job he had been given, he was going

to have to obtain the services of the "best and the brightest" and facilitate the

unleashing of the full force of their cre a t i ve capabilities. In order to avoid the

stultifying effects of a typical hierarchical organization, he set up a loosely stru ct u red, horizontal organization with only one supervisor of re c o rd - himself. He

populated this organization with detailees from He a d q u a rters, the field Centers

and the Jet Propulsion Lab, there by assuring himself of the political and technical expertise with which to deal with Congress and the bure a u c r a c y, and conduct

the re q u i red engineering studies and analyses. The decision to use detailees was

an important one, as it enabled the best talent available to sign on to the Ta s k

Fo rce for up to a year while still retaining rights to their permanent positions. 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 2 2

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

Tony E. Schoenfelder h a s

been with NASA for 21 years

and is currently on detail with

the Office of Space Science.

Prior to this, he served at both

Reston and NASA

Headquarters where he performed independent management-level assessments,

worked in resource management, and developed and presented program analysis training materials for the Space

Station Program. With the

exception of a four-year hiatus

in the mid 90s, he has worked

on the Space Station Program

since January of 1984.

Issue 7 March 2002
T h e re we re so many tasks and so few people to accomplish them that almost

e ve ryone was in charge of something. Members had multiple assignments, serve d

in several different working groups, and in general knew what eve ryone else was

doing. The absence of any kind of organizational turf to defend allowed the

members to participate fully with one another tow a rd achieving a common goal,

thus engendering a strong sense of ownership in the program. This unity of purpose led to spontaneous offers of assistance to colleagues who we re wrestling with

p a rticularly difficult problems. It was almost as if the entire Task Fo rce turned

out on snowy days to help each other dig out their vehicles. Grade levels or seniority we re ignored when pulling together teams to address particular issues. A

GS-14 could lead a team comprising any and all grades, including Se n i o r

Exe c u t i ve Se rvices (SES). This unselfishness led to the existence of an esprit de

corps where by the vast majority of the members truly cared more about getting

the job done than who re c e i ved the cre d i t .

A P P L

S TORIES: TO N Y E. SCHOENFELDER

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

The Idyllic Workplace (cont’d)

page 2 3

An early model (circa 1961) of an inflatable space station concept, 24 feet in

diameter with an internal fabric bulkhead that could be separately pressurized

in an emergency.
Hodge combined a number of practices and innovations that led to a unique and

uninhibited atmosphere. Each day started at 8:15 AM with an unstru c t u red 15-

minute all-hands stand-up meeting. Only those who had something important to

say took the floor, while eve ryone else crowded into the office or hallway to listen. It turned out to be a useful device in that it not only conve yed information,

but also physically reunited the team each morning to re i n f o rce the spirit of

camaraderie and the sense of shared purpose. 

If Hodge had lived in ancient Greece, he would have been one of Aristotle's peripatetics. He practiced "management by walking around," and was liable to pop

up unannounced anywhere at anytime, but more often after five o'clock in the

e vening. Once the members learned that he was not engaged in some new form

of "gotcha," these impromptu one-on-one sessions proved ve ry useful. He not

only got to know each member as a person, but also re c e i ved an unfiltered headsup as to what was going on. 

Hodge didn't believe in secrets. He was completely open with the staff. What he

k n ew, they knew. Members appreciated this unusual candor and re c i p rocated by

keeping him and the leadership well informed. This policy of openness extended

to meetings as well. If notice of a meeting appeared on a calendar, it was open to

a n yone to attend. The exchange of information far outweighed any potential

abuse of the privilege, and besides, no one had enough time to become a pro f e ssional meeting-goer. Hodge also had a unique open-door policy where by anyo n e

was free to visit with him and discuss any matter of importance. Members we re

encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity by Hodge's own mantra of,

" Fo r g i veness, not permission." Needless to say, rumors didn't stand a chance in

this environment of openness. 

Within the Task Fo rce, there was no such thing as a dumb idea. Members we re

encouraged to speak up without fear of laughter or reprisal, and as soon as eve ryone learned that even far out ideas or concepts would be given just and due consideration, brainstorming sessions became ve ry pro d u c t i ve. 

Just as important as the uninhibited atmosphere was the manner in which the

c re a t i ve capabilities of the members we re unleashed. With so many things to do,

the needs of the Task Fo rce soon outstripped the formal skill mixes of the

e m p l oyees then onboard. Hodge re c o g n i zed that NASA employees tend to

become typecast early in their careers, so he gave them the opportunity to work

on things entirely new to their experience. A number of people subsequently

A P P L

Issue 7 S TORIES: TO N Y E. SCHOENFELDER

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

The Idyllic Workplace (cont’d)

page 2 4

“

If Hodge had lived in

ancient Greece, he

would have been one

of A r i s t o t l e ’s peripatetics. 

”

Issue 7 March 2002
e m b a rked on entirely new careers as a result. Members we re encouraged to take

risks, and we re assured that failure was an absolutely acceptable consequence.

One re m a rkable innovation that encouraged risk-taking and the demonstration

of flexibility and here t o f o re unknown talents was "Try - A - Jo b." New members

had the opportunity to work in any or all functions for up to thirty days before

having to commit to a single job. This led to an almost unheard of degree of job

satisfaction, with a concomitant impact on results and pro d u c t i v i t y.

Hodge also practiced a unique form of part i c i p a t i ve management. He believe d

that by allowing the members to participate in decisions that directly impacted

their jobs, they would tend to support what they helped create. The decision

p rocess that resulted could best be described as collegial, although decisions we re

made by the Di rector rather than collectively by the members. Howe ve r, these

decisions we re preceded by lively and often boisterous debates wherein members

could argue their viewpoints, pro or con, without fear of retribution. Ho d g e

retained ultimate control of the process, but the decisions that resulted we re

" owned" by those who agreed with them and at least understood by those who

didn't. T h e re we re no "secret" decisions. 

With such an open, informal and unstru c t u red organization of such disparate talents, there had to be some unifying force to focus the members' energies. It turned

out that they all shared the dream or vision of a permanently manned presence in

space. Eve rything they did was geared tow a rd realizing that goal, and the unique

o p p o rtunities offered by the Task Fo rce served as ve ry powe rful motivators. 

The Space Station Task Fo rce accomplished many things during its two-year life,

the most important of which led to the announcement during the State of the

Union Ad d ress on Ja n u a ry 25, 1984: "Tonight, I am directing NASA to deve l o p

a permanently manned Space Station and to do it within a decade." But the most

enduring legacy of the Task Fo rce may lie within the hearts and memories of

those who served as members. It is simply that almost eve ryone remembers that

time as the most enjoyable and pro d u c t i ve of his or her care e r.

Lessons: 

• A leader understands that when confronted with a challenging task the most important factor is selecting the best people from across the organization. 

A P P L

S TORIES: TO N Y E. SCHOENFELDER

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

The Idyllic Workplace (cont’d)

page 2 5

“

Members were

encouraged to take

risks, and were

assured that failure

was an absolutely

acceptable consequence. 

”
• A culture of freedom and trust coupled with excellent people committed to one objective enable you to achieve both the openness required for innovation and the discipline necessary for rapid progress.

Frank Hoban, one of the first few members chosen to serve on the Space Station

Task Force, has written a paper entitled, “The Space Station Task Force: A S t u d y

of a Management Style.” In it, Mr. Hoban describes the organizational structure and

the rationales for the various processes and practices that made service on the

Task Force such a unique experience. The story you have just read was based on

the memory of the author as well as memories and anecdotes of other former Ta s k

Force members, but depends heavily upon Mr. Hoban’s paper for factual data. 

A P P L

Issue 7 S TORIES: TO N Y E. SCHOENFELDER

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

The Idyllic Workplace (cont’d)

page 2 6

Q u e s t i o n

Assuming you were part of a

team where the chemistry was

terrific and everyone felt like he

or she was contributing, what

was the catalyst?

Issue 7 March 2002
A P P L

S P E C I A L F E ATURE: MY M E TA P H O R

My Big Wa l l

by Paul Espinosa

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 2 7

“Rain! Rain! Why today?" I cursed to myself. 

It was June and I was in Yosemite National Pa rk in California, 2,000-feet off the

g round . I was climbing El Capitan, a majestic 3,000-foot high, mile-wide granite monolith--one of the most sought after and spectacular rock climbs in the

world. After three days of climbing on its sheer face, and having completed the

most difficult part of the route, my partner and I we re heading down. A thunderstorm lasting all night and into the morning had soaked our tiny perch and

all our worldly possessions. 

We began rappelling down the ve rtical wall by sliding to the ends of two 50-

meter ropes tied together and looped through a set of fixed rings bolted into the

rock. At the end of the ropes was another rappel station consisting of a set of

rings, placed by previous climbers for re t reating parties, which we used to anchor

o u r s e l ves to the rock face. We then pulled the ropes down from the rings above ,

t h readed the ones in front of our noses and started down another rope length.

Eve rything we brought up for our five-day climb to the summit we had to bring

back down with us: ropes, climbing gear of eve ry sort, sleeping bags, extra

clothes, food, water, and other essentials. All this we either stuffed into a haul bag

(an ove r s i zed re i n f o rced duffel bag) or slung over our shoulders. The re t reat was

s l ow and methodical, akin to a train backing down a mountain, giving me ample

time to think. 

My situation made me think about my work, mostly, about all the projects I have

managed, or been invo l ved in managing. As a NASA project manager, I have

w o rked on a number of successful projects. I have also been invo l ved in a number of projects I never saw the end of. I thought about all the projects I transf e r red off of for other opportunities, projects that we re in full stride and ran out

of funding, and ones put on the shelf because they would not meet a flight date.

Oh yes, I have had many success, to be sure, or I would have burned out ye a r s

a g o. Lessons from both the successful and not-so-successful projects have taught

me valuable lessons, but it has always been the failures where I've learned the

most. This is the thought I held onto as I headed down El Capitan, trying to keep

in perspective the immense disappointment I felt in re t reating. 

We we re about half way down the cold wet wall, coming down from out of the

clouds, when the rain began easing up. By now each of us had experienced our

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

Paul S. Espinosa is the

Project Manager and

Contracting Off i c e r’s Te c h n i c a l

Representative for the

Advanced Animal HabitatCentrifuge for the Space

Station Biological Research

Project at NASA’s A m e s

Research Center. A member o

the Astrobiology and Space

Research Directorate since

1995, he has provided engineering leadership as a developer of animal habitats for

Shuttle and Space Station

application. Paul's love of

climbing started while a univer

sity student in 1985. 

f

-
own personal despair, shivering, wondering if we had made the right decision:

should we have tried to stick it out just a little longer? To counter the self-doubt,

we swapped tales of climbers swimming for their lives in torrential waterf a l l s ,

f re ezing to icy walls like a child's tongue on an icebox, or slowly dying of

hypothermia. We knew we had made the right decision to head down, but it was

still hard. Good judgment sometimes means cutting your losses lest you lose

e ve rything, and in this case "eve rything" was no mere figure of speech. 

Re t reating was made worse by the fact that this was not the first, nor the second

time, I had been on this route, but the third. I have successfully climbed many

other "big walls" (technically challenging rock faces usually requiring more then

one day to climb), including another route on El Capitan; howe ve r, this part i c ular route is my Holy Grail. It is called the "Nose" route because it runs down the

center of El Capitan.

On my first attempt to climb the "Nose," I was ill pre p a red for the enormity of

the task. In spite of weeks of planning and preparation, and years of climbing

b e t ween my partner and me, I did not understand what was invo l ved in a climb

of this scale. Climbing a 3,000-foot big wall entails inching one's way up crack

systems amidst dizzying exposure while hauling 150 pounds of supplies with yo u .

On the second day, my partner dropped a bag of gear, requiring us to re t reat to

the ground, and the climb ended for us there. 

My second attempt was two years later with the same part n e r. He had completed this particular climb since our failed attempt. I also had two extra years of

climbing experience, including a different big wall climb under my belt. I was

well trained, had made careful preparations and was fully ready to follow my

p a rtner's leadership on the climb. T h e re was howe ver one thing I was not prep a red for. In the year prior to the climb my partner had lost a loved one. He had

not climbed more than a day or two since then. This climb was going to be his

way of "getting back into shape." 

By the middle of the third day we we re only one-quarter of the way up the wall.

The pace was tort u re, and there was the eve r - i n c reasing certainty that we would

run out of food and water before reaching the top. In spite of my experience and

meticulous preparations, I was not pre p a red to take the leadership roll and the

i n i t i a t i ve to speed up the pace. I was frustrated, he was frustrated, and a trip to

the ground was in ord e r. 

A P P L

Issue 7 S P E C I A L F E ATURE: PA U L E S P I N O S A

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

My Big Wall (cont’d)

page 2 8 Issue 7 March 2002

“

Lessons from both

the successful and

n o t - s o - s u c c e s s f u l

projects have taught

me valuable lessons,

but it has always

been the failures

where I've learned the

m o s t .

”
A P P L

S P E C I A L F E ATURE: PA U L E S P I N O S A

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

My Big Wall (cont’d)

page 2 9

“

The pace was torture,

and there was the

ever-increasing certainty that we would

run out of food and

water before reaching

the top. 

”

So here I was on my third attempt, another two years later. I had trained physically for the climb, practiced numerous shorter routes, and was pre p a red to climb

as an equal with a new part n e r, one who was ve ry competent and climbed at my

Yosemite National Park is a rock climbing Mecca. Conquering El Capitan,

the rock pictured here, was NASA project manager Paul Espinosa’s objective

on this mission.
l e vel. The climb had been going wonderf u l l y. For two days we swapped leads,

w o rking together to compensate for each other's weaknesses. By the end of the second day we made it to 2,000 feet. We fell asleep under the stars, looking forw a rd

to the remaining 1,000 feet of climbing we figured to take another couple of days. 

At some point during the night I heard raindrops. We both had waterproof covers over our sleeping bags, and we re pre p a red for a storm, as long as it didn't

become too seve re. Un f o rt u n a t e l y, seve re is what we got. Raindrops came at us

f rom all directions, even blowing directly up at us from below by the wind. To

top it off, our granite "camp" was cove red with 1/4 inch of flowing water. Lu c k i l y

the lightning stayed about 5 miles away, but at 2,000 feet up the wall with all the

metal of our gear around us, we still felt like sitting ducks. 

Eve rything that was not in our individual sleeping bags got soaked. We peere d

out of our dry cocoons in the morning's first light to our new watery world. And

t h ree hours later with no letup in sight, we decided to head down. 

Be l ow 1,000 feet the rest of the re t reat got easier as the rain turned to drizzle. We

passed another party of climbers whose re t reat was not going as smoothly. W h e n

we asked them how things we re, they answe red with a raft of expletives. 

By two o'clock in the afternoon we we re on the ground. I was happy to be safe

and looking forw a rd to hot cocoa and a showe r. Still, I was saddened over the

defeat. For future climbs, this kind of experience helps one keep success in perp e c t i ve. Things happen that you can't always control in such unstable enviro nments as a 3,000-foot rock climb. On projects like this you can never control all

the objective hazards you may face. But this is what makes it such a thrilling challenge, and why I keep coming back. 

My triumph on "The Nose" route of El Capitan will come eve n t u a l l y, I'm sure

of it, and at that point I will certainly have earned it. 

L e s s o n s

• A can-do attitude and willingness to take risks should not distort your judgment to

know whether to abort the project in midcourse.

• In project life, we very often learn more from our failures than our successes. 

A P P L

Issue 7 S P E C I A L F E ATURE: PA U L E S P I N O S A

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

My Big Wall (cont’d)

page 3 0

Q u e s t i o n

Have you seen projects where

it was clear they would fail

because their leaders lacked

the fortitude to abort before the s 

i n e v i t a b l e ?

Issue 7 March 2002
A P P L

F E AT U R E S

The Join-Up Meeting 

by W. Scott Cameron

I recently took on a new assignment and, as is my norm, I scheduled a series of

o n e - h o u r, 1:1 join-up meetings with the various lead personnel on the team and

their hierarc h y. During one of these meetings, the person I was meeting with

informed me how pleasantly surprised she was that I had scheduled this meeting

as ve ry few individuals took the time anymore to have them. 

I was shocked. I was taught that establishing a 1:1 relationship with the people

on your team is critical to the pro j e c t’s success. This was the first time I’d heard

anything like this about join-up meetings. I filed this feedback away.

Later I was talking to my project manager-mentor, and he indicated he had finished his join-up meetings with eve ry person in his new organization. He also

indicated his predecessor had conducted few, if any, join-up meetings. 

Again, I was shocked. When I reflected on these two experiences, I re a l i zed a ve ry

n e g a t i ve trend might be emerging in our fast-paced, schedule-driven, 500-e-mailp e r - d a y, cell-phone-ringing, 24/7-communication, multi-tasking work lives: NO

FACE T I M E !

Face time is what you spend with people to talk about the project you are working on, their expectations of you, your expectations of them, your hierarc h y’s

expectations about each of you, and/or—last but certainly not least—what each

of you plans on achieving during the project. A 1:1, face-to-face, join-up meeting is the only way I know to build solid trust between the project manager and

the team members and their hierarc h y. The project manager can then use the

information gathered in these meetings to help develop the team stru c t u re and

dynamics. 

Join-up meetings are a big deal for me, and I rate them at the top of my meeti n g - i m p o rtance meter. These are the meetings where I discover if an individual’s

success criteria are different than the team’s success criteria. Even though a person has agreed to the team’s criteria, they may actually be motivated by other criteria, which could negatively impact the project. 

“T h e re is no I in team” is an axiom that applies to a project as much as any other

kind of team endeavo r. A project manager spends most of his or her time and

e f f o rt managing/motivating individuals on the team to get in sync with the whole

t e a m’s success criteria. The face-to-face join-up meeting is integral to understanding each “I” in the team. 

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 3 1

“

A 1:1, face-to-face,

join-up meeting is the

only way I know to

build solid trust

between the project

manager and the

team members and

their hierarchy.

”

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

W. Scott Cameron is Capital

Systems Manager for the Food

& Beverage Global Business

Unit of Procter & Gamble. He

has been managing capital

projects and mentoring other

capital management practitioners for the past 20 years at

Procter & Gamble within its

Beauty Care, Health Care,

Food & Beverage, and Fabric

& Home Care Businesses.
Another thing I’ve learned in my career is that no matter how well I think I know

people, if I don’t take the time to have a “f o r m a l” join-up meeting with them, and

understand what is motivating them, it’s possible I may find out their expectations are ve ry different than what I’ve assumed. For example, I was the pro j e c t

manager of a project in which the lead technical engineer and I had work e d

A P P L

Issue 7 F E ATURES: W. SCOTT C A M E R O N

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

The Join-Up Meeting (cont’d)

page 3 2 Issue 7 March 2002

Join-up meetings are not only crucial for hardware integration, but also form

an important stage of team building, as Scott Cameron points out in his article. 
together earlier in our careers. Since I had worked with him before, I didn’t feel

the need to “join up.” That was a big mistake.

This individual consistently committed to doing things on the project. I was

i m p ressed and felt he was showing great leadership. Howe ve r, as the project prog ressed I noticed another trait. The individual did not meet any of his commitments. This was having a negative impact on the project. Thus, I began taking

responsibility away from him and giving it to others to ensure the pro j e c t’s success. 

After awhile, the individual and I had a belated join-up meeting. During this

meeting I learned his boss had said that he needed to demonstrate leadership and

commit to do more than his fair share of work on this project to be considere d

for promotion. The boss failed to point out that meeting his commitments was

also crucial to being promoted. 

This example is a continual reminder for me of the importance of the join-up

meeting. Had I known what his success criteria we re, I certainly would have

re e valuated his role on the project, or at the least talked with him about how best

to synchro n i ze his personal success criteria with the team’s .

A P P L

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

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

The Join-Up Meeting (cont’d)

page 3 3
A P P L

Issue 7 F E AT U R E S

Wi l l p o w e r

by Terry Little

I am struck by how often failure is blamed on a lack of discipline. You often hear

losing coaches cite this as the reason for a big loss. I don't recall the last time I

h e a rd one say that his team lost a game because of his players' lack of skill. I think

a bre a k d own in discipline is also one of the key reasons why program and pro ject management teams fail to meet expectations. 

The first program I ever managed had a clear set of priorities. I understood the

mandate, and so did eve ryone else on the team. We set an ambitious schedule and

s t a rted to work ferve n t l y. Not too long into the program the customer wanted to

k n ow what performance he was going to get. I replied by categorizing the performance parameters into three bins: 

1. Pe rformance you will get.

2. Pe rformance you may get.

3. Pe rformance that there's no way you will get.

Did that cause an upro a r. The customer demanded eve rything in the second bin

be moved to the first, and most eve rything in the third bin be moved to the second. My immediate impulse was to agree, but I managed to ove rcome that. In

my heart, I knew that we would never meet the already ambitious schedule if we

had to deliver more performance. "No" was my answe r.

" If you don't give me better performance, then I am going to get the pro g r a m

cancelled," the customer argued. Fine. He attempted to carry through on his

t h reat, but senior management, to their credit, came down on my side. 

The program turned out to be a huge success, but the result would have been

largely different had senior management or I failed to maintain discipline. Si n c e

then I can't tell you how many times saying "no" has kept the programs I've

managed on track. 

Program and project managers have to be vigilant about maintaining discipline.

So many temptations exist. De velopment programs are a really good example of

h ow this occurs. When using a cost reimbursable approach to pay for them, we

can be sorely tempted to plan as we go, excusing ourselves because of the risk

i n vo l ved, or because we did not think we had enough time to plan adequately.

Government is particularly susceptible to this kind of behavior. Watch out!

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 3 4 Issue 7 March 2002

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

Terry Little is currently the

head of the Air Force's Center

for Acquisition Excellence.

Before that he was the

Program Director for the Joint

Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile

(JASSM). He is one of DoD's

most seasoned program managers. He entered the A i r

Force in 1967 and served on

active duty until 1975. In 1997

he was promoted to the grade

of SES. 
Re q u i rements grow. Wo rk scope grows. Cost and schedule grow. 

C o m m e rcial companies only rarely use a cost reimbursement approach when

i n vesting in risky projects. Rather, they do fixed-price, incremental investing, and

put a high premium on detailed planning. They place a fixed amount of money

into a re s e a rch or development project with the expectation (but not a guarantee) of a certain result. Pe r i o d i c a l l y, or when the money is gone, they look at

interim results (compared to plan) and decide whether to invest more funds. T h i s

makes for a ve ry disciplined approach that program and project managers in government can learn from. 

A P P L

F E ATURES: T E R RY L I T T L E

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Willpower (cont’d)

page 3 5

A performance test firing of a U.S. Air Force Expendable Launch Vehicle project. Not the same kind of performance Terry Little is talking about in his article, but there is probably just as much bang for the buck in his suggestions

about how to maintain project discipline.

Successful program and project managers understand the value of maintaining

discipline on a project. Being disciplined is not easy, and re q u i res strong willpowe r. It pays to always be thinking about key decisions where yo u ' ve either acted to

maintain discipline or allowed a bre a k d own to occur. The payoff is a better

understanding of why discipline is important to your project and what your ro l e

is in fostering a disciplined attitude for the entire project team.

“

The program turned

out to be a huge success, but the result

would have been

largely different had

senior management

or I failed to maintain

d i s c i p l i n e .

”
A P P L

Issue 7

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 3 6 Issue 7 March 2002

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

Mary Chiu has been a

Program Manager in the

Space Department at the

Johns Hopkins A p p l i e d

Physics Lab (APL) since 1985.

She has managed a variety of

programs, including the A P L

UltraStable Oscillator programs for the Navy (NRL) and

N A S A (Mars Observer, EUVE,

Cassini), Altimeters for the

Navy (SPINSAT), and NASA

spacecraft (ACE, CONTO U R ) .

She is currently Project

Manager for the CONTO U R

mission, which is part of

N A S A’s Discovery Program. 

Mary Chiu and her “hot” team from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics

Laboratory built the Advanced Composition Explorer spacecraft for NASA.

Instruments on the spacecraft continue to collect data that inform us about

w h a t ’s happening on our most important star, the Sun.

P R A C T I C E S

Hot Meetings

by Mary Chiu

A colleague walked by my office one time as I was conducting a meeting. T h e re

we re about five or six members of my team present. The colleague, a man who

had been with our institution (The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, a.k.a.

APL) for many years, could not help eave s d ropping. He said later it sounded like

we we re having a raucous argument, and he wondered whether he should stand

by the door in case things got out of hand and someone threw a punch. 

I laughed when he told me this, and he looked even more puzzled. It was business as usual in there I tried to explain. “We we re exchanging ideas.” 

He didn’t get it. That was not the way meetings in our organization we re typically conducted.

In the early 90s, my team at APL was building the spacecraft for the NASA

Ad vanced Composition Ex p l o rer (ACE) project. It wasn’t exactly a new endeav-
or for APL to be building a spacecraft, we had built plenty before for NASA; but

this was a team of mostly young people, highly motivated, extremely intense and

dying for the opportunity to be part of something as exciting as a NASA mission.

Our energy came into full flower at meetings.

As for the tendency of team members to express oneself, well, loudly, I didn’t only

condone this behavior... I encouraged it. I said up front to eve ryone on the team,

“ Meetings are an occasion to voice your opinion and get your views on the table.

We want to debate all points of view, and if that means raising your voice to be

h e a rd then you had that permission.” The volume was just a by p roduct of having that many voices contributing to the discussion. It got loud because people

felt they had to raise their voice a notch—if not several notches—to be heard. My

o b j e c t i ve was just getting people to talk. When decisions have to be made, I

b e l i e ve people must speak up. Living with bad decisions is one thing, but I cannot live with a bad decision because somebody has not come forth with important information. Silence, as far as I’m concerned, is consent. 

Because there we re so many voices competing, it was easy for an outsider to think our

meetings we re unstru c t u red. But just because there was a lot of noise didn’t mean they

we re unstru c t u red meetings. I always had an agenda, and before the meeting I’d send

it out. Even if the meetings occurred impromptu, at the beginning of the meeting I’d

always say to the effect, “By the end of this meeting we need to do this.” 

Even though it may have sounded like we we re yelling at each other, we liked one

a n o t h e r, and we knew each other’s habits good and bad. We didn’t think of ours e l ves as yelling at each other. What distressed my colleague who stood outside

the door was that he assumed if people we re raising their voices at each other they

must be fighting. Nobody was fighting. T h e re was enough trust and re s p e c t

among team members that we understood it was okay to express ourselves in this

w a y. The volume reflected the passion in people’s hearts, the comfort level that

existed among us. I’m not saying that passion can only be expressed this way. I’m

saying this was one way we expressed ours.

Understand we didn’t maintain a feve red pitch throughout the entire meeting.

Once we got all the ideas on the table, then we would sort through them in a more

o rderly fashion to determine how best to approach a specific issue. We tried, and

we re successful most of the time, to arrive at a consensus. Some people we re not

always happy with the final decision, and sometimes later they we re proven right,

but at the end of the meeting people accepted decisions and we re willing to move

A P P L

PRACTICES: MARY C H I U

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Hot Meetings (cont’d)

page 3 7
on because the issue had been aired, all points of view discussed. No one came

back later on and said, “Well, I had something to say that never got heard.” 

So often we expect one person to be the leader in a meeting, and that’s usually

the project manager, taking the pulse of the gro u p, asking for input—but not

really giving up the floor. A lot of times that person just gets what he or she

wants. Rare it is then when someone is willing to stand up and play the De v i l’s

Ad vocate, which is a critical function on any project team. This is how you test

ideas and give them the opportunity to prove their merit. 

It was re m a rkable to me how deeply people we re thinking through situations and

p roblems because they we re expected to voice their opinions. With eve ryo n e

expected to talk through an issue from his or her own point of view, assessing the

impact of what was up for consideration, I have no doubt we steered clear of

many wrong turns we could have made on this pro j e c t .

Our ACE team was a hot gro u p, to invoke the language that is fashionable today,

although we never thought of ourselves in those terms. It was just our modus

operandi. The tenor of the discussion got loud and volatile at times, but I pre f e r

to think of it as animated, robust, or just plain collaborative .

Tips On How To Lead Productive Hot Meetings

• Limit the number of attendees. Hot meetings generate a comfortable amount of heat

for me when the number of attendees is small. At most 5-7 people. With too many

people there, you risk creating too much noise. Also, my meetings tend to be the

most productive when the attendees represent complementary disciplines.

• Spontaneity should be a high priority. Yes, you want to have an agenda, and certainly you may feel you need to accomplish something specific by the end, but at the

same time be open to letting the meeting unfold naturally out of the discussion. 

• Listening is important. Encourage everyone at the meeting to listen to what other

people are saying. You want people to examine their own ideas as they hear others

express theirs.

• For hot meetings to be effective, the group must function as a cohesive team who trust

one another and share a belief that they are mutually responsible for project results. A

group of people who don't feel dependent upon each other is a committee, not a team.

A P P L

Issue 7 PRACTICES: MARY C H I U

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

Hot Meetings (cont’d)

page 3 8 Issue 7 March 2002
I N T E RV I E W

A P P L

ASK Talks with W. Scott Cameron

Scott Ca m e ro n is the Capital Systems Manager for the Food & Be ve r a g e

Global Business Unit of Procter & Gamble, and has been managing capital

p rojects and mentoring other project managers for the past 20 years at Pro c t e r

& Gamble within its Beauty Care, Health Care, Food & Be verage, and Fa b r i c

& Home Care Businesses. Scott also has been an ASK feature writer since

Volume One. He re at ASK we consider Scott a dear friend, a generous colleague, and a great story t e l l e r. We are all too happy to provide a venue for his

wit and wisdom. He and his family live in Cincinnati, Oh i o. 

A S K : Tell me about a project that has had an enduring impact on you? 

Ca m e ro n : The project I look back on with probably the most pride was my first

major project. It was a multi-site, five-plant project wherein the first plant start -

up was 18 weeks after funding and the fifth startup date was 26 weeks after funding. Only two of the sites we re identified at the time we re c e i ved funding, and

none of the process and packing equipment had been ord e red. Two things about

this project had a huge impact on me. First, it gave me the courage to be accountable for the decisions I made, as there was no time to second-guess myself.

Se c o n d l y, it taught me that eve ry day of a project's life is important and you need

to get the most out of each day. 

A S K : You met the schedule? 

Ca m e ro n : We did. I remember sitting in a hotel room with a pad of paper and

drawing up the project's critical path schedule and deciding what things had to

be done and the milestone completion dates the project team had to meet. I then

called my project manager-mentor and re v i ewed my thought process and

assumptions. He listened to my plan, questioned me about it, and said, "If yo u

can meet all your milestone dates, you can make your schedule." He also told me

that meeting this challenge was no easy feat but could be done with some major

"mountain mov i n g . "

A S K : It is interesting to hear you did it with a pencil and paper, especially for

something that I imagine was awfully complex. Do you ever use computer programs, like Mi c rosoft Project, to do your scheduling? 

Ca m e ro n : A lot of times when I talk to people about doing schedules, they ask

me what scheduling program I use. To be quite honest, I use a pencil and paper

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

page 3 9

“

The project manager

must motivate the

team based on the

p r o j e c t ’s unique challenges, the team

m e m b e r s ’ e x p e r i e n c e

level, and the project

s c h e d u l e .

”
I N T E RV I E W

most of the time to sketch out the critical path as I see it, which in an electro n i c

age probably says I'm an old fogy. The schedule is just a tool to align the pro j e c t

team to what they have to do by when in order to be successful. How you pre p a re

or draw the schedule is more a philosophical debate because there are many good

s o f t w a re programs. The key is getting your project team members to be honest as

to how long their work is going to take and how much time the schedule will

a l l ow them to accomplish their tasks. W h e n e ver I put together an initial schedule

I work right to left (start-up to today) versus left to right (today to startup date).

When you ask people how long something is going to take, their response always

results in the initial schedules being two to three times longer than the time yo u

h a ve. That's why I believe if it's a six-week or two-year schedule, eve ry day matters and aligning the team to this fact early in the life of a project will help insure

its success. When you start off on a two-year project, you tend to feel like nothing is restricting the schedule at that point, but those initial days are days which

a re hard to re c over or ve ry expensive to re c over later in the project's life.

A S K : Is it different motivating a team when the schedule is six weeks as opposed

to two years? 

A P P L

Issue 7

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

ASK Talks with W. Scott Cameron (cont’d)

page 4 0 Issue 7 March 2002

“Part of your job (as project manager),” says Scott Cameron, “is to figure out

how to mold the team to meet the success criteria of the project.”
I N T E RV I E W

Ca m e ro n : Each team takes on its own personality. The Project Manager must

m o t i vate the team based on the project's unique challenges, the team members'

experience level, and the project schedule. With that said, I believe, it is far easier to motivate a team with a short schedule because people re a l i ze eve ryday is

i m p o rtant and there isn't as much time for divergent thought processes. This is

one of the things I find exciting about being a project manager. You never re a l l y

h a ve the same team, same schedule, or same project scope twice in a row. Each

p roject team and their re s p e c t i ve hierarchy have a different experience and

k n owledge base to manage. Pa rt of your job is to figure out how to mold the team

to meet the success criteria of the project. 

A S K : Tell me about one of the more challenging experiences yo u ' ve had try i n g

to motivate a team. 

Ca m e ro n : I once worked on a project where I was "thrown in" at the last minute

to replace the project manager who requested to be taken off the assignment. We

had six weeks from when I arrived at the site to complete engineering, constru ction and start up the project. We had completed only 20% of the constru c t i o n ,

and the remaining 80% was extremely complicated. I had to immediately step in

and get eve ryone to start working together to meet this ve ry aggre s s i ve, if not

unattainable, schedule. To add to the challenge, the various functional personnel

on the team hated one another. I sat down with each functional leader on a oneon-one basis and said, "Ok a y, so how do you view your situation and your ro l e ,

and what is it going to take to get us to start-up 6 weeks from now?" It wasn't

t h reatening, but it was like I had to say, "My job here is to lead us to start-up in

six weeks. Are you with me?" The key in this case was getting people aligned in

meeting the schedule and finding out what was motivating the team's dysfunctional behavior. They may not have liked the end date, they would tell me all the

reasons why they couldn't achieve perfection, but once we we re aligned they we re

able to start working together. In the end, we started up within 8 weeks instead

of the 6 weeks. 

A S K : One-on-one communication proved to be the magic formula? 

Ca m e ro n : It wasn't exactly magic, but yes. The project manager is seen as the

single point of contact, and I had to quickly get to know people on the team and

what was motivating them. When yo u ' re the project manager you are going to

spend a lot of time with these people. Best to understand what is making them

"tick" early in the project's life. One thing I should add. You also have to underA P P L

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

ASK Talks with W. Scott Cameron (cont’d)

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“

If the hierarchy is not

well informed, then

you will have a problem regardless of how

well your team is

f u n c t i o n i n g .

”
I N T E RV I E W

stand the system you work in and how the components are supposed to work

with one another. A long time ago I had a boss who said, "When I assign a pro ject manager, I want to make sure she or he knows eve ry way possible to defeat

the system and the processes we have in place." The point being if you thoroughly understand the environment you work in, you can understand how each

system will impact your project. Thus, you can help yourself see and eliminate

f u t u re bottlenecks the team may encounter. In the first project I've talked about,

I understood how the company's systems worked. I took apart my schedule and

said here are the bottlenecks we will encounter, and then I took steps to eliminate them. That was a major reason why we met the schedule. 

A S K : How can you tell when a team is really functioning well together? 

Ca m e ro n : For one thing, there is a lot of good communication. You see people

stopping each other in the hall, they are active, they are animated, they are re s o l ving things, they are keeping you informed, but they are pretty much making

most of the decisions on their own to meet the success criteria. They feel empowe red and show it! 

A S K : That must be nice. How then does your role as project manager change in

that case? 

Ca m e ro n : You spend more time with the hierarchy making sure their needs are

being met and they are knowledgeable of the work their people are doing to make

the project successful. You should also be insuring that the hierarchy is taking

time to re c o g n i ze their organization's good work. If the hierarchy is not we l l

informed, then you will have a problem re g a rdless of how well your team is functioning. 

A S K : Is this like running interf e rence for the team so upper management doesn't get in their hair? 

Ca m e ro n : So rt of, but let's be careful here. T h e re are times where you need to

run interf e rence because you want to keep the team focused, but most of the time

the team needs to understand their hierarchy and their needs. You also need to

g i ve the project team a forum to "strut their stuff" for their bosses. You cert a i nly don't want the team to think it is only the project manager who interfaces with

h i e r a rc h y. I don't want my team members to get burned or crushed by their hiera rchy in re v i ews, but I'm okay if they get "singed." So while I would agree at

A P P L

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ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

ASK Talks with W. Scott Cameron (cont’d)

page 4 2 Issue 7 March 2002

“

By the way, good

project managers at

any stage of their

careers should be

willing to be singed. 

”
I N T E RV I E W

times you need to shelter the project team, they have to learn their hierarchy is

integral to the success of their projects and sometimes have different expectations

than the project team may assume. Isolating the team from interfacing with hiera rchy would be the worst thing I could do. 

A S K : Describe a situation where somebody got singed, and how you knew it wasn't a serious burn. 

Ca m e ro n : How about something that happened to me. Early in my engineering

c a re e r, I was the technical engineer on a project. My boss and I had a disagre ement on what technical scope should be installed. He had his position and I had

mine. Since I was leading the hierarchical technical re v i ew, he allowed me the

f o rum to present my case and he presented his. As the smoke began rising aro u n d

me during my technical presentation, I learned a valuable lesson about the hiera rc h y. Lu c k i l y, my boss had a fire extinguisher handy. I just got singed and not

b u r n e d .

A S K : What do people say to you after you let them get singed?

Ca m e ro n : Sometimes they come back and say I was right, or come back and say

I was kind of right. They rarely come back and say I was wrong. By the way, good

p roject managers at any stage of their careers should be willing to be singed. No

one is immune to the fire. But if yo u ' ve been doing this long enough, you understand that getting singed is necessary to your growth and to challenge the status

q u o. 

A S K : I remember hearing you speak once at a conference about how rew a rd i n g

it was for you to be a mentor to young project managers. What is it that you get

out of mentoring? 

Ca m e ro n : As I've gotten older, I've started to wonder, "Where are the next generation project managers going to come from?" I think about how I have grow n

t h roughout my career and can talk about the projects I've worked on, but when

I get down to the root cause of my growth and development the most import a n t

factor has been the people who managed and coached me and let me get singed

and challenged me. Individual managers had a profound impact on me. As I look

back, I can see how this boss taught me how to write proposals. This mentor

taught me financial aspects and cash flow of the company. This peer focused me

on schedules. This one focused me on team dynamics. This one taught me how

A P P L

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

ASK Talks with W. Scott Cameron (cont’d)

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“

The last thing I want

to do is clone “little

Scotts” who can carry

out my ideas about

project management

without thinking.

”
Issue 7 I N T E RV I E W

to listen and not immediately react. It's a collection of people, and I feel its part

of my job to instill these learnings to others as others invested in me. 

A S K : How much of mentoring is just listening? 

Ca m e ro n : A lot. Project managers don't have many avenues to vent their fru strations or brainstorm ideas to improve their projects because of the demands on

their time. They can vent to spouses or loved ones, but that's usually not ve ry

healthy and, probably in the long run, somewhat destru c t i ve to their personal

l i ves. They can vent to their bosses, but there is the risk their bosses will see them

as weak and wonder, "Did I put the right person on the job?" They can talk to

t h e m s e l ves, but then the people in the white lab coats may come around for

them. So as I look at myself as a mentor, the major part of the job is to just listen. What I may have dealt with 10 - 20 times in my care e r, they are dealing with

for the first time, and want to discuss it. 

A S K : Is there anything in particular you are listening for? 

Ca m e ro n : I let them talk for 10-15 minutes and at the end of it I say, "Well, let

me play back what I heard, and then lets talk about what you want to do." A large

p e rcent of the time they just wanted to vent or brainstorm concepts/ideas and to

k n ow that other people have experienced similar things. When you say, "Ye p, that

is pretty typical for projects like this," that generally makes them feel better.

Sometimes we will discuss what the person wants to do to solve a problem and

other options they may want to consider. Again, I am a re s o u rce and mentor who

is trying to help the person grow and be successful. I don't see myself as being

t h e re to provide answers to their eve ry problem. The last thing I want to do is

clone "little Scotts" who can carry out my ideas about project management without thinking. 

A S K : Yo u ' ve been at Procter and Gamble about 30 years, right? 

Ca m e ro n : Ac t u a l l y, 31. 

A S K : Ok a y, 31. What do you re g a rd as the biggest milestone of your career? 

Ca m e ro n : The biggest milestone was the birth of our triplet daughters Laura,

Beth and Caroline--but I guess you mean pro f e s s i o n a l l y. 

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ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

ASK Talks with W. Scott Cameron (cont’d)

page 4 4 Issue 7 March 2002
I N T E RV I E W

A S K : Yes, I was thinking pro f e s s i o n a l l y. 

Ca m e ro n : I think the answer to the question is probably I haven't done it ye t .

I'd like to believe the best assignment or challenge is still in front of me. Si n c e

the girls are now 10, I figure I've got another 13 years of work to find out if I'm

right. 

A S K : And if they go on to graduate school, forget it. You may never see re t i rement. 

Ca m e ron: Yeah, but I can live with that.

A P P L

Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

ASK Talks with W. Scott Cameron (cont’d)

page 4 5