A P P L
 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

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

Todd Post is the editor of A S K 

Magazine and works for 

E d u Tech Ltd. in Silver Spring, 

Maryland. 

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 . 

page 3 

IN THIS ISSUE 

Coming Up A c e s 

by Todd Post 

Coming Up Aces 

If yo u ' re like me, you find the science on NASA missions fascinating. The scientists themselves are almost as interesting to me as the worlds they study. Allan 

Frandsen's story, "A Gentle Touch," addresses the sometimes thorny re l a t i o n s h i p 

b e t ween scientists and the people who have to manage a project. How did 

Frandsen, science payloads manager on the Ad vanced Composition Ex p l o re r 

( ACE), engender trust in a science team whose initial impression of him was 

" re q u i rements enforcer"? For starters, he developed a gentle touch. 

Most of this issue is about ACE. We ' ve collected stories by four members of the 

ACE management team: Don Margolies, the mission manager from Go d d a rd 

Space Flight Center; Frandsen, science payloads manager from the Caltech Je t 

Propulsion Laboratory; Ma ry Chiu, project manager in charge of spacecraft 

d e velopment at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; and Frank Sn ow, 

operations and ground systems manager at Go d d a rd. 

How many perspectives does it take to understand a whole project? Cert a i n l y 

m o re than we ' ve got room for in one issue. While we don't believe we can provide you with a complete picture of the ACE project in one issue, we think yo u 

can get a pretty good idea of what it's like for several people to work together 

t ow a rds achieving a common goal. 

Frank Sn ow does double duty for us this issue with a St o ry and a Practice. In the 

l a t t e r, "The Tried and True," he talks about his team's fondness for a Chinese 

restaurant. Although it's only a couple of stoplights down the road from work , 

the restaurant may as well be in Shanghai given how far it feels from the demands 

of the project. It's where the team goes to celebrate milestones, birthdays and 

a n n i versaries, and also to settle differences that come up between team members. 

This is the situation Sn ow describes in "The Tried and True." 

The stories by Don Margolies and Ma ry Chiu look at the same episode of the 

ACE project, but present two ve ry different points of view. Chiu (APL) was the 

p roject manager for the contractor, Margolies (NASA) the customer. As you may 

suspect, the two parties sometimes disagree on what's best for the project. T h e s e 

stories demonstrate how customer and contractor can disagree on an import a n t 

issue, and yet not let that poison an otherwise good working re l a t i o n s h i p. 

The ACE stories here are part of a larger project that Drs. Ed w a rd Ho f f m a n 

(APPL Di rector) and Alexander Laufer (ASK Editor-in Chief) and I are work i n g 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

Issue 9 I N T H I S I S S U E 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Coming Up A c e s 

on with members of the ACE team. To g e t h e r, we ' re developing a case study on 

ACE with some 20 to 30 stories. We think this is a unique approach to a case 

study about project management. Decision-making in project management doesn't always translate into lists of Do's and Don'ts. Only stories are sufficiently 

nuanced to convey the complexity of project management decision-making. T h i s 

is why we use stories as our medium in ASK. 

In addition to the ACE stories in this issue, Drs. Hoffman and Laufer are here as 

per usual; so are feature writers Scott Cameron and Te r ry Little. This month's 

i n t e rv i ew is with Judy St o k l e y, a maverick of a program manager in the Air Fo rc e . 

It's a full hand, alright. Aces turn up eve ry w h e re. 

page 4 Issue 9 October 2002 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

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. 

page 5 

F R O M T H E D I R E C TOR’S DESK 

Hearts Lifted To Heaven 

by Dr. Edward Hoff m a n 

I came upon this story in the book Gates of Pr a ye r, and it reminded me of an 

experience I had a couple of years ago. In the story, a spiritual leader of a community refused to enter a House of Pr a ye r. He said, "I cannot enter, it is crowded with teachings and prayers from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling. How 

could there be room for me?" He could see that those around him we re unable 

to understand, so he added: "The words of those whose teaching and praying 

does not come from hearts lifted to heaven cannot rise to heaven; instead, their 

w o rds fill the house from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling." 

This reminded me of when I was with a team visiting industry leaders to see what 

we could learn from benchmarking. I was escorted to a large conference ro o m 

and asked to make myself comfortable as we waited for some people who we re 

about to join us. I was struck by all the colorful charts, graphs, and re p o rt s 

c rowding the walls. I walked up close to several and laughed at their complexity. 

Obviously much effort had gone into their creation and maintenance, and certainly they held deep meaning for someone, but for the life of me I could not 

understand what they we re trying to communicate. 

When my host returned, I mentioned that I was impressed by the wall of measu res but could not decipher their meaning. Could she explain how they we re 

used? She chuckled and whispered to me, "please don't say I said this, but the 

wall is used because we have a major organizational emphasis on metrics, so we ' ve 

put together any measures that we can think of and placed them on the wall. 

When our senior leader wants to see evidence of our commitment to metrics, we 

take him into this room and so far that has satisfied him. In terms of their usefulness, our people don't do anything with them." 

Instead of hearts lifted to heaven, here we find metrics from wall to wall. 
LETTER FROM THE EDITO R - I N - C H I E F

A P P L

Issue 9

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners

page 6 Issue 9 October 2002

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

Dean of Civil Engineering at

Technion-Israel Institute of

Te c h n o l o g y. You can contact

him at

allaufer@askmagazine.org. 

Timing is the Key

by Dr. Alexander Laufer

When should one make decisions during project planning: early or late? Well, as

the following two stories illustrate, the answer is simple: it depends. 

During the design of an industrial plant, a critical decision was not addre s s e d

until late in the definition phase. The product manufactured at the plant had

been packaged the same way for many years, and so the project manager

assumed there would be no significant change. The product had always been

released in a wrapper. The marketing department determined that a cart o n

rather than a wrapper was now more appropriate. Although the wrapped ve rsion could be produced at the selected site, a carton version would re q u i re an

additional building and entirely new equipment. Other sites had been re j e c t e d

that did have the capacity for carton packaging. The sudden discove ry of marketing's desire to change packaging, due to its late timing, significantly affected the execution plan, project schedule, capital cost, and the overall pro f i t a b i lity of the project. 

The next story demonstrates what can occur when decisions are made too early. 

Early on in a multi-site project, the project team decided to standard i ze design

(e.g., to use the same equipment for a given operation at all sites). This decision led to the formation of a new centralized engineering organization to

replace the existing site-based organizations. By the time it was found that this

d e s i g n - s t a n d a rdizing strategy was wrong, many re s o u rces had been wasted on

establishing the new engineering organization. As it turned out, the pro j e c t

team had actually been aware that there was no need to rush the decision on

s t a n d a rdization at such an early stage. At the time, they had thought it "pro per" to issue one complete package of all the strategies. 

As you see, the timing of decisions demands careful consideration. A general ru l e

of thumb: when information re q u i red for decision-making is incomplete or

unstable, postpone the decision. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

S TO R I E S 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

Test What You Fly? 

by Don Margolies 

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

Donald Margolies was Project 

Manager for the Advanced 

Composition Explorer (ACE) 

mission, launched in 1997 and 

still operating successfully. He 

received the NASA Medal for 

Outstanding Leadership for his 

work on ACE and a NASA 

Exceptional Service Medal for 

the Active Magnetospheric 

Particle Tracer Explorers 

(AMPTE) mission. Don and his 

wife Joan have been married 

for 41 years. They have two 

children and five grandchildren. 

It was the first time on any NASA project I know of that all the instruments on 

an observa t o ry came off for rew o rk or calibration after the full range of enviro nmental tests, and then we re reintegrated at the launch center without the benefit 

of an observa t o ry environmental retest. 

Perhaps yo u ' ve heard the expression, "Test what you fly, fly what you test"? In 

t h e o ry, it's hard to argue with that. In this case, I was willing to take the risk of 

not testing what I flew. As the project manager for the Ad vanced Composition 

Ex p l o rer (ACE) mission, I was the one who ultimately decided what risks to take, 

just as it was my responsibility to get buy-in from the stakeholders. 

W h a t e ver Possessed Me? 

The ACE observa t o ry had a suite of nine instruments and an electronics box that 

i n t e rfaced with a number of the instruments. We had planned from the outset of 

the project to re m ove three of the instruments to have microchannel plates 

replaced and be re-calibrated. Our implementation plans took this into account, 

and we developed retest programs for the individual instruments. Su b s e q u e n t 

d e velopments changed this plan significantly, when I authorized the re m oval of 

all instruments and the electronics interface box. 

Se veral people on the project thought I was crazy. Why do this? We had gone 

t h rough our environmental test programs successfully, and eve rything seemed to 

be working okay. We had previously stated that the only reasons for re m oving an 

i n s t rument after environmental testing would be either because it was one of the 

t h ree mentioned earlier, or because something had broken and needed to be fixed. 

No r m a l l y, I would have taken a pragmatic approach: "Yo u ' re on the observa t o ry, 

your instruments are working, and good enough is good enough." On the other 

hand, we had more than adequate slack in the schedule, and we we re coming in 

$30 million under budget--amazing, I know. The question then was, what could 

we do to make the science better? Gi ven that we had the time, given that we had 

the money, one answer to this question was: better calibration. For those who just 

do a marginal job of calibration prior to testing, the alternative is to calibrate 

again in orbit. Calibration in orbit takes a long time to do, and it's not as pre c i s e 

as it is on the ground. So there really was a net benefit to be gained from the science of doing this. If our scientists had the opportunity to tweak and calibrate 

their instruments on the ground, they would likely get better science in space. In 

o rder to provide a proper return on our $100M NASA investment, AC E - - a n 

Office of Space Science mission--had to perform on all cylinders, so to speak. 

page 7 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

Issue 9 S TORIES: DONALD M A R G O L I E S 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Test What You Fly? (cont’d) 

“ How do you evaluate 

the risk of putting an 

instrument back on 

without retesting it 

under vibration? ” 

Dealing With My Stakeholders 

How do you evaluate the risk of putting an instrument back on without re t e s ting it under vibration? That was the question my management put to me. W h e n 

I approached them about this, they thought I was crazy. "Don, you are crazy, " 

they told me, in fact--but I had known I was going to hear this, and was pre p a re d 

to explain. 

The way that the spacecraft was designed it made the job of re m oving the instruments and reintegrating them ve ry simple. The instruments we re mounted on the 

outside of the spacecraft and easily accessible. You basically disconnected the connectors--and there we ren't that many--re m oved the mounting bolts, and lifted off 

the boxes. When you re-bolted them down, you made sure of their mechanical 

i n t e g r i t y, and you did functional tests on each of the instruments to verify that they 

we re working okay. The solar panels we re off anyway at this point, so if we had had 

to get into the guts of the spacecraft that would not have posed a problem. 

Now this may all sound well and good on paper, but you don't persuade yo u r 

management to do something it usually does not want to do just by sounding 

logical. When you want to do something this radically different, you have to be 

cool and clear in how you present the issue. The last thing you want to seem is 

i m p u l s i ve. Upper management wants to hear that things have been checked out 

a c c o rding to protocol. They sleep better when they know that protocol has been 

f o l l owed ("Test what you fly, fly what you test"), and consequently a pro j e c t 

manager sleeps better when he knows his management isn't tossing and turning 

about a decision he's made. 

" Yes," I admitted, "when we reintegrate eve rything we will not have the same 

d e g ree of certainty as we did before the testing. Without another vibration test, 

no one would ever be able to say categorically that these instruments will hold up 

under the stress of launch." 

Ul t i m a t e l y, I was able to get management to buy off on the decision, but not without first making an independent re v i ew of our plans. The re v i ew board agre e d 

with me that based on the design of the spacecraft reintegration would be "less 

complex" than it could be. The fact that all instruments would be enviro n m e ntally tested before they we re returned to the spacecraft also helped. But there we re 

other stakeholders, including those at headquarters, whom I also had to convince. 

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S TORIES: DONALD M A R G O L I E S 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine 

Test What You Fly? (cont’d) 

The Folks Who We re Doing The Wo rk 

The person I was most concerned about was the project manager of the organization that was building the spacecraft, the Johns Hopkins Applied Ph y s i c s 

L a b o r a t o ry (APL). It was APL's responsibility to reintegrate the instruments, and 

I knew the APL project manager, Ma ry Chiu, had hardly been delighted when I 

told her what I wanted to do. In fact, it was she who reminded me before anybody else that you should "Test what you fly, fly what you test." 

This is the logo for the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) mission, 

which was launched in August 1997. ACE is studying low-energy particles of solar energy and high-energy galactic particles, and continues to 

collect data that scientists use today to understand our universe. 

page 9 
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Issue 9 S TORIES: DONALD M A R G O L I E S 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

“ The scientists were 

told that if they did not 

get their instruments 

back in time, they 

might not fly. ” 

page 1 0 

Test What You Fly? (cont’d) 

Ma ry never yelled or screamed or jumped up and down and said no, we can't do 

this; and I don't believe she ever said, "Don, you are crazy," (at least, not to my 

face like my management did); but she did voice her displeasure in writing, and 

this was not something I took lightly. 

We talked about it exhaustive l y, especially in terms of what the impact on her 

team would be. Ma ry was definitely a key part of the planning process because it 

was going to be up to her people to reintegrate the instruments, as well as to do 

all the other things we needed to do as the launch date approached. Now, I 

wouldn't have changed the plans had I thought the APL team felt I was ru n n i n g 

an impossible risk. Getting Ma ry's buy-in, albeit a reluctant buy-in, was a major 

p recondition for going through with this. 

I left it up to Ma ry to decide when she needed all the instruments on site. T h e 

way the instruments' schedules we re laid out, they we re going to arrive in a 

w a t e rfall fashion so there would be adequate time to integrate them. If they all 

s h owed up at the door the same day, Ma ry's team would really have to hustle, and 

I didn't want that. The APL team was working ve ry hard as it was. I had to make 

s u re they we re taken care of, so Ma ry's schedule dates we re what the scientists 

committed to. 

And Then T h e re We re The Scientists 

In order to even consider this risk in the first place, I had to have complete faith 

in the scientists I was working with. Mo re than any of the others, they we re the 

g roup who would determine whether or not we could accept such a risk. How 

did I guarantee their full cooperation? The scientists we re told that if they did not 

get their instruments back in time, they might not fly. They understood that, and 

m o re import a n t l y, they believed it. I know they did because the Pr i n c i p a l 

In ve s t i g a t o r, Dr. Stone, stood behind me on this. I insisted that each of the coi n vestigators write a letter to Dr. Stone promising that they would return their 

i n s t rument no later than the date given them. I don't know whether or not they 

would have written such a letter to me, but based on what I had seen so far, I 

k n ew that once they promised Dr. Stone, no matter what condition the instrument was in--whether it was fully calibrated or not--it would arrive by the day 

they had agreed it would. 

Our Science Team knew that our primary objective was to launch on schedule. 

They also knew that because of some science overlap in the instruments, we 

would be willing to leave an instrument on the ground if we had to. The truth of 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

S TORIES: DONALD M A R G O L I E S 

Test What You Fly? (cont’d) 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASAsource for project management ASK Magazine 

the matter was that despite what we had said outward l y, our goal was always to 

fly a complete science suite, with all instruments functioning as well as they 

could, and with all the appropriate calibrations. 

And so it all worked out in the end. The orderly return of the instruments didn't happen exactly as we had planned, but due to the skill and dedication of the 

APL team we reintegrated the instruments at the launch site, and launched AC E 

within four days of the date we had specified three and a half years earlier. T h i s 

happened because people we re willing to work with one another to make it happen. The pro o f, I believe, is that the instruments have been working for almost 

f i ve years now and are providing wonderful scientific results. 

Q u e s t i o n 

When do you know it's okay to 

break a rule? 

Lessons 

• Project principles should be adjusted to suit particular circumstances. However, 

before you break a rule, consider the ramifications and understand the importance 

of getting buy-in from all those who have a stake in making something happen. 

• Lead by influence rather than authority, by seeking cooperation rather than using 

solicitation, and you are much more likely to get buy-in from your team. 

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Issue 9 S TO R I E S 

A Gentle To u c h 

by Allan Frandsen 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

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

Allan Frandsen retired from 

N A S A after a 36-year career, 

most of it at the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, 

California, working on space 

science programs. His last 

assignment was as Science 

Payload Manager for the 

Advanced Composition 

Explorer (ACE) mission. 

During the 1980s he spent four 

years at the Office of Space 

Science at NASA 

Headquarters where he managed a number of successful 

p r o g r a m s . 

One aspect of my job as Payload Manager on the Ad vanced Composition 

Ex p l o rer (ACE) mission invo l ved keeping track of what the different science 

teams we re working on, and offering help where it was needed. At first it seemed 

like many of the scientists or their technical staff we re not sure how safe it was to 

confide in me. Eve rybody knew I had spent most of my career with NASA at the 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). All of my staff, initially four of them, came 

f rom JPL too. Left to our own devices, would we impose onerous NASA ru l e s 

that could stifle innovation in the ACE mission instrument development labs? 

The challenge to my team was getting the science groups to re g a rd us as part n e r s , 

or as people who could help them rather than as what they seemed to expect--a 

t roop of re q u i rements enforcers. T h e re we re nine instruments and twenty CoIn vestigators (Co-Is) invo l ved in ACE. They we re scattered across the U.S., 

Sw i t zerland, and Ge r m a n y, mostly at universities and a few government labs. 

At one university in part i c u l a r, a designer held things ve ry close to his chest. At 

first, we could barely get him to acknowledge we we re in the room with him, 

until we arranged to help him solve a power supply problem. His boss, one of the 

C o - Is, re c o g n i zed the contribution made by us outsiders, and figured maybe we 

could help solve a sensor head problem. T h e re was no pre s s u re; we waited for the 

skeptical designer to approach us. And when he did, we didn't press him to let 

us get more invo l ved. It was that kind of gentle touch that eventually changed 

peoples' perception about what we we re on this project for. 

From the start, I decided a gentle touch was the best approach. Dr. Ed w a rd 

Stone, the Principal In ve s t i g a t o r, had assembled a number of ve ry experienced 

C o - Is with the nine instruments. I knew of the strong relationships that had 

existed before I got there and would continue to exist after I left. I never tried to 

put myself between Dr. Stone and his science teams. I wasn't about to say to the 

C o - Is, "You can't re p o rt to Dr. Stone, yo u ' ve got to re p o rt to me first and I'll 

re p o rt to him." That would be dumb, I thought, and certainly do little to 

i m p rove our standing at their labs. 

A lot of it just came down to working hard with the Co-Is at solving deve l o p m e n t 

p roblems, and building their trust in the process. When you spend days and 

nights with people, and you suffer with them, they begin to re a l i ze that yo u ' re all 

on the same team. At the same time, they all knew we could bring outside 

re s o u rces to bear in addressing special problems. But our work also invo l ved a 

c l e ver amount of re q u i rements tailoring. 

page 1 2 Issue 9 October 2002 
A P P L
 

S TORIES: ALLAN FRANDSEN 

A Gentle Touch (cont’d) 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

“ When you spend 

days and nights with 

people, and you suff e r 

with them, they begin 

to realize that you’re 

all on the same 

team. ” 

The first phase of the Delta II rocket - which will be used to launch the 

Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft - is erected in Launch 

Complex 17A, at Cape Canaveral Air Station. The Delta launch vehicle 

dropped off long before the observatory continued its push into deep 

space, where it orbits almost a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) 

away from the earth. 

page 1 3
 
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Issue 9 S TORIES: ALLAN FRANDSEN 

A Gentle Touch (cont’d) 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

I enjoyed telling people about how my payload team had adapted to the unive rsity environment in the spirit, if not the letter, of NASA practices. Un d e r s t a n d : 

we still had to meet our own re q u i rements and satisfy the Go d d a rd project office. 

In the reliability and quality assurance (R&QA) area, for instance, we we re 

expected to audit work processes used at "the contractor's site." In this case, that 

f requently translated to "at the universities." Well, that word "audit" can create a 

terrified look on some people's faces at the working level. But to begin the nece s s a ry audit on a low key, I can recall my visiting R&QA Manager walking dow n 

the hall at one university with his arm over a technician's shoulder, asking how ' s 

it going, what's happening here. All the time, that technician never re a l i zed this 

was part of a work - p rocess audit. 

T h roughout, a gentle touch paid off, and kept eve ryone working together tow a rd 

Q u e s t i o n the same goal: delive ry of a performing payload, on time, and within budget. 

What lessons have you had to 

relearn throughout your career? 

Lessons: 

• Building trust is crucial to establishing teaming relationships across different groups. 

Sometimes the best way of establishing trust with a partner is by recognizing that an 

unobtrusive approach goes further than an assertive one. 

• The best way to learn what is actually going on is just by establishing open communication. Consider "auditing-by-walking-around" as just an extension of "managingby-walking-around." 
 

A P P L
 

S TO R I E S 

Customer Responsiveness 

by Mary Chiu 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

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 Applied 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 

NASA's Discovery Program. 

If you know anyone who's been invo l ved in building a spacecraft, I'm sure yo u ' ve 

h e a rd the mantra, "Test what you fly, and fly what you test." Listen to a pro j e c t 

a

m.kan.a. ager from my institution (The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, 

APL) talking in his or her sleep, and this is likely what yo u ' re going to hear. 

At APL, we do a lot of testing. We probably do more testing in the initial stages 

of a project than we could explain to re v i ew boards. Perhaps we are conserva t i ve 

in this respect, but our project managers and engineers believe in getting a good 

night's sleep before a launch, and testing is a good way of ensuring that. 

So you can imagine my reaction when the NASA project manager, Do n 

Margolies, suggested that on the Ad vanced Composition Ex p l o rer (ACE) mission 

we pull all the instruments off the spacecraft after we had just completed the full 

range of environmental testing. This would allow the scientists to do a better job 

of calibrating their instruments. I remember the scene well because it haunted me 

for weeks afterw a rds. We had just come out of the last thermal vac test at 

Go d d a rd, and one by one the instruments, nine in all, we re pulled off and 

returned to their developers for more tests of their own. 

After I picked myself up off the floor, I began to think about that other mantra 

we hear quite a bit in this industry: "The customer is always right." In theory, 

maybe. To his credit, Don accepted the responsibility (in writing) for this action 

and did eve rything he could to make sure the instruments would be returned in 

time for us to reintegrate them--and to invo l ve me in that process--but I don't 

want to minimize the impact on my team. T h e re we re certainly a lot of late 

nights tow a rds the end as instruments came in right on the wire, maybe even a 

little later than the wire. This is not something I would want to do again; howe ve r, I would if I had a customer who was reasonable and understood that it wasn't just something he wanted, but something we must work through together. 

Now contrast this with another situation that had occurred earlier in the pro j e c t . 

A couple of months after the Critical Design Re v i ew (CDR), some people ove r 

in the NASA project office we re saying, why not use a different data handling 

format? With all the really neat things being done on other spacecraft, why are 

we getting this "old-fashioned" data handling system? 

For my team at APL, the ones who we re going to build the spacecraft, this was 

no small matter. To change to a different data handling system at this point 

would have re q u i red a major re s t ructuring of the spacecraft's design. Un d e r s t a n d : 

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Issue 9 S TORIES: MARY C H I U 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Customer Responsiveness (cont’d) 

we we re already proceeding along with fabrication, and major changes of this sort 

we re not to be taken lightly. 

ACE was supposed to be a simple spacecraft, and that's why we had decided on 

a simple, albeit "old-fashioned," data handling system. Early on in the pro j e c t , 

The John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia, Maryland had 

responsibility for building the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft. Scientific instruments were mounted on the outisde of the spacecraft, 

providing workers with easy access when they had to be removed following 

the integration and testing phase of the project. 

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“ There were several 

comments intimating 

that the people on my 

team were not a ‘cand o ’ group. ” 

page 1 7 

A P P L
 

S TORIES: MARY C H I U 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASAsource for project management ASK Magazine

Customer Responsiveness (cont’d) 

my lead engineer on the Data Handling System, Rich Conde, worked this out 

with the Principal In ve s t i g a t o r, Dr. Ed w a rd Stone. Indeed, it was Dr. St o n e ' s 

decision to go with this type of data handling system. At one of the re v i ews, Rich 

said, "This is the most simplified approach, and this will be the most straightf o rw a rd to develop and to test. Is this the way you want to go?" He then presented the options, and Dr. Stone said "keep it simple." In fact, "keep it simple" 

became our mantra. We thought that was the end of the issue. 

When the project office at NASA says, why can't you do this and not that?, the last 

thing you want to do is ignore them. I got my leads together to formulate our position, and then I responded to the project office by writing a paper, explaining the 

ramifications of such a change. Well, apparently that wasn't good enough. W h a t 

they sent back to us we already knew. Newer data handling systems provide re p rog r a m m a b i l i t y, meaning that if one instrument shuts down you can send more data 

to the other instruments, and isn't that a good thing? Yes, of course it is; but the 

point I had to keep coming back to, the crux of the issue as far as I was concerned, 

was that we had not intended the system to be re p rogrammable at the CDR. 

We went round and round about that, and there was quite a bit of paper exc h a n g e . 

" Ok a y," I said at last, "if you want to give us a change ord e r, fine, I'll give you the 

impact statement, and it will be in cost and schedule. If you still want to change 

f rom what was agreed on in the CDR, that's fine too," but I made clear that they 

couldn't change re q u i rements this radically and still maintain the original schedule. 

This was probably my first real test as a project manager. I was new at this and I 

decided that I was not going to get tagged the first time out. Younger than normal for a project manager at APL, and also female--the first female project manager at APL on a project this big--I had sparked some concern in the pro j e c t 

office as to whether I was up to the challenge. So I had something to prove too. 

T h e re we re several comments intimating that the people on my team we re not a 

"can-do" gro u p. That upset many of us. Like any highly motivated team, we took 

pride in our work, and I had to negotiate with the group in making sure none of 

this unpleasantness escalated into something that might have a corro s i ve effect on 

the project. I spent time coaching people as to how they should behave: "Ok a y, 

yo u ' re professionals and we know you are good," I told them. "These are our customers, and we always have to be courteous. You still have to make yourself ava i lable to them. They will be here talking to our people. Questions get asked, and 

that's only natural, but if questions start sounding more like directions, or why 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

Issue 9 S TORIES: MARY C H I U 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Customer Responsiveness (cont’d) 

“ The customer is 

always right--in theory 

--but nothing in a 

space flight program 

is ever simple to 

change and it can 

have ramification that 

you may not realize 

until later. ” 

don't you do this or why don't you do that, ve ry politely say, 'Well, that's an 

i n t e resting idea, but let's bring Ma ry into this and discuss it at the project level.'" 

Na t u r a l l y, you want to have open communication with the customer, but yo u 

also have to monitor how people respond to things. Overall, I think the team, 

myself included, became a lot better at approaching communications during this 

experience. What we did a better job of as time went by was to not just say "no", 

but "no because if you do this it will impact this, this, and this." Once yo u 

explain things like that, rather than just flat-out saying "no", yo u ' re not as likely 

to hear the customer come back to you with "What do you mean you can't do 

that? It seems like such an easy change to me." Yes, we faced some awkward situations, but mostly the team did a fabulous job of addressing customer concerns. 

One thing I learned on ACE is that you have to decide what is really worth putting your relationship with the customer in jeopardy ove r. T h e re we re times when 

I didn't agree with what the customer wanted, but I was still going to do whate ver I could to accommodate a customer request. The customer is always right-­

in theory--but nothing in a space flight program is ever a simple change, and it 

can have ramifications that you may not re a l i ze until later. Sometimes you have 

to point out to the customer that what is being asked for may not be in the best 

i n t e rest of the project. 

Ul t i m a t e l y, we re s o l ved to stick with the original data handling system, but there 

was quite a bit of unpleasantness during this time. Now, contrast this with what 

happened later in the project. In the case of reintegrating the instru m e n t s , 

although I disagreed with what we we re asked to do, I was able to work with the 

customer on it because it was clear we must cooperate together. Don consulted 

with me, listened to my concerns, worked around my concerns, and in the end 

t reated me as a part n e r. Now this was a much different experience than we'd had 

earlier in the project with the data handling system, and illustrates just how much 

two separate entities can accomplish in a spirit of cooperation. 

Q u e s t i o n 

Given that trust and openness 

are critical to a successful contractor-customer relationship, 

what do you do as the project 

manager for the contractor 

when you cannot develop a 

trusting relationship with your 

c u s t o m e r ? 

Lessons 

• The project manager should use the input of her leads to defend positions about 

project issues, but it is the project manager's responsibility to speak to the project's 

c u s t o m e r. 

• Cooperation between stakeholders on a project is critical in resolving conflicts. 

page 1 8	 Issue 9 October 2002 
A P P L
 

S TO R I E S 

Two Outs, Bottom of the Ninth 

by Frank Snow 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASAsource for project management ASK Magazine

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

Frank Snow has been a member of the NASA E x p l o r e r 

Program at Goddard Space 

Flight Center since 1992. He 

was the Ground Manger for 

the Advanced Composition 

Explorer (ACE), the project 

manager for the Reuven 

Ramaty High Energy Solar 

Spectroscopic Explorer 

(RHESSI), launched in 

F e b r u a r y, 2002, and is 

presently the project manager 

for the Galaxy Explorer 

(GALEX), which will launch in 

S e p t e m b e r, 2002. Frank began 

his career with NASA in 1980. 

He lives in Bethesda, 

Maryland, with his understanding wife, teenage daughter, 

black Labrador, and an uninvited field mouse. 

It was eight months before launch when my second Flight Operations Team lead 

said he was leaving the project for another job. Six months earlier, the original 

lead had said he was leaving. I was stunned--but I remained confident that we 

would re c ove r. I didn't expect to lose the second lead. After all, lightning is not 

supposed to strike twice in the same place. This time, with only eight months 

until launch, I was ve ry much concerned. No, "concerned" is probably too mild 

a word. Let's get it right: I was sweating. 

Losing a lead at any stage presents problems, but two losses within 6 months of 

each other can definitely shake the confidence of an inexperienced Flight Op s 

Team. Immediately after launch the Flight Ops Team would be providing cru c i a l 

s u p p o rt to two highly professional groups: the flight dynamics engineers at 

Go d d a rd Space Flight Center, and the Science Team with scientists from many 

U.S. and Eu ropean universities. The Flight Ops Team would support the critical 

orbit and attitude maneuvers needed for the transfer of the Ad va n c e d 

Composition Ex p l o rer (ACE) spacecraft to an orbit one million miles fro m 

E a rth. In addition, the Flight Ops Team would provide the interface with the 

spacecraft as the scientists activated and calibrated nine sensitive instru m e n t s . 

Many of these scientists had over twenty years of flight hard w a re experience, and 

had devoted over five years to the ACE instruments. If the engineers and scientists did not have complete confidence in the abilities of the Flight Ops Team, we 

would have to delay launch. 

Ty p i c a l l y, people see the Flight Ops Team as a bunch of desk jockeys who don't 

do much more than look at screens, but in re a l i t y, after launch, the Flight Op s 

Team is the first line of defense when things go wrong. Sometimes the team has 

to make decisions in a matter of minutes, even seconds. They have to decide, "Do 

I need to do something quickly, or can I wait until I get some additional information and recommendations from the design engineers?" When the Flight Op s 

Team does react quickly, they depend upon training re c e i ved during mission simulations, but sometimes an anomaly occurs that cannot be solved with "canned" 

p ro c e d u res. In situations like these, you need a Flight Ops Team that can make 

decisions based upon a f undamental understanding of the spacecraft and how the 

spacecraft responded to ground testing. 

We did several things on the ACE Mission that we re new at the time for NASA. 

One was to bring the Flight Ops lead, and a couple of members of the team, on 

e a r l y. We brought the first lead onto the project 3 years before launch. That was 

page 1 9 
 

A P P L
 

Issue 9 S TORIES: FRANK SNOW 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Two Outs, Bottom of the Ninth (cont’d) 

“ Losing a lead at any 

stage presents problems, but two losses 

within six months of 

each other can definitely shake the confidence of an unexperienced Flight Ops 

Te a m . ” 

u n p recedented in all my years of experience as a Ground Systems Ma n a g e r. We 

wanted the lead to participate in the definition, development, integration and testing of the spacecraft, including the nine instruments, and then transfer this know ledge to the rest of the team. We aimed to create a new paradigm with the AC E 

Flight Ops Team: a team that had experience with the integration and testing of the 

spacecraft and instruments. In this way, they would be pre p a red for all spacecraft 

emergencies, and also provide the other groups in the Mission Operations Team a 

k n owledgeable user-friendly interface with the orbiting spacecraft. 

After launch, the Flight Operations Team is the first line of defense if anything 

goes wrong with the spacecraft. On ACE, the Flight Ops was exceptionally 

well-trained and versatile. Here a team is pictured working out of the Mission 

Operations Center. 

 

Whom Do I Send To The Plate? 

With the loss of the second Flight Ops Team lead, and only eight months to prep a re, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I was forced to rethink what qualifications I needed for the Flight Ops Team lead. No longer did extensive operapage 2 0 Issue 9 October 2002 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

S TORIES: FRANK SNOW 

Two Outs, Bottom of the Ninth (cont’d) 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

tional experience seem the one and only pre requisite. I needed someone who 

could turn eight people into a competent, cohesive, motivated Flight Ops Te a m 

and coordinate the activities of the Mission Operation Team, a diverse group of 

scientists, engineers and technicians. I needed a leader; fortunately for AC E , 

t h e re was already a member of the Flight Ops Team who could do the job. 

Not only was Jeff Volosin ve ry good technically, but he was also respected by the 

other Flight Ops Team members for his honesty, re s p o n s i veness, and dedication 

to the ACE mission. Je f f's leadership abilities soon became evident to the other 

g roups in the Mission Operations Team. He not only smoothed the frayed re l ationships between the Flight Ops Team and the other members of the Mi s s i o n 

Operations Team, but he also found cre a t i ve ways to train the Flight Ops Team. 

Members of the Flight Ops Team performed software system testing for the 

Mission Operations Center, expanded their participation in the testing of the 

spacecraft, and supported the integration of the instrument test equipment into 

the Mission Operations Center. These activities provided the Flight Ops Te a m 

with invaluable training, while allowing them to develop excellent working re l ationships with the various operation support teams. In order to handle these 

additional responsibilities, especially the last two months before launch, the 

Flight Ops Team worked 10 to 12 hour days and weekends. I never heard any 

serious complaints about them; as for the attitude of the Flight Ops Team thems e l ves, they saw this difficult task as a unique opport u n i t y. 

The greatest reflection of Je f f 's character was that he did all of this and was neve r 

in fact the official Flight Ops Team lead. His management told me that Jeff didn't have the requisite experience to be a lead. Instead, they had someone else they 

wanted to appoint. Ok a y, I said, the last thing I needed was a fight--but I pushed 

to have Jeff made the deputy lead. In the end, as I engineered things, the official 

lead handled the programmatic aspects (meaning the paperw o rk and whateve r 

other administrative tasks presented themselves) while Jeff was the Chief 

Operating Officer and handled the personnel. 

At launch most of the Flight Ops Team we re fresh outs, which means they we re 

coming directly from college or some other job and had no flight operations experience. Jeff trained them to handle almost anything that could happen. They we re 

far better equipped than any Flight Ops Team before them--at least certainly any 

with whom I had worked. ACE has been a ve ry successful mission, and in no small 

p a rt, this is due to the Flight Ops Team that has operated it for nearly five years. 

“ No longer did extensive operational experience seem the one 

and only prerequisite. ” 

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A P P L
 

Issue 9 S TORIES: FRANK SNOW 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Two Outs, Bottom of the Ninth (cont’d) 

Jeff enjoyed his work and strove for excellence in eve ry assignment I gave him. 

His enthusiasm and dedication we re contagious, affecting both the Flight Op s 

Team and the other groups that worked with him. Recognizing Je f f's leadership 

qualities and assigning him the Flight Ops Team lead was one of the best decisions I made during the whole project. He validated my belief that when yo u 

h a ve only one out left, you want a leader at the plate. 

Q u e s t i o n 

Do you recall a time on a project when someone with superior interpersonal skills, but not 

necessarily the best technical 

skills, was able to lead a project out of a tough situation? 

Lessons: 

• Objectives may remain constant--for example, a higher trained Flight Ops Te a m - - b u t 

the way to achieve those objectives may need to change as project events dictate. 

Be flexible in how you approach your objectives. 

• Project leaders are not just those with the most technical knowledge. Nurture project leaders who have superior interpersonal skills and can work with teammates to 

stabilize a project in tense circumstances. During times like these, they will prove 

more valuable to you than someone with superior technical knowledge. 

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A P P L
 

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

Simplify and Succeed 

by Art Levine 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

In the early 70's the management at the American Stock Exchange wanted a set 

of automated displays installed on the trading floor. The purpose of the displays 

was to announce to the public all changes related to the trading of equities. 

I had exactly three months to get the work done. Because of local building 

codes, I was told that the displays that met the specifications would not be 

a vailable until nine months after the order was placed. This was not acceptable 

to the Exchange's management. 

The project team was in a quandary. I called a meeting to discuss the situation 

and develop a re p o rt explaining why we needed more time. Jo k i n g l y, I suggested, "Why not use picket signs?" The Exchange had just gone through some 

painful labor negotiations. To anyone who had been invo l ved in those negotiations, the thought of a picket sign should have sounded, I thought, like gallow s 

h u m o r. This was not acceptable to the Exchange's management. 

To my surprise, the rest of the project team took the idea seriously. Suddenly I 

re a l i zed, He y, why not? T h e re was agreement all around that it was worth a try. 

" We could print the necessary information on both sides of the signs and walk 

them around the floor," somebody said. We we re off and running. 

Within two weeks the "manual displays" we re operational. The hardest part of 

the project was getting the signs laminated and attached to a stick. Ac ross the 

top of the sign we wrote, in big letters, TRADING HALT. Ac ross the bottom 

we put the reason, for example, INFLUX OF ORDERS, and just above that 

what the stock symbol was, the time of the halt, and the last sale. The floor of 

the Exchange is the size of a football field, so we had people walking around at 

d i f f e rent locations with the signs held up over their heads. 

People's reaction? The first time the signs appeared a cheer went up from the 

trading floor. Overall, they we re a fantastic success! 

This crazy idea--or rather, inelegantly simple solution--solved the problem. It 

met the Exchange's re q u i rements, and more import a n t l y, for $200 it bought us 

the time to put in place the long-term solution, which cost $2,000,000. 

Fi t t i n g l y, the picket signs now appear only in the Stock Exchange museum. 

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

Art Levine has been an information systems professional 

for more than 25 years, and 

has conducted Project 

Management, Business 

Requirements, Quality 

Assurance and Strategic 

Thinking Seminars at a wide 

variety of organizations. He is 

also a guest lecturer and a 

published writer on the subject 

of managing information systems projects. 

page 2 3 
page 2 4	 Issue 9 October 2002 

A P P L
 

Issue 9 S P E C I A L F E ATURE: A RT L E V I N E 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Simplify and Succeed (cont’d) 

“ We knew that we 

were all out of jobs if 

we didn’t meet the 

three-months requirem e n t . ” 

You don’t have to use super-sophisticated technology to get results. 

R e m e m b e r, what may now seem like antiquated technology was once state 

Q u e s t i o n of the art. And it worked fine. 

What's your craziest idea that 

worked as a temporary solution 

to a pressing problem on a 

p r o j e c t ? 

L e s s o n s 

• Don't be bashful about suggesting crazy ideas. Sometimes they may just work. 

Share your crazy thoughts with the team. 

• Don't always assume high tech is the best way to solve a problem. Smart solutions 

can employ low tech as well. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

F E AT U R E S 

What Has He Done For Me Lately? 

by W. Scott Cameron 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

I had a boss once who continually asked me what the purpose of my work was, 

who we re my customers, and how was I keeping my customers informed about 

my team's work. At first I found these questions perplexing, as my customers 

should have known the answers. I had cove red them in my monthly/quart e r l y 

re p o rts or in my project meeting notes. Fi n a l l y, I confronted him about his questions. He acknowledged that my customers had this information, but he was 

hearing some disturbing comments between when I submitted my re p o rts, comments like, "What has he done for me lately?" 

I decided to take this input to heart. My ideas about communications norms 

needed a major overhaul. The communication norms I was comfortable with 

we re becoming outdated. I re a l i zed the written and verbal communications 

response time was suddenly being measured in days or minutes. People's perc e ption of a project team based on monthly or quarterly meetings was no longer adequate. In the past, once the team's credibility was established it was hard to 

change. In a rapid-fire communications world, no news causes people to question 

what the team is doing to move the business/project ahead. 

I decided I needed to change my "communications game" and began deve l o p i n g 

a pro a c t i ve communications strategy to maintain the high credibility of the team 

and market their excellent work. This strategy re q u i red several components: 

• Definition: we had to define our target audiences and understand what would be 

important to them. 

• Timeliness: what are we doing for our customers today? Forget the axiom no news 

is good news. 

• Consistency: we're in control of problems and here's what we are doing about them. 

• Recognition: we showcase the project team's work while allowing hierarchy an 

opportunity to quickly recognize their contributions. 

• Versatility: we needed to take advantage of all available communications technologies, e.g., e-mail, presentation software, face-to-face... 

With these components in mind, I implemented a "Blurb" approach. What is a 

" Blurb"? It's a sound bite or a small piece of information explaining some exc e llent work someone is doing. The intent is to continually remind people the team 

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. 

page 2 5 
 

 

A P P L
 

Issue 9 F E ATURES: W. SCOTT C A M E R O N 

What Has He Done For Me Lately? (cont’d) 

is credible and ve ry much in control. It also serves the dual purpose of sharing 

information throughout various organizations so they can benefit from what one 

team has learned and hence not waste time trying to re i n vent the wheel. 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

Every star visible in this image is either more highly evolved than, or in a few 

rare cases more massive than, our own sun. Especially obvious are the 

bright red giants, which are stars similar to the Sun in mass that are nearing 

the ends of their lives. This stellar swarm, one of the densest of the 147 

known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy, is located about 28,000 

light years from Earth. 

I soon re a l i zed marketing a "Blurb" approach would not be easy. People typically do not want to communicate their efforts until they have all the data. It would 

take time too before people or teams saw the benefits of this type of communipage 2 6 Issue 9 October 2002 
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

What Has He Done For Me Lately? (cont’d) 

cations and became pro a c t i ve participants. Hence, I took upon myself to mark e t 

the "Bl u r b." It has become my personal crusade. 

In my organization, I believe the "Blurb" communication model has been a 

t remendous success for people who have embraced it. The pro a c t i ve nature of 

sharing the team's successes and acknowledging their temporary setbacks has 

g i ven teams solid cre d i b i l i t y. throughout their careers. It is easy to become cynical about traditional and non-traditional rew a rds and recognition pro g r a m s . 

Howe ve r, as we continue to raise the bar on what we expect out of our pro j e c t 

managers, we need to look for new and exciting ways to celebrate not only their 

team's successes but also their individual success. 

Hence, I took it upon

myself to market the 

‘ B l u r b ’ . 

“ 

” 

page 2 7 
A P P L
 

Issue 9 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

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. 

page 2 8 Issue 9 October 2002 

F E AT U R E S 

How Do We Work To g e t h e r ? 

by Terry Little 

In essence, project management is about people. Vi rtually eve ry successful pro ject is defined by good relations between the people invo l ved. In the same way, 

nearly eve ry failed or troubled project is about poor relationships between the 

people invo l ved. Let's consider one type of relationship: the one between the government and the contractor. 

It's easy to say that a contractor must earn the government's trust, but what does 

that mean in practice? Who needs to earn whose trust? What's the timeline for 

doing that? How does anyone know when he or she is trusted? What is the re l ationship supposed to be like before one feels like trust has really been established? 

So many questions it makes my head hurt. I have always found it better to begin 

a relationship assuming that eve ryone is tru s t w o rthy until, and unless, something 

occurs to belie trust. 

Actions speak volumes in a government-contractor re l a t i o n s h i p. For instance, I 

often refer to Da ve, the ve ry first contractor program manager I ever work e d 

with. W h e n e ver I expressed a concern or issue to Da ve his reply was always the 

same: "We just have to go and get that fixed." And he always did. A few times he 

asked me to do something, and I responded in kind. It was a great re l a t i o n s h i p. 

When Da ve left, his replacement, Ben, was not action-oriented at all. Any issue 

I raised with Ben became a point of contention, and Ben's aim typically was to 

t ry to talk me out of expecting anything of him. In t e re s t i n g l y, Ben was not timid 

about insisting that I do things he wanted. For a time I did, but after awhile I got 

t i red of his failure to act in kind. I started saying "no" even for those things I 

could have managed re l a t i vely easily. As you might imagine the overall re l a t i o nship went south. 

Complete openness and candor is an important part of a successful gove r n m e n t ­

contractor re l a t i o n s h i p. I recall talking one time with Da ve when he brought up 

that my Contracting Officer (CO) was a threat to the overall re l a t i o n s h i p. Da ve 

told me that my CO seemed totally pre-occupied with finding evidence that the 

contractor was violating the contract, taking great delight in pointing out the 

slightest infraction, and this was causing Da ve's people to begin taking a legalistic view of eve rything they we re doing. Once I investigated and found the allegation to be true, I got rid of the CO. Had Da ve and I not established an air of 

openness between us, I never would have known there was a problem. 
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

How Do We Work Together? (cont’d) 

The government-contractor relationship re q u i res nurturing and attention by 

their re s p e c t i ve managers. While many people believe that the contract defines 

the re l a t i o n s h i p, the truth is that the contract only provides the framew o rk or the 

s t a rting point for relationships among the people invo l ved. It is the character of 

these relationships, not the contract, which distinguishes good projects from bad 

o n e s . 

“ Actions speak volumes in a government-contractor relat i o n s h i p . ” 

N A S A is conducting research into molecular-size devices being developed 

under the rubric “nanotechnology.” This photograph depicts two “Nano-gears” 

with multiple teeth. One can imagine how precisely in synch these gears 

must be to run properly. Terry Little’s article details another type of synchronous relationship – between two project managers. 

page 2 9 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A P P L
 

Issue 9 P R A C T I C E S 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

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

Frank Snow has been a member of the NASA E x p l o r e r 

Program at Goddard Space 

Flight Center since 1992. He 

was the Ground Manger for the 

Advanced Composition 

Explorer (ACE), the project 

manager for the Reuven 

Ramaty High Energy Solar 

Spectroscopic Explorer (RHESSI), launched in February, 

2002, and is presently the project manager for the Galaxy 

Explorer (GALEX), which will 

launch in September, 2002. 

Frank began his career with 

N A S A in 1980. He lives in 

Bethesda, Maryland, with his 

understanding wife, teenage 

d a u g h t e r, black Labrador, and 

an uninvited field mouse. 

The "Tried and Tr u e " 

by Frank Snow 

Ba c k g ro u n d 

T h e re was a Chinese place near Go d d a rd Space Flight Center where members of 

my Ad vanced Composition Ex p l o rer (ACE) team often went for lunch. The food 

wasn't great, but after you go to a place a few times, suddenly, yo u ' ve got a hist o ry there. It's where we celebrated birthdays, project milestones; it was a good 

place to get away during the day when things we ren't going well and folks needed to blow off steam; and it was also the place to go when we needed to let someone go on the project, to mitigate any hard feelings that might linger as a result. 

I wouldn't want to give anyone the idea that project teams, even the successful 

ones, are "perfect families." Conflicts occur when yo u ' re dealing with engineers, 

scientists, technicians, and bureaucrats. We had our share on ACE. For the good of 

the project and eve ryone invo l ved, we occasionally had to get rid of some people. 

I made it a policy that when someone was leaving the project because of a personality conflict, then eve ryone on the team, or as many as there we re around, we n t 

out for lunch as a send off. End things on a nice, friendly note. If there is some bitterness, and sometimes there is, we see if we can bury that and just go on. 

Ex a m p l e : 

We we re working on a simulation test and one of the technicians was old school 

right down to the way he slicked back his hair and parted it on the side. 

In n ovation, forget it. He would have none of that. He called his methods "Tr i e d 

and True." The thing is a certain degree of open-mindedness was re q u i red for this 

test. It got to the point where Mr. Old School and another guy working this particular test we re ready to come to blows. I had to step in to re s o l ve that. I made 

it clear, Tried and True though Mr. Old School's methods might be, this part i cular simulation re q u i red a certain degree of open mindedness. 

I had already made the decision to let Mr. Old School go when I called him into 

my office and let him know that he was going to be reassigned to another pro ject. The only question I had for him was where did he want to have lunch? If it 

was all the same to me, he said, there was no reason to break with tradition. T h e 

Chinese place it would be then. 

We started off with tea and egg rolls, and by the time the Lo Mein got to the table 

e ve ryone was laughing and cracking jokes. Neither Mr. Old School nor the guy 

he nearly got into a fight with talked about their disagreement. The rest of us 

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The "Tried and True" (cont’d) 

made sure to stay away from that subject too. Even though Mr. Old School and 

his counterpart couldn't agree on work, they did agree on something. It turned 

out they both had teenage daughters who we re driving them crazy. They might 

not have anything else in common, but they did have this. In some ways, this is 

the kind of thing that can take the edge off their other differences. I could just 

hear them when they met each other again, say in the cafeteria. "He y, did that little girl of yours get her driver's license?" "Yeah and she's still driving me crazy, but 

h ow about you?" 

And this is the whole point of why we had our Chinese restaurant. It rounded out 

the people on the project. The best way to smooth out differences between team 

members about work is to round people out. When someone has to leave the 

p roject, simple social occasions like doing lunch goes a long way tow a rds healing 

some of the hard feelings. 

This illustration depicts a massive solar explosion, known as a coronal mass 

ejection, blasting through the sun’s outer atmosphere and plowing towards 

Earth at speeds of thousands of miles per second. 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

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Issue 9 I N T E RV I E W 

ASK Talks With Judy Stokley 

ASK Magazine By practitioners for practitioners 

In the summer of 1997, Judy Stokley took over as Program Di rector of the Airto-Air Joint System Project Office (JSPO) at Eglin Air Fo rce Base in Florida. As

the JSPO Program Di re c t o r, she directed much of her attention to reforming the 

Ad vanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM) program, which had 

been operational since 1991 and was presently being produced for the Air Fo rc e , 

Na v y, Marine Corps, and many international customers. Upon careful analysis 

of the program, she found it rife with problems. Two of the most pre s s i n g 

included a bloated Average Unit Pro c u rement Cost and an Air Fo rce mandated 

draw down plan that had not been met. In this interv i ew, following her pre s e ntation at the Fo u rth NASA Masters Fo rum of Program and Project Managers in 

Dallas last Fe b ru a ry, Stokley discusses some of the difficulties she experienced in 

c a r rying out the AMRAAM reforms. 

Stokley is presently Air Fo rce Program Exe c u t i ve Officer for Weapons in 

Washington, D.C. She is responsible for the cost, schedule, and technical performance of a portfolio of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons programs. T h e s e 

p rograms re p resent the leading edge of weapons technology, including deve l o ping the next generation of precision-guided munitions -- "smart" bombs -- and 

air superiority missiles. 

A S K : What was the most difficult thing for you about reforming the 

AMRAAM program? 

St o k l ey : Drawing down the work f o rce. I've always done eve rything that the Air 

Fo rce has asked me to do, and if they asked me to do a massive downsizing again, 

I know I would have to do it; but I pray to God, literally, they will find somebody else. I've done this once, and I don't ever want to do it again. To stand in 

f ront of two hundred people and tell them that we are going to be down to less 

than a hundred in one fiscal ye a r, that was really exc ruciating. A lot of them had 

been on the program for the full twenty years it was in existence. Many felt that 

their jobs we re a re w a rd for having made this program a success and thought they 

we re going to stay there until they re t i red. 

A S K : How much of a surprise to them was it when you told them this? 

St o k l ey : T h e re was an Air Fo rce mandate to draw down the work f o rce--so eve ryone knew about it--but they didn't know what the plan was. The organization 

was about one year behind the mandated plan, for a lot of reasons. My pre d e c e spage 3 2 Issue 9 October 2002 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ASK Talks With Judy Stokley (cont’d) 

Academy Sharing Knowledge 

The NASA source for project management ASK Magazine

sors had not embraced the drawd own and other parts of acquisition reform. So 

t h e re was a perception going in that maybe the organization would be able to 

"escape" compliance with the drawd own dire c t i ve and other aspects of acquisition 

reform, and that somehow it didn't really apply to them. 

A S K : Did that make it even harder to stand up there in front of them and say 

what you had to do? 

St o k l ey : Oh yes. I was in this environment where, one, people we re sitting there 

ve ry nervous about their jobs and, two, they believed their work was special someh ow and would be left alone, if only I would argue for them as well as my pre decessors had. I feared that I would be re m e m b e red as the slasher. Ul t i m a t e l y, I 

b e l i e ve this fear drove me to be a better leader, because I focused on nurturing the 

people and the business in the organization. 

A S K : How did that feel to be seen as a 'slasher'? 

Stokley: That was very strange, I have to tell you. For at least a year or two, I would 

see people whispering when I walked up, especially people on the base outside my 

immediate organization. It was the first time in my life that I experienced a feeling 

of being disliked and gossiped about. But then slowly people got over it, once we got 

through that first phase, and in fact when the program became recognized as quite a 

success and won major awards and was featured in the newspaper, then a lot of the 

base and the community started joining in our joy, taking credit for it. 

A S K : One year seems like a drastic amount of time to draw down your workf o rce by more than half. What made you decide to do it so quickly? 

St o k l ey : I thought about this a lot and I felt that if you are going to draw dow n 

the work f o rce, you ought to decide how much yo u ' re going to draw it down and 

you ought to do it as quickly as possible. You can do it slow l y, but that seems to 

me like leaving yourself in a state of constant bleeding. My view was to do the 

amputation and let's get well. Plus, I did not intend to just 'pink slip' people and 

say goodbye, good luck, and get out of here. We we re going to be systematic 

about finding them work, both the civil servants and the support contractors. 

A S K : Did telling them this make a difference? 

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ASK Talks With Judy Stokley (cont’d) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ I focused on nurturing 

the people and the 

business in the organi z a t i o n . ” 

St o k l ey : That was not something they took to heart right away. Until you see it 

happening around you it is hard to fathom. 

ASK: What we re their reactions when you announced the drawn down plan? 

St o k l ey : It was ve ry shocking. The room went silent. I invited them to ask questions, and there we ren't any. I had a friend who was in the program office at the 

time and I felt that she would be candid with me, so afterw a rds I asked her, "How 

do you think it went over and what was the gossip afterw a rds?" She said--and I 

k n ew for her to phrase it like this that it must have been really bad-- "Well Ju d y, 

e ve rybody knows you did the best you could, and at least you we re honest with us." 

A S K : As the year went by, while the draw down was taking place, did yo u 

h a ve any strategy for letting people communicate their concerns? 

St o k l ey: We had a team meeting eve ry month, and we discussed where we we re 

in the process. At eve ry meeting, beginning with the first one where I announced 

the plan, people got a note card and could write anything they wanted. T h e y 

could vent, they could give us re c o m m e n d a t i o n s - - w h a t e ve r. We took eve ry re commendation that was printable, and at each team meeting we would get up and 

tell people what we had done. That allowed people to feel like they could re a l l y 

s c ream at us if they wanted. 

A S K : What kind of things did people write? 

Stokley: Some people wrote down things like, "I feel ve ry betrayed." "Pl e a s e 

don't leave me without an job, I am the only one earning to support my family. " 

Other people wrote down things that we re real petty like, "I've asked for the 

Xe rox machine on our floor to be fixed over and over and it never works re l i a b l y. " 

And then other people would write really good recommendations. We implemented eve ry recommendation, including getting the damn Xe rox machine 

f i xed. 

A S K : What happened to the 100+ people whose positions we re eliminated? 

St o k l ey: This is something I'm ve ry proud of. Almost all of the people who left 

the AMRAAM program, I would say 95%, got jobs in other programs. I had told 

them this at the first meeting, we we re going to get them jobs, nobody was abandoning them, but like I said, until you see it happening around you it is hard to 

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fathom. For government employees, there was plenty of work on the base. We 

had a handful of civil servants and support contractors who never got happy, they 

didn't want to go work in another program, but they we re older people who 

e ventually decided to re t i re. 

An F-16C Fighting Falcon from the 416th Flight Test Squadron, Edwards A i r 

Force Base, California, launches an advanced medium-range air-to-air missile 

(AMRAAM) over a Navy test range. 

A S K : What was the impact of the reforms on the rest of the base? 

St o k l ey: Huge. AMRAAM was the largest program on the base, so the changes 

we re going to be enormous. The program had grown up in an enviro n m e n t 

w h e re many parts of the base re c e i ved lots of money eve ry ye a r, like in the test 

wing, and they saw that as their right to the money. 

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ASK Talks With Judy Stokley (cont’d) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ I had the support of 

my bosses in 

Washington, who told 

them point blank, ‘I 

pay my program 

directors to execute 

e fficient and eff e c t i v e 

programs. I do not 

pay them to shore up 

work forces or facilities at the product 

centers. ” 

ASK: How did you explain this to these stakeholders? 

St o k l ey : T h e re we re compelling reasons why we needed to reform. Ba s i c a l l y, 

50% of the unit cost of AMRAAM wasn't going into the missile. 

A S K : W h e re was all the money going? 

St o k l ey : T h e re was a huge amount of redundancy and waste. For example, we 

had five different simulations checking the performance of the missile. All five 

we re duplicating each other. At Eglin we had two, neither of which I could see 

the point of carrying. One was with the program from the beginning. The second was this brand new facility that was supposed to be the best in the world and 

all that. AMRAAM was the primary contributor. We pumped more money into 

that facility than I could believe. I didn't see why we needed so many simulations. The contractor of course had to have his; he had to have some way of ve rifying his performance; but these others we re just wasting a lot of money to 

duplicate data. 

A S K : How did people who we re invo l ved in the areas react to you? 

St o k l ey : Well, many people we re angry with me. T h e re we re mean e-mails that 

we re forw a rded to me, and some officials complained to my bosses in 

Washington. I had the support of my bosses in Washington, who told them point 

blank, "I pay my program directors to execute efficient and effective programs. I 

do not pay them to shore up work forces or facilities at the product centers." 

ASK: Still, it must have been difficult dealing with hostilities like that. 

St o k l ey : W h e n e ver you are doing something really different, really innova t i ve 

and cre a t i ve, and you are out there trying to create something more powe rf u l 

than your predecessors, you are going to have attackers. T h e re are going to be 

people who don't agree with you. People will feel threatened by you. If they fundamentally don't believe in changing the way they do things, you can't convince 

them to like changing. You can only hope they will leave you alone until they can 

see that the change is working. 

ASK: I imagine you had to brief the Base Commander often on what yo u 

we re doing. How did that go? 

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St o k l ey: One thing I learned about myself is that I am not a quitter. I briefed 

him once and the tension in the room was thick enough to slice with a dull knife. 

He was quite aggre s s i ve in his criticisms. I was courteous and replied over and 

ove r, "Noted sir, next chart." At the end, I said, "Thank you ve ry much for yo u r 

attention today and all the time you have given me. I am the Program Di re c t o r 

and I will proceed as planned with this program. Thank you ve ry much." 

T h rough all of this I was just extremely courteous. I always tell people that these 

a re ve ry powe rful things to say, "Thank you ve ry much, I have noted all of yo u r 

concerns. This is the way I am dealing with them, this is the way we ' re going." 

You can beat down a whole lot of bureaucracy by doing that. 

A S K : Did that come naturally, or did you have to swallow hard to say those 

things? 

St o k l ey : It is never easy to sit calmly and not become argumentative when yo u 

a re being attacked. I practiced a lot in front of a mirro r. But seriously, it is a difficult thing to do for most of us, but if you can't do it you will sooner or later 

become stunted as a leader. 

A S K : I know you are often invited to speak about leadership. What do yo u 

re g a rd as the key ingredients of a leader? 

St o k l ey: It seems to me that people are leaders when they have a compelling 

vision that is really part of their heart and soul. They really believe it. And it 

comes out of them kind of like poems come from the great poets. It's part of their 

soul, and it's part of how they think about the world. When that vision comes 

f o rw a rd, they haven't had a committee get together and write them a vision statement on a plastic card--it is part of their core being, and you can just tell. And 

when you work for someone like that, you know her vision is who she is. Eve ry 

n ow and then in our lives, we have gotten to work with someone like that. And 

we say, "Oh my God, this time will not come again," because we know where we 

a re headed and we know what the vision is, and we know it's got to be a good 

vision or else this person would not believe in it and love it the way she does. So 

that is what I think leadership starts with: a person who has a vision that is the 

c o re of her soul and beliefs. 

“ It is never easy to sit 

calmly and not 

become argumentative when you are 

being attacked. ” 

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