National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NAC

Program Management 

and Acquisition Priority 

Focus Area

January 17, 2023

Charlie Williams

Krista Paquin

Elisabeth Pate’-Cornell
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT AND ACQUISITION PFA

CHARTER

• Per letter from Administrator Nelson dated February 14, 2022, the NAC workplan for 2022 

“reflects the priorities of both the Biden-Harris Administration and our Agency leadership. It is my 

hope to receive the Council’s advice on the challenges and opportunities before the Agency in these 

five areas:

• Climate change

• Commercial and industry partnerships

• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility

• International collaboration

• Program management and acquisition

• Identify strengths and challenges for delivering quality programs on schedule and within budget

• Offer recommendations and other observations for further investigation
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT AND ACQUISITION PFA

REVIEW FOCUS AREAS

1. Training, Development and Organizing for Success 

• Review and compare NASA acquisition training & development protocols to other Federal 

Agency and industry best practices

• Review and compare NASA acquisition and PM authorities and consider how acquisition 

decisions are impacted by organizational structures and alignment

2. Acquisition Strategies

• Review NASA acquisition strategy decisions and consider/compare to emerging practices 

across the federal government and industry. Consideration will be given to the following:

• Contract Types

• Commercial contracts

• Outreach to small business and non-traditional sources

• Unique authorities such as Other Transaction Authority 

3. Program Performance and Risk Mitigation

• Review and consider NASA program results in cost, schedule and performance to include 

NASAs approach to program risk mitigation 
REVIEW METHODOLOGY

• Review Team Membership:

• Charlie Williams, Chair

• Krista Paquin

• Elisabeth Pate’-Cornell

• Review Framework

• Examine existing NASA practices/processes

• Review GAO, IG reports and other study reports

• Seek industry input on NASA practices

• Benchmark best practices across industry and DOD

• Engagements were arranged to ensure anonymity if desired

• Identify improvements that should be considered by NASA

• Conducted 23+ interviews from May 26th through October 27th

• Next Steps

• Review preliminary recommendations with NASA stakeholders (OP/CPMO, etc)

• Identify priority recommendations
WHO WE SPOKE TO

Industry

• Lockheed martin

• Axiom Space

• Sierra Nevada

• Northrop Grumman

• GDIT

• Quantum Space

• Blue Origin

NASA

• Pam Melroy, Dep Administrator, CAO

• Dave Mitchell, OCPMO

• Karla Jackson, OP

• Julia Wise, OP

• Marvin Horne, OP

• Jim Free, ESD AA

• Catherine Koerner, ESMD DAA

• Thomas Zurbuchen, SMD AA 

• Sandra Connelly, SMD DAA (Acting 

AA)

• Mary Skow, OCPMO

• Tiffany Smith, Chief Knowledge 

Officer

• Jeff Grambling, SMD MSR Program 

Director

• Bill McNally (OP retired)

DoD

• Defense Acquisition 

University

• Defense Pricing and 

Contracting, OSD

• Defense Innovation 

Unit, DOD
TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND ORGANIZING FOR 

SUCCESS - FINDINGS

Strengths

• Elevation of CAO role to the Deputy Administrator and reporting of the Dep 

CAO/Procurement Executive to the CAO

• Establishment of OPMO with focus on building the community of practice through 

collaboration across OPMO, CKO, OCFO, OP and OHCM

• Established contracting workforce certification levels 

• Conversations with CDs on growing talent
TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND ORGANIZING FOR 

SUCCESS - FINDINGS (cont’d)

Challenges

• Training and development of the program management workforce has been allowed to 

atrophy and is inconsistent across the NASA eco-system. Need for a complete single 

integrated workforce development strategy across procurement, finance and PM that includes 

experiential learning with colleagues. Stove piped learning is more prevalent than training as 

a team.

• Inadequate understanding of commercial business practice and incentive structures. “Skillset 

for supporting commercial contracting is being relearned with each new initiative”. 

• Lacking a common language across the acquisition workforce and who is responsible for what. 

• Inadequate incentives to stay on the PM career path. Some centers have SES line managers 

but not PMs. 

• “NASA is losing Program Manager capabilities”. Project managers can be taught, Program 

Management is more complex and learned through experience (can’t stay in one place too 

long). 

• “Lack of competition for SES procurement roles”. Need a succession plan. 
TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND ORGANIZING FOR 

SUCCESS - PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Execute an integrated experiential training curriculum that brings together the Resources, 

Contracting and Program Management professionals collectively working through real project 

scenarios. 

• Consider more fully leveraging the capabilities of the Defense Acquisition University as a 

schoolhouse for meeting the training needs of the community rather than building it 

organically.

• Establish a DoD like Industry/Government Exchange Program to broaden understanding of 

commercial business practice and incentive structures.

• Advance the commercial contracting skillset by modeling a best practice at DIU who invested 

in specialized OTA skills and created a group with this capability. 

• Establish a Contracting Officer warrant board to improve the rigor of Contracting Officer 

warrants and placements.
TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND ORGANIZING FOR 

SUCCESS - PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS (cont’d)

• Reinvigorate the PM Challenge as a means for the PM&A workforce to be exposed to the full 

scope of community practices and expertise.

• Develop a succession plan for executive roles in each of the three areas of PM&A.

• Examine organizational constructs that facilitate collaboration across PM&A functions and 

reduce barriers across the PM&A workforce development architecture.

• Provide resources to expand the work of the Chief Knowledge Officer to identify and share 

lessons learned.

• Develop Command Media to share the vision and expectation for Program Management and 

Acquisition, including acquisition strategies and forecasted benefits.
ACQUISITION STRATEGY - FINDINGS

Strengths

• Acquisition Strategy Council Two-Step process that includes: 1) Early strategy formulation, and; 2) 

Decision meeting with a decision memo.

• Recent creation of templates helps with completeness and provides proper insight to influence 

decisions. Added requirement for high dollar acquisitions to have a formal Acquisition Plan.

• Opportunity to apply learning from the Commercial Cargo Transportation experiences across the 

PM&A workforce.

• Enterprise contracts such as NEST support standardization of critical security protections and 

optimize resource utilization across the enterprise.
ACQUISITION STRATEGY – FINDINGS cont’d

Challenges

• Contract Type

• FP contracts for first time development are unrealistic, high risk and not indicated based on 

federal acquisition practice and policy. 

• “Contractors and NASA engineers are less concerned about the starting point because 

they know they can do mods”.

• “When working at the edge of technology, it is impossible to plan every contingency”. 

• Pressure to expand use of FP contracts without allowing room for negotiation and time for 

considered analysis to tailor acquisition strategies to unique requirements. “Cold chill when 

hearing we should go to all fixed price”.

• Need to build reliability. Learn exponentially after each build – optimum is 3-5 builds 

before moving to FP. Ex. Cignus resupply vehicle.
ACQUISITION STRATEGY – FINDINGS (cont’d)

Challenges (Cont.)

• Communications 

• Inconsistent communications with industry

• “Discussion blackout starts earlier than what the FAR allows”

• It is not clear to industry who at NASA to have strategic discussions with. Is it Pam, Bob, Karla, or 

Dave? 

• Business Acumen

• Indemnification: “Artemis took 2 1⁄2 years. Contractor had to work this inside NASA from the 

bottoms up and top town. Need to anticipate complex contractual issues and get a running start on 

those.”.

• “Inconsistency in application of commercial contracts (HLS). New group of people making it up each 

time. Nobody has written down how it should work”.

• Low cost technically acceptable contracts with inadequate consideration of contractor responsibility 

(financial viability & past performance)

• “NASA is terrible at understanding industry financials and scar tissue. Need to find flexibility in 

contract financing. Ex. movement between CLINS is very constrained despite this being an 

allowable practice. Goal is to get a product out that works”
ACQUISITION STRATEGY – FINDINGS (cont’d)

Challenges (Cont.)

• Culture

• Ingrained NASA culture based on mission failures to use cost-plus contracts to enable 

oversight and control as well as reduce risk.

• “General Counsel risk aversion” is a barrier to innovative contracting practices.

• Projects/programs do not always commit to the requirements for the required products 

and processes of the Acquisition Strategy Council. 
ACQUISITION STRATEGY – PRELIMINARY

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Ensure Fixed price procurements that incorporate appropriate selection criteria; financial 

viability, technical workforce availability, and past performance are a win for both NASA 

and the space industrial base.

• To increase competition and reduce risk, NASA should consider funding new developments 

via Cost Plus for the trials and testing phase (through to Critical Design Review) then use 

Fixed Price for development. 

• Consistently reduce the risk of Fixed Price commercial development contracts with dual 

awards. 

• On FP contracts, transfer NASA knowledge to commercial providers and enable them to 

own the technical baseline rather than providing detailed oversight and burdensome 

reporting.

• Share best practices across NASA for commercial contracting.
ACQUISITION STRATEGY – PRELIMINARY

RECOMMENDATIONS (cont’d)

• Use SAA’s to invest early in low-cost items to help new entrants such as with SpaceX in 

2005. 

• Explore expanded Other Transaction Authorities like DoDs authority to move from 

prototype to production.

• Expand use of grants and SAA’s for technology development. Allow for profit on grants 

to increase competition.

• “With an emerging commercial market, the government must get smarter on what cost 

data it really needs”.

• Within the “Change Leadership” Executive Core Competency (ECQ), hold senior leaders 

accountable for timely and comprehensive commitment to the acquisition strategy process 

requirements and measurement of outcomes.

• Share best practices across NASA for commercial contracting.
PROGRAM PERFORMANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT -

FINDINGS

Strengths

• Top leadership support and oversight for mission performance via CAO and OPMO

• Science AA implementing and overseeing earlier Independent Review Boards to scrub 

missions before setting the baseline.

• Joint Confidence Level (JCL) for projects over $1B has enabled more realistic lifecycle 

cost estimating. 

• Implementation of EVM for in-house projects enables objective measurement and 

forecasting of future performance.

• Cost caps and definitive launch dates done in Planetary Science missions remove 

subjectivity and encourages NASA and companies to work trades and drive towards a go 

no-go. 
PROGRAM PERFORMANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT –

FINDINGS (cont’d)

Challenges

• Characteristics of programs/projects that don’t perform to the baseline successfully:

• Funding Instability, phasing and variability. “Factor of Pi – sending budget cuts to the 

contractor will cost you 3.14 times the original cost”.

• Requirements creep and fluctuation: Large missions are often influenced by external 

drivers.

• “Optimism bias”: overly ambitious cost and schedule assumptions and overly 

optimistic technology readiness dependencies.

• Insufficient and untimely vertical and horizontal communications at the leadership 

and line management level, especially relating to bad news. 

• Program office resources and maturity: either too many or too few people

• “For every NASA person, there is a multiplier impact on contractor overhead”. NASA 

workforce outnumber the contractors by a factor of 8 and not a recipe for 

efficiency”.
PROGRAM PERFORMANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT –

FINDINGS (cont’d)

Challenges (cont’d)

• Larger, more traditional industry partners struggle to obtain private funding and 

corporate support in the same way that new space is able which impacts performance 

and potential competition (Ex. Boeing vs. Space X on Commercial Crew). 

• Culture to hold on to reporting requirements that drive costs. Ex. Class D missions should 

accept more risk, enable innovation, and lower costs yet despite leadership 

encouragement, there is a lack of program tailoring allowed in 7120.5. 
PROGRAM PERFORMANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT –

PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Formalize a requirement for Quarterly meetings of senior leaders between NASA and 

industry executives to focus on program performance and risk.

• Consider a NASA/Industry Council chaired by the CAO to share plans and exchange 

ideas to inform and communicate NASA’s acquisition strategies. 

• In formulation, identify technical, cost and schedule risks and their interdependencies all 

the way through launch and build a Monte Carlo simulation around that. Ensure that 

external drivers and funding risks are tracked through the risk-informed decision making 

(RIDM) process.

• Within programs, ensure contractors are assessing and communicating system technical 

risk and the impact of those to budget and schedule. 

• Continue to implement early Independent Review Boards (IRB’s) to scrub missions prior to 

proceeding to the design and development phases. 
PROGRAM PERFORMANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT –

PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS (cont’d)

• Leverage the recommendations and actions taken in response to the Psyche IRB to ensure 

vertical and horizontal, open, credible and responsive communications for proper insight 

at the leadership and line management level of programs and projects. 

• Explore expanded use of cost caps and definitive launch dates as done in Planetary 

Science missions.

• For Commercial Contracts, ensure stability of requirements throughout the design and 

development process and commit to an upfront understanding and agreement that 

industry owns the technical baseline. 

• For all programs/projects, PM’s to ensure all centers commit to agreement on how much 

engineering and programmatic oversight is needed based on the structure of the 

acquisition and center roles and responsibilities. 

• For directed missions, focus NASA talent on technology development and allow industry to 

do the development.
SUMMARY

• Training, Development and Organizing for Success

• Establishment of the CPMO is positive and consistent with best practice across Agencies 

and in line with the NDAA 2017 Program Management Improvement Accountability Act 

(PMIAA) 

• Experienced program management leadership and an available workforce make all the 

difference in the world to program success

• NASAs institutional development model for the PM&A community is inadequate and 

needs revitalization

• Integration of experiential training and development across functional lines is critical to 

success

• Acquisition Strategies

• “When working at the edge of technology, it is impossible to plan every contingency”

• Pressure to use specified contract types, i.e., fixed price development, doesn’t allow 

deliberate and fact-based contract strategy decisions

• Enterprise capture and sharing of acquisition strategy best practices can be beneficial to 

spreading corporate knowledge and experience
SUMMARY (cont’d)

• Program Performance and Risk Mitigation

• Renewed enterprise focus on program management tools (JCL, EVM, robust IRBS, etc) 

via CPMO and elevation of the CAO role to the Deputy Administrator demonstrates 

key leadership support and focus for program success. 

• Funding instability and aggressive stakeholder involvement leads to low confidence 

levels

• Further exploration of the link between schedule, budget and technical failure risk 

starting with the acquisition process is essential to ensure maximum reliability given 

the resource constraints
Back Up
REFERENCES

• GAO Assessment of Major Projects:. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-306

• GAO High Risk List: NASA Acquisition Management - https://www.gao.gov/highrisk/nasa-acquisitionmanagement

• NASA Inspector General Reports: NASA’S MANAGEMENT OF THE ARTEMIS MISSIONS: 

https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-22-003.pdf

• SMD Large Mission Study

• Office of Procurement Annual report

• Acquisition Roadshow - Promoting Innovation and Rigor in NASA’s Acquisition of Major Projects

• Psyche Independent Review Board Report : November 4, 2022: 
Acronym List for the Program Management and Acquisition Report

CAO Chief Acquisition Officer

CDs Center Directors

CKO Chief Knowledge Officer

CLIN Contract Line Item Number

CPMO Chief Program Management Officer

DIU Defense Innovation Unit

DOD Department of Defense

ESD AA Exploration Systems Directorate Associate Administrator

EVM Earned Value Management

FAR Federal Acquisition Regulation

FP Fixed Price

GAO General Accounting Office

GDIT General Dynamics Information Technology

HLS Human Landing System

IG Inspector General

NEST NASA End-user Services & Technologies

OCFO Office of the Chief Financial Officer

OCPMO Office of the Chief Program Management Officer

OHCM Office of Human Capital Management

OP Office of Procurement

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense

OTA Other Transaction Authority

PFA Priority Focus Area

PM Program Manager

SAA Space Act Agreement

SES Senior Executive Service

SMD AA Science Mission Directorate Mars Sample Return

SMD MSR Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator