With the expansion of the civil service work force, KSC integrated contractor organizations employing 23, personnel at the Center to perform specific operational and support missions under the technical supervision and observation of the Government team.
The management techniques, organizational concepts, and continuing efforts utilized to meet the Apollo goals and challenges are discussed in this document. Document ID. Document Type. Date Acquired. Prior to its implementation, NASA relied heavily on the knowledge and skills of its original team. Figure 1. An agency-wide working group was established to implement the recommended training activity.
The working group first reviewed the project management training opportunities available in other government agencies and the aerospace industry. The NASA project management community and three academic institutions then became involved in the development of the preliminary designs. After much debate, the working group agreed to the following fundamental design assumptions:. The PMSEP was presented twice a year from until , when it was no longer offered due to insufficient resources.
In , the program was renewed for three more years. Judged by participant evaluations and word-ofmouth, the PMSEP was very successful, but with only 50 participants per year and a limited course offering, the program could not fulfill the explosive training demands of the late s.
The program did, however, provide NASA with valuable experience in developing customized training opportunities.
This time the implementation action was given to the Office of Human Resources and Organization Development, and again the first duties were to conduct a feasibility study, to identify other training initiatives throughout government and industry, and to prepare a preliminary implementation plan. The colloquium considered three levels of project team management: the project manager, the systems manager and the subsystems manager Figure 1.
The colloquium participants identified the knowledge, skills and experience needed to be fully qualified at each level, which in turn led to the development of specific requirements for each management level Figure 2. The questionnaire sought information about career ladders, length of training programs, problems in implementation, and content. It offered specific objectives which needed to be accomplished in order to meet NASA project management training requirements.
Specifically, this data established a need for a project management curriculum, identified what the instruction should accomplish and indicated which objectives should be taught.
Senior enough to have acquired a vast range of project management experience, they also had the credibility to identify critical requirements for a training curriculum. Since the membership of this group included senior NASA executives with vast amounts of project management experience, they were able to come to consensus on numerous issues in the design and development of the program. Not only were the customers designing what would be offered, but the PPMSG also demanded that agreements were made on an agency basis, instead of individual organizations.
With training requirements firmly established, the next step was to survey existing project management training programs. The survey targeted short courses 5-day and intermediate courses weeks , as well as university programs, industry programs, programs of professional societies and institutions, and programs within NASA centers. Although no program specifically met NASA's requirements, a number of the industry development models contained similar requirements.
Both groups agreed with the work that had been accomplished and suggested the preparation of a NASA Project Management Development Model and a two-week curriculum for system-level employees. At the beginning of , the NASA model, unchanged to this date, was accepted for implementation Figure 4. Five primary areas have evolved: training and development; a corporate knowledge center; research studies; consulting services; and policy, processes and systems.
Each product area emphasizes different but related activities aimed at improving project management Figure 5. Currently nine training programs have been developed for the NASA project management community. All of the programs have been developed through agency-wide efforts to define training needs, followed by thorough job analyses to identify training requirements.
For most programs, a study was conducted to identify the critical requirements and issues that needed to be addressed. These two-week courses rely on instructor lectures, panel discussions, case studies, exercises and senior management presentations.
The seven remaining programs have been incorporated into the PPMI training curriculum as a result of ongoing needs assessments of the project management community and the various steering groups. A critical contribution of this working group has been the development of a NASA-generic Systems Engineering project cycle, as well as a proposed handbook which covers various aspects of this discipline. Another major contribution has come from the Program Control Working Group Composed of senior NASA Program Control experts, this group has worked to develop and implement a training regimen aimed at providing the project work force with increased skills on cost and schedule factors.
The space race forced the US government to invest significant funds to space exploration, as the capitalist ideology could not lose the race to the communist doctrine. Therefore, the political goal was also achieved, as the USSR never managed to land people on the Moon and Americans were very proud of their achievements. The program also contributed greatly to the establishment of the image of the USA as a superpower.
The project manager employed quite effective strategies and methods to carry out the project. This plan was the basis of the coming project. The major goal of the project was achieved.
Nonetheless, the NASA developed a number of projects concerning exploration of the Moon, but the lack of financing resulted in quite an abrupt end of the Apollo Program. Thus, some expectations were not met. Another stakeholder is the American society. Americans were waiting for great victories and landing on the Moon was one of them.
People expected that the US astronauts would go to the Moon and back, which could prove the might of democracy and their way of life. The expectations were completely met. The vast majority of people paid little attention to the costs as the outcome was more important for them.
Clearly, any evaluation should include assessment of management. As has been mentioned above, this was one of the first examples of project management on such a scale such budget, such goals. Of course, there were numerous errors. Clearly, such oversights never took place later. At the same time, the project manager paid attention to various stages and processes working out plans and following them.
Finally, it is important to evaluate resources used and actual benefits to consider the successfulness of the project.
Notably, there was a plan to construct a space station and astronauts had to go to the Moon from that station, but scientists developed another approach Morris Still, the budget of the project was almost the same when it was completed or rather abandoned. At the same time, the benefits of the program cannot be overestimated.
First, the goals set were achieved and all stakeholders were satisfied. Besides, the US economy also benefited as the space and aviation industries were developing at a significant pace creating jobs, paying taxes.
Scientists and engineers could come up with various discoveries that led to great advances in technology.
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