BIG/GAS stands for “Business Is Great/Government and Academics are Stupid.”
It’s a popular proposition among the shouting classes, but NASA — specifically Spirit and Opportunity — have, over the past six years, driven a few more nails in its coffin. While unpopular in some circles the two Mars rovers have, as of this writing, exceeded their planned mission lives by more than 2,500%.
Very few business successes play in that league.
Panacea lovers would undoubtedly recommend you learn everything you can about how NASA managed this mission and apply every lesson to your own projects. The panacea lovers would be wrong. It isn’t often you’ll find yourself building technology that will be deployed only twice, both times in remote locations where repairs aren’t a possibility. So most of the techniques NASA used to ensure near-perfect quality in custom design and construction would be gross overkill in typical business situations.
One idea you can use, and it’s a strangely controversial: Everyone involved in a project, and especially the person running a project, has to personally care about and take responsibility for its eventual success.
To explain why this is controversial:
Point #1: Projects have a beginning and an end, as opposed to Operations (in the business-generic sense), which are ongoing.
Point #2: Success means the planned business changes and benefits have actually shown up.
Point #3: By definition, Projects aren’t successful when they deliver their deliverables (and who decided to call them “deliverables,” dooming us to this sorry syntax anyway?). They’re successful when Operations puts their deliverables to use, improving how their part of the organization runs.
Conclusion: Project managers, more or less by definition, aren’t in a position to ensure success.
The controversy comes from confusing taking responsibility for success – something internal and personal — with being held accountable for it.
The Mars rover missions were … are … spectacular successes. Beyond their showcase metric of having exceeded their planned life by so much is a more important one: They have extended our knowledge of planetary science enormously more than was ever hoped for in the original plan.
Here’s what matters to you: All of the project teams whose work came together to design, build, and launch Spirit and Opportunity, not to mention everything needed here on Earth to direct the ongoing mission, finished their work and disbanded before any new scientific knowledge showed up.
Does anyone reading this column think the project teams and project managers limited themselves to creating deliverables that met specifications?
Without any inside knowledge I’ll say with confidence that this isn’t even a remote possibility. If everyone involved had thought about their responsibilities as ending with deliverables that met specifications then Spirit and Opportunity would have ground to a halt roughly 120 days after landing. (I figure 120 days because the spec said 90 days and every good engineer knows to add a 50% safety margin.)
It simply can’t be. I would bet every project manager and most project staff cared, and still care deeply and personally about exploring other planets. And took personal responsibility for overall mission success, not just their assignments.
The same is true of the Cassini team. Cassini finished its original four-year mission to Saturn in 2008 and shows no signs of slowing down.
Cassini and the Mars Rovers (sounds like a rock band, doesn’t it?) provide strong evidence that fully engaging your employees in your success is a business proposition, not a moral imperative. NASA, of course, has it easy — for an engineer, what could possibly be cooler than participating in building spacecraft? All NASA has to do is avoid spitting on its employees and engagement is almost inevitable.
When you’re part of a more prosaic enterprise, in contrast, employee engagement takes more than salivary restraint, although expectoration elimination is an excellent first step.
What it takes is this message, delivered by the organization’s leaders with sincerity and acted on consistently: “We don’t hold employees accountable. We don’t have to. Our employees take personal responsibility for our success. In return we share our success in tangible terms with the employees who make it possible.”
Want evidence? Inc. magazine recently featured a small chain of pizza parlors that demonstrate this point well (“Lessons From a Blue-Collar Millionaire,” 2/1/2010).
It proves (and if you didn’t see this coming I’m disappointed in you) that employee engagement doesn’t have to be rocket science.
Exactly correct Bob!!!
Ownership for the win!!
I have always felt that you can only succeed if everyone feels like they OWN the final product. For some reason lots of people really hate this idea. I’ve worked with government in the past and been informed that, as a contractor, I don’t own the work. Its and idiotic sentiment. If I don’t own the work it will be merely OK at best. But you know what? Ownership isn’t exclusive. I can take ownership of the product and the team can take ownership of the product and the customer (speaking from a consulting perspective again here) can own it too.
Pride and determination for success has been driven out of so many organizations. Such value has been placed on accountability, and following orders that its sickening.
BTW: I will always remember when I saw the coolest room on planet Earth. It was at JPL. In the room contained a full scale (or close to) copy of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, a whole bunch of red dirt, and an adjustable hill. This room was used for testing maneuvers before sending the instructions to the rovers, and it was super cool.
I think one reason this seldom seems to work in the business world is summed up in the last part of your hypothetical organization’s message: “In return we share our success in tangible terms with the employees who make it possible.”
For the last few decades, what employees at many companies have seen is anything but this. When a business makes money, they see a handful of top managers splitting millions in bonuses, while the rank-and-file who managed to make the success possible get an employee picnic or two. When the business faces a downturn – often due to a disastrous decision by the CEO – what they see is the CEO exiting with millions in a golden parachute and layoffs for the staff.
Most employees, I’m sure, realize that not everyone can earn millions, or even tens of thousands, in bonuses. But as some of the most successful tech companies in the last decade have found out, even moderate amounts of spending on staff (free cafeterias and other perks) convey the message to the employees that they are valued.
Bob: What you are suggesting is that folks working on a project have to think beyond just the parameters of their project to the larger enterprise that it’s part of, and to actually work not for the success of the project but for the success of the enterprise. Wowie…that’s not in any of the project-manager or business-school books…can’t possibly be a good idea (snicker).
Want to really think scary thoughts? Take that concept now and apply it to citizenship. That would mean that the partisans on all sides would actually have to think beyond just their “inherently superior” positions on every little thing to actually seriously considering the long-term health of that larger enterprise (i.e. the United States). The horror, the horror…that’s enough to make dogs break their chains and young men leave home!
Thanks. As I’ve said more than once, one of the biggest problems we have as a nation is that so many of us citizens think of ourselves as government’s customers, when we should consider ourselves its owners.
Bob, you are 100% correct about NASA PMs caring and involvement.
I worked as a field engineer for a small NASA contractor back in the Apollo days. I was stationed at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wstf/home/index.html), where the Apollo Service Module (the little cylinder that accompanied the astronauts to the Moon and provided power, life support, and propulsion) was being tested. In my 20 months there I worked with test directors, engineers, technicians, propellant handlers, clerks, PMs, administrators, and other contractors. With the exception of one administrator they all cared about the project and its success. Most were space junkies, if you will, enjoyed their work immensely, and were gratified when everything worked as it should. They were all deeply involved in the work and its success, that is seeing men go to the Moon and return safely.
Sad to say, a lot of high-level administrators don’t seem to share either the fascination or involvement with space flight, or have anything invested in its success except the furtherance of their career resumes. (One hopes that the current Administrator and former astronaut, Charles Bolden, is different.) But there’s no doubt that those working on actual projects, from the PMs to the grunts, are still as invested in project success now as they were back in the mid and late 1960s. And don’t forget all those involved with NASA as contractors, from the scientists, engineers, and students at JPL/CalTech, to the folks who design and build the rocket engines, make the propellants, build the electronics, design the habitats, and all the other bits and pieces that go into spacecraft. I’ll bet that they’re almost all just as involved, and probably just as fascinated by space as we were 40+ years ago, and as I still am.
“Conclusion: Project managers, more or less by definition, aren’t in a position to ensure success.”
Not by my definition of a Project Manager. In my definition, a Project Manager ensures success by communicating continuously with all the project stakeholders, including Operations. This ensures Operations’ requirements are met which will do more than anything to ensure the deliverable is used. You can bet the ranch that the NASA Project Mangers did just that.
Bob, while I agree with the intent of the column, the first thing that really struck me is that way too many government programs exceed their planned mission lives by more than 2,500%!!!
“Motivation is not a mysterious force that comes from somewhere else, it is a direct result of how one manages oneself.” This business documentary interviewed top young CEO on motivation and goal setting. ”The YES Movie”made by Louis Lautman
http://www.TheYESmovie.com
Pingback: Prometheus Remastered (NASA APOD) | AboutSpace.info