Retaining Critical Skills & Knowledge
at the end of a Project Life Cycle
James G. LaRocque
SQ&MA Director
Logistics & Material
United Space Alliance
2/19/08
Copyright © 2008 by United Space Alliance, LLC. These materials are
sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under
Contract NAS9-20000 and Contract NNJ06VA01C. The U.S. Government
retains a paid-up, nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in such
materials to reproduce, prepare, derivative works, distribute copies to the
public, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the U.S.
Government. All other rights are reserved by the copyright owner.
7/28/2016
USA Critical Knowledge
End of a Project Life Cycle
• The Space Shuttle
Project is currently
scheduled to end in
2010, which presents
challenges in the
project life cycle
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End of a Project Life Cycle - Strategy
• Benchmarked
companies to
determine what can be
done to address out
End of Project issues:
– Retention
– Knowledge Capture
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Retention Strategy
• New Business
– Provide jobs for future
• Understand why people stay and leave
– Honest and open communication
– Survey employees about specific job enhancements
to provide the challenges and recognition they value
most in the workplace
• Incentives
– Offer incentives for critical skill employees to stay to
the end of the project
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New Business
• Goal: Provide Jobs for
the Future
– Constellation Projects
 USA is partnered with
other contractors
– Other business
opportunities
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Understand Motivations
• Goal: Understand why people stay/leave
– Complete surveys to understand reasons people give
for leaving
– Conduct interviews to better understand what is truly
important to our personnel
– Have frequent and frank communications
– Find the right mix - some personnel prefer to be
challenged while other employees value security most
– Stress specific job enhancements to address what
management can do to provide the challenges and
recognition employees value most in the workplace
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Offer Incentives
•
Goal: Offer Incentives
– Provide a mix of praise and
pay
– Strive to provide the needed
growth challenges internally
– Provide an incentive
package for critical skill
employees
– Offer a competitive
severance plan to provide
employees with security
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Knowledge Capture Strategy
• Goal: Retain and leverage knowledge to maintain
sufficient technical depth to safely execute the
remaining shuttle missions
– Everyone “does” knowledge management, but they
may not think about it in those terms
– Knowledge Capture
 Know who has what competency
Competency Management System
 Ensure knowledge is being retained
Knowledge Management Databases
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Knowledge Cycle
Bodies of Knowledge
Training/Certification,
Skills, Processes & Products
 Ground Systems
 Formal Training – Planning
Tracking & Authorization
 Flight Systems
 Functional Areas
 Core Competences
 Mentoring & Skills
Development
 Key Capabilities
 Informal Training
 Skills Needed & Identified
Employ, Experience,
Research & Develop
Knowledge Transfer,
Storage & Retrieval
 Gather Data & Information
 Capture Methods & Tools
 Research Extraction
 Search Technologies & Tools
 Analysis & “Lessons
Learned”
 Source Identification (Guru)
 Storage Practices &
Topologies
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 Peer Reviews
 Panel Reviews
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Competency Management System
• Competency
Management System
(CMS)
– Allows management to
identify and assess
individual competencies
to continue safe
operations, increase
opportunities and ensure
long-term viability of the
company
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Knowledge Management Database
In Engineer’s Files
In storage
In Ops Area Bookcases
“In the Truck”
“Lost,
stolen, or
strayed”
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In Engineers’ computers
(+ floppies in desk drawer)
?
Gone
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Tacit
Knowledge
Knowledge Management Database
• Capture knowledge and make it available to
create, share, and act upon to:
– Ensure Shuttle project flight safety and manifest
supportability throughout the remaining life of the
project
– Provide pertinent knowledge for future projects
– Reduce duplication of efforts due to capturing historical
data from lessons learned / best practices
– Reduce research time and effort (one-stop-shopping)
– Access to previous experience, including best practices
and lessons learned
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Knowledge Management Database
Knowledge Management Library
Taxonomy & Metadata Management
Conceptual
Classification
KM Librarian
Scanned
Content
Validate
Render
Version
Profile
Assist
TIFF
HTML
.rtf
Unstructured
Content
.doc
XML
.xls
.pdf
.ppt
.txt
Digital
Media
Company
Taxonomy
Engineering
- Orbiter
- SRB
SQ&MA
- IFAs
- Root Cause
- C/RA
Automated
indexing
Search it!
Find it!
Re-Use it!
C
O
T
S
Portal
Staging
Trending
Analysis
Information
Extraction
C
O
T
S
Intelligent
Content
Personalize it!
Indexing & Categorization
Automate indexing & categorization enable accurate search, retrieval, and
re-use of content across enterprise
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Knowledge Management Database
• Includes:
– Analyses
– Calculations
– White papers
– Assumptions
– Detailed rationale
– Discussions
– Presentations
– Brain books
– Lessons learned,
– Design approaches
– Questionnaires
– Interviews
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Where is USA going from here?
•Providing better search capabilities
across informal and formal archives
•Formalizing capture of information
from potential retirees when
identified
•Improving the organization of the
data
•Exploring how to leverage the data
•Shortening learning curves for
replacement personnel by
transferring knowledge from
predecessors to new employees
•Providing library of real-world
“Design for Operations” information
for use in Constellation
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