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GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
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While reading the Wall Street Journal, Edward Rogers noticed an advertisement for a
Knowledge Management Architect at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Though he was not particularly looking for a job, he felt that this ad closely described the focus
of his last 10 years of work. Rogers was an academic whose scholarship centered on developing
models of how and why people cooperated intellectually. He had taught at Cornell, Duke, and
the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The NASA position sounded like a marriage of many
of Rogers’s long-term interests. After submitting his resume and completing the interview
process, Rogers was offered the position on a term appointment for three years. Following his
first month of work, during June of 2003, Rogers was left with more questions than answers.
Given the scope of NASA’s projects, Rogers knew he had to have a road map but wondered
what it would look like. Where would he start? What should he actually do?
NASA Centers and Project Eras
No
tC
NASA was created on October 1, 1958, and under the Kennedy administration was
assigned the job of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. The organization was
headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 10 centers located around the country—each with
different mission responsibilities and capabilities. All centers worked together to accomplish
NASA’s vision and missions. The President of the United States appointed NASA
Administrators, and George W. Bush appointed Sean O’Keefe as the 10th administrator on
December 21, 2001. O’Keefe was responsible for leading the agency and managing NASA’s
resources. With a strong financial management background (former chief financial officer at the
Department of Defense and deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget), he came
with a mandate to reform financial management at the agency. Testifying before Congress
O’Keefe said, “Cultural change is required.”1
Edmund Sanders, “Bush Taps Cost-Cutter to Head NASA,” Los Angeles Times, 15 November 2001, A-22.
Do
1
This case was prepared by Gerry Yemen and Professor James G. Clawson. The authors gratefully acknowledge the
support of the Goddard Space Flight Center for making the interviews possible and the case study participants
named throughout the case for their cooperation. It was written as a basis for class discussion rather than to
illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  2004 by the University of
Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send an e-mail to
sales@dardenpublishing.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a
spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School Foundation.
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The role of NASA centers varied depending on the program areas they supported. The
Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, which originally was an aircraft research lab,
specialized in research creating new knowledge and technologies like thermal protection systems
that enhanced NASA’s interests.2 The Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Virginia
devised space and aeronautics technology and was the primary place for flight research.3 The
Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, produced and shared critical technologies addressing
national priorities through research, technology development, and systems development for safe
and reliable aeronautics, aerospace, and space applications.4 Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Maryland, was one of the leading U.S. laboratories to develop and operate unmanned
spacecraft as well as manage most of NASA’s Earth observation, astronomy, and space physics
missions.5 The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was considered a leader in
aerospace and robotics research.6 Leading NASA’s efforts in human space exploration, the
Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, housed the famous Mission Control Center and
astronaut training.7 Located on Florida’s east coast, the Kennedy Space Center was the launch
site for hundreds of scientific, commercial, and applications spacecraft.8 The Langley Research
Center in Hampton, Virginia, specialized in aviation and space research for aerospace,
atmospheric sciences, and technology commercialization aimed at improving the way we live.9
The Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama, led the world in preparing humans for
space travel and the use of space for research and development.10 In Mississippi, the Stennis
Space Center tested rocket propulsion for flight-worthiness and worked with industry partners to
develop remote-sensing technology.11
tC
Several of NASA’s projects and programs12 provided an historical view of the kind of
missions the agency centers worked together to achieve.
Explorer Program
2
About Ames, Research Center <http://www.arc.nasa.gov/aboutames.cfm> (Accessed on 08/13/2004).
About Dryden <http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Dryden/index.html> (Accessed on 08/13/2004).
4
About Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field <http://www.grc.nasa.gov/Doc/aboutgrc.htm> (Accessed on
08/13/2004).
5
About Goddard <http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/indepth/about_facilities.html> (Accessed on 08/13/2004).
6
NASA Centers <http://www.education.nasa.gov/about/nasacenters/index.html> (Accessed 08/13/2004).
7
About the Johnson Space Center <http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/info/aboutjsc.html> (Accessed on 08/13/2004).
8
Kennedy Space Center: A Historical Timeline <http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/highlights/index.htm>
(Accessed 08/16/04).
9
About Us: Langley Research Center <http://www.larc.nasa.gov/about_us/about_us.htm> (Accessed on
08/16/2004).
10
Featured NASA Sites <http://www.nasa.gov/about/sites/index.html> (Accessed on 08/16/2004).
11
Stennis Is <http://www.ssc.nasa.gov/about/stennis/> (Accessed on 08/16/2004).
12
Use of the word “program” generally indicated a mission that was ongoing like the program to explore Mars.
The word “project” generally referred to a mission that was funded and had a beginning and end. So for example,
Project Apollo was part of the ongoing program to explore the moon.
Do
No
3
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This was the United States’s first successful attempt to launch unmanned space missions
and actually predated NASA (launched by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency). What began as
an effort to launch an artificial satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit on January 31, 1958, grew into the
longest running series of NASA spacecraft and provided numerous scientific missions ranging
from radiation belt meteorology to studying reactions between sunlight, ozone, and other
atmospheric constituents.
Project Mercury
Project Gemini
op
yo
This early human space flight set out to discover whether humans could survive
spaceflight, and involved six one-person flights. Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first American
to fly in space on May 5, 1961. This mission was suborbital and lasted for 15 minutes.13 On
February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn Jr. became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth.
This project expanded space flight to include a two-person spacecraft. Gemini vehicles
flew 10 flights and on June 3, 1965, Edward H. White Jr. became the first U.S. astronaut to walk
in space.
Project Apollo
No
tC
This project was intended to put a human on the moon and demonstrate American
prowess in science and technology. Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. were the
first astronauts to land on the moon on July 20, 1969, accomplishing what President Kennedy
had asked them to do. The Apollo project lasted 11 years and conducted 33 flights—11 manned
and 22 unmanned. Big budgets and the successful landing of Apollo 11 on the moon built faith
among NASA employees, and America as a whole, that the organization was capable of
accomplishing impossible challenges and was the “perfect place.”14 A sense that the
organization’s work was beyond mistakes permeated that culture—and the extraordinary quality
of NASA’s workforce reinforced it.
Space Transportation System (STS)
Do
This program was started to build a reusable Space Transportation System, more
commonly known as the Space Shuttle. It took nine years to develop and included six
vehicles—Enterprise (the first Space Shuttle Orbiter), Atlantis, Challenger (destroyed in 1986),
Columbia (destroyed in 2003), Discovery, and Endeavour (most recently built). The shuttles
launched into space like rockets and returned to Earth landing like gliders. The orbiter
comfortably accommodated eight people but could carry as many as ten—not so comfortably.
13
Stephan J. Gerber and Roger D. Launius, “A Brief History of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration,” <http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/factsheet.htm> (Accessed on June 4, 2004).
14
Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Vol 1, August 2003: 102.
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The Shuttle was intended to provide low-cost, frequent access to space. Sally K. Ride became
the first American female to fly in space on June 18, 1983. When compared to Apollo, this
project had less public support and government funding. The increased bureaucracy and
heightened use of outside contractors that went along with the shrinking budgets changed the
NASA culture internally.15 Resources became scarcer and competition between NASA agencies
to get a slice of the funding increased (see Exhibit 1).
The accidental and tragic loss of the Challenger and Columbia crews and vehicles gave
rise to the process of organizational learning and its implications at NASA.
op
yo
The Academy of Program and Project Leadership (APPL)
The APPL eventually grew out of the Challenger space shuttle incident and NASA’s
desire to comprehend, recognize, and understand what the agency could improve on to learn
from the disaster. Pre-APPL, a curriculum-driven program called the Program and Project
Management Initiative (PPMI) was developed in 1988. This initiative focused on improving
NASA project management through formal training (as opposed to the more informal approach
the agency had formerly used). Edward Hoffman, director of APPL commented, “In the
beginning they were working with teams and group process at headquarters. Project managers
were given training courses with the hopes that it would teach them how to be successful
managers, and then they were sent back into the work place.”
No
tC
By 1993, PPMI had evolved into Competency Management (CM). This program
coincided with another NASA initiative called, “Faster, Cheaper, Better” (FCB), which was
meant to encourage creativity and reduce risk while saving money. Essentially, FCB translated
into smaller, less expensive projects with an increased reliance on outside contractors.16 The CM
program was competency-driven and intended to link critical project competencies to NASA’s
learning and education.17 This training model was used until 2000. By this time, Hoffman was
heading up the group and described the process:
Do
We started to identify competencies and expanded training courses so that by the
mid-90s, project managers had become more of the drivers in the industry. We
are talking about experts in their fields, very, very, bright people who said, “Offer
us something good and we will take it, but if you ever force us to do something it
won’t work.” I had to be invited into their circles. If I was seen as a team
member, they would teach me and open up doors to do great things. On a few
occasions I came in thinking I had the answers and they would turn me off—they
are really artisans, very talented, working on projects that no one else in the world
15
Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Vol 1, August 2003: 102.
“The History of the NASA Academy of Program and
<http://appl.nasa.gov/about/history/index.html> (Accessed on 28 June 2004).
17
Ibid.
16
Project
Leadership
(APPL)”
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could do. It is an adult to adult thing. They are passionate about their work but
want cooperation, not a dictation.
As we thought about improving and how we could to do better than mandatory
training, an important idea kept swirling around. In every organization people
know who the best are and usually want to be just like them. Since we had access
to the very best project managers, on any given assignment at NASA, we thought
we could get them together to share their stories so others could learn from them.
op
yo
Hoffman, a graduate of Columbia University, earned his PhD in behavioral sciences. He
spent his entire career at NASA and dedicated his scholarship and work to participative
management, team building, and organizational learning—and had made a lot of progress. It
was Hoffman’s approach to learning that laid the foundation for APPL, which started with
project managers sharing stories. His group asked agencies for access to the best of the best
project managers and was sent people from the U.S. Department of Defense and across NASA
Centers. These project managers told Hoffman and his group stories about key challenges they
faced in their careers and on projects—and how they overcame problems. For nearly one-and-ahalf years, Hoffman listened and discovered that these stories were about competent, dedicated,
passionate people working together and leading in several functional areas. He also learned that
trust was the most important ingredient: “All stories collaborated through trust. They needed
trust relationships with industry partners, agency partners—people who wanted to be
successful.”
Do
No
tC
As the end of the meetings approached, most participants stated their desire to continue
but felt the learning had to be something that was driven by volition rather than directive. Once
that was clear, participants started recommending other talented people to Hoffman. As word
spread, the effort grew into larger forums, and every NASA agency asked to be included. By
late 2000, these stories were combined into a book called Project Management Success Stories.18
The endeavor continued with the birth of a magazine called ASK: Academy Sharing
Knowledge.19 The workshop activities eventually replaced the CM program for learning as it
grew into the Academy of Program and Project Leadership. By 2003, APPL had matured into an
organization that supported individual practitioners, project teams, and NASA projects and
programs at every level of growth. APPL provided products and services like knowledgesharing events and publications to help leaders manage risk, maximize human capital, contain
costs, maintain project schedules, and develop high-performance teams to promote mission
success.20 APPL helped develop project leadership through career development processes and
programs, and eventually NASA project leaders were getting together with business leaders from
the corporate world to share their experiences.
18
Alexander Laufer and Edward J. Hoffman, Project Management Success Stories: Lessons of Project Leaders
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2000).
19
At the time this case was written, the ASK publication could be accessed online at
<http://appl.nasa.gov/ask/issues/18/overview/index.html>.
20
“Letter from the Director” <http://appl.nasa.gov/about/overview/index.html> (Accessed 11/15/2004).
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When Goddard Space Flight Center advertised for a KM Architect, Hoffman could not
have been more pleased. This was a clear indication to him that the center was committed to
fostering a learning culture. Hoffman thought about how he could best help the new KM
architect to get more done.
Goddard Space Flight Center
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Goddard supported NASA in its space science, earth science, biological and physical
research, education, space flight, and aerospace technology enterprises, in varying degrees (see
Exhibit 2). This NASA center provided agency leadership in earth and space science including
the design and launch of the Hubble Space telescope in 1970 and 1990, respectively. This was
the first scientific mission specifically designed to be serviced and improved while in orbit (375
miles away from Earth). Goddard was the telescope’s command and control center. By 2004,
this amazing telescope had created a data archive with enough material to completely fill a PC
every day for 10 years (7.3 terabytes).21 Goddard also built all the satellites for the National
Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provided the weather images seen on
television broadcasts.
The center’s mission statement reflected the work Goddard focused on:
tC
The mission of the Goddard Space Flight Center is to expand knowledge of the
earth and its environment, the solar systems, and the universe through observation
from space. To assure that our nation maintains leadership in this endeavor, we
are committed to excellence in scientific investigation, in the development and
operation of space systems, and in the advancement of essential technologies.22
No
Goddard employees included a civil service workforce and outside contractors. Of the
3,189 full-time Goddard staff in 2003, 59 percent were engineers and scientists, 26 percent were
professional administrative, 7 percent technicians, another 7 percent clerical, and 1 percent of
Goddard employees were wage grade.23 (See Exhibit 3.)
Director Alphonso Diaz
Do
With over four decades of experience at NASA, Alphonso (Al) Diaz was appointed
director of Goddard Space Center in January 1998 after having been deputy director since 1996.
21
The Hubble Project, “Overview,” <http://hubble.nasa.gov/overview/> (Accessed 10/11/2004). At the time
this case was written, viewers could find out what the Hubble was currently looking at through this Website:
<http://hubble.nasa.gov/project-news/> (10/11/2004).
22
About Goddard <http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/about_mission.html#content> (Accessed on 08/13/2004).
23
Goddard Space Flight Center FY2004 Implementation Plan: 31.
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The key to Goddard’s success, according to Diaz, was creativity and the ability to attract the best
and brightest people necessary to achieve the NASA mission. He explained:
There is a traditional attraction, since NASA does things that no one else can.
The people who come to work at the center matter. So what keeps them here? ...
the three elements of our human capital strategy—1) opportunity to work here, 2)
having the resources necessary (sustainable workload), and 3) an environment
hospitable to the values employees bring to work (value-centered management
practice). I believe that people are the key to our success.
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The organization’s set of values had been listed on the last page of Goddard’s annual
reports since 2000:
Agility: Anticipating the future, leading change, and adapting quickly are crucial to
thriving in a dynamic environment.

Balance: An employee’s work life and personal life, including health, family,
community involvement, and other interests, contribute to the vitality both of the
individual and of the center.

Creativity: Freedom to explore new ideas stimulates discovery, fosters innovation, and
leads to more effective ways of doing work.

Dedication: Successful results require a commitment to excellence and to individual and
team responsibilities.

Integrity: Trust, fairness, honesty, and accountability for our actions are the cornerstones
of personal and organizational integrity.

Respect: Diversity among people and their ideas is an inherent strength as we work
toward fulfilling Goddard’s mission.

Teamwork: Accomplishments result from successful teams, both internal and external to
the center, that capitalize on the strengths and contributions of every team member.
tC

Do
No
Diaz believed that a cornerstone of his responsibility as a leader was to provide the
resources to ensure the organization’s people and values could thrive. Human capital was very
important to Diaz and he was keenly interested in keeping good employees. He stated, “Part of
making sure the resources are available includes making sure they don’t have to learn something
that was already learned over again. This is a wasted resource. New resources were meant to
focus on doing things that had not been done before.” One thing Diaz was confident would help
the agency reduce “learning over and over” was hiring someone skilled in knowledge
management (KM) who could orchestrate Goddard’s KM efforts. Diaz was committed to the
importance of Goddard being a learning organization.
KM was an agency-wide, NASA-mandated initiative since January of 2000. Each center
was to develop its own strategic plan and coordinate implementation with other NASA centers,
but Diaz had already worked toward moving past a mandated policy. Although he saw
Goddard’s culture as being open to innovation in the area, he was aware of several obstacles he
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believed a KM architect would face. First he thought that the history of KM was too academic.
So a KM architect would have to be convincing enough to change very smart people’s minds to
see that instead of an academic exercise, KM was an issue of survival.
Next, even though the amount of attention paid to generational knowledge loss had
increased, Diaz still saw a need for more recognition. The use of oral histories combined with
the aging workforce made saving this knowledge even more urgent.
op
yo
Diaz also wanted employees to recognize the importance that KM played in mission
safety. Part of his strategy was to include the library as a starting point to help keep missions
safe. He supported moving the library from its traditional role to an advocacy role. With the use
of appropriate technology to extract and retain information, Diaz wanted the library to index and
transform data. Ultimately, Diaz envisioned project development seeking help from the library
staff to capture project knowledge to be indexed for easy access—should it ever be needed.
Sadly, on February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was accidentally destroyed, killing all
seven crew members on board. Sorrow and shock permeated the entire agency, and Goddard
employees felt a deep sense of loss. The Columbia tragedy brought back painful memories of
the Challenger accident 14 years earlier. Newspaper editors wondered if NASA had learned the
lessons of Challenger or if the agency was repeating the same mistakes.24
Implementing ideas like KM cost money, and Diaz explained how Goddard was funded:
No
tC
The institution is funded through program funds. Program funds flow from
NASA headquarters to the program offices through the institution. As a
consequence, I get a delegation of resources from NASA headquarters to do
something specific that is associated with a program. We fund the institution and
maintain our capabilities using those same funds. At any given point in time at
Goddard, there are 60 or so space flight projects and thousands of individual
grants that are funded directly to investigators in science and technology. So
overall we might deal with 6,000 transactions a year that convey resources from
NASA headquarters or, in some instances, from other government organizations
to Goddard. None of the resources are specifically dedicated to organization
maintenance.
Do
We have a very robust and well-developed process for identifying institutional
needs from the standpoint of maintenance of capabilities—both in terms of the
physical plant, as well as the intellectual capital. So we extract resources from the
program funds that we get to maintain and invest in capabilities necessary. We
share that strategy for investment with headquarter offices—they are
stakeholders—in much the same way an industrial organization would share with
governmental customers their strategies for internal research and development
activities. Taxpayers supply about 2.5 to three billion dollars associated with
specific mission-related activities and we fund the institution through those.
24
Editorial Desk, “Investigation of a Tragedy,” New York Times, 3 February 2003, A-24.
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Goddard Space Flight Center Library
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The library took on a central role in the development of KM efforts at Goddard. With a
staff of 35 employees servicing over 1,000 journal subscriptions, 200,000 book volumes, and
very sophisticated users, Janet Ormes, head of Library Information Services, focused on the
question of what made information accessible and usable. For 27 years, Ormes had worked
toward advancing user friendly utilization of project information that the agency documented and
collected. The library housed a tremendous amount of documentation information about how
each decision was made on every Goddard project—along with project reviews. Yet, as Ormes
said, “The information was locked up in paper without the tools to find specific decisions
quickly.”
tC
The library took an active role in trying to improve the search ability of the vast amounts
of knowledge it stockpiled. In 2001, NASA’s CIO office provided a grant to the library to
explore and develop an automated categorization of project documents. The result was a
database, the CIO Pilot Project, with keyword-searchable capabilities to over 3,500 full-text
documents. Another Web database called the Goddard Project Directory offered missions,
projects, and historical material allowing searches for information, pictures, spacecraft, and
instruments. All Professional Intern Program (PIP) presentations the library owned from 1983 to
1995 were indexed for keyword, author, title, or topic searches. Indeed, the Goddard library was
selected for the Federal Library Award for moving away from traditional library techniques and
pioneering knowledge information management for the center in 2003. Yet it was a “passive”
system relying on project leaders’ desire to search.
Media or non-paper-based documentation was another story. For over 30 years the
library maintained a collection of audio and video tapes. By 2001, the collection was offered
through Web-casting, but the material was not indexed, making it difficult to search for
particular information.
No
Establishing an “Active” Library Digital Database
Do
Programs and projects maintained their own libraries and at Goddard alone there were
between 50 and 60 libraries. Employees could call, get a password, and then have access to the
information they needed—if they knew the library existed. According to Harold Frisch, a
systems engineer who had been with NASA since 1961 (one year before John Glenn took his
first flight), none of the libraries communicated with each other. Until 1995, there was no ability
to search across libraries.
For 10 years, Frisch worked on developing foundational information structures that put
reasoning on top of knowledge captured. Essentially, Frisch described KM as information
management or inventory that needed to be controlled—something he called disruptive
technology. Frisch explained:
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New languages enable us to put reasoning on top of our information. Our
previous libraries of information were passive. You used a search engine to find
information. We are working on enabling libraries to have the technology to be
active—information will find you. This requires a basic infrastructure: an
information repository that watches what you are doing and looks for key
relationships. When relationships get flagged, they should send you a note that
lets you know this combination of effects that led to a problem in the past—check
it out and also send one to your manager so during review a manager can ask if
you did indeed look into this. When I explain this concept to some, they say,
“Why doesn’t anyone use the Lessons Learned Library?” My response is “Well,
you don’t know you have the problem until you have the problem.”
To get the repository started, engineers needed underlying semantics to work from.
Frisch envisioned the need for about 50 key words that characterized each project’s product,
concept, and performance. Then Frisch thought it could be broken down into subsystems that
would produce more words. This would be the hangar to house the knowledge. The technology
was not yet there to support this, but Frisch was confident it soon would be. He viewed winning
senior program manager support for a new system as a challenge but figured arming projects’
“younger shining stars” with technology as it advanced was a way around resistance.
tC
Frisch described Goddard as a “project-centric organization,” where each project team
did their own thing and did it well. He viewed the information repository as a disruptive
technology that he hoped would move Goddard into an “information-centric organization.” He
also thought there would be a shift to structure power around access to information or knowledge
rather than around project managers.
Knowledge Work at the Project Level
Do
No
The experience of Anne-Marie Novo-Gradac highlights the problem of KM at Goddard.
After spending several years teaching physics to midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, NovoGradac, an electro-optical physicist, joined the Goddard Space Flight Center Laser and Electrooptics Branch. She was hired to work on development of the Mercury Laser Altimeter for a
mission going to Mercury. Shortly after she joined Goddard, three other physicists left NASA,
leaving her in charge. Although the mission was patterned after an earlier mission, which was
well documented with numerous mechanical drawings, the oral heritage was lost when the other
physicists left. And to further complicate matters, the previous team had dispersed. As NovoGradac soon discovered, the documents lacked some fine details and line-by-line reasons for
why they took a certain approach. She wanted to know what drove their decision to adopt
particular procedures. Who was she supposed to ask or who would she call? That information
was difficult to track down. Novo-Gradac provided an example:
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While working on the Mercury laser project, the team discovered an unclean optic lens
during an inspection. There was documentation from the previous project so we had the name of
the technician who had signed off the sheet that the lens on their project was clean but there was
nothing to show whether the lens had been cleaned or was simply “clean.” Some team members
recalled the lenses actually coming from the supplier already cleaned. Others thought they may
have cleaned the lens at Goddard. Limited numbers of people had that knowledge—how do you
find them? It took several phone calls to reach the technician who had signed off the previous
project’s sheet and he said, “Oh, no. They don’t come from the supplier clean—we do wet
wipes.” That experience got us started working on a “Yellow Pages of Experts” that included
names of experts and the projects they had worked on so at least you would know where to start
looking for more information
tC
While waiting for her first project to be launched, Novo-Gradac was put in charge of the
Laser Risk Reduction Program. One of the first things she did was hire one full-time team
member to develop a knowledge management task within the program. She had to track down
the documents from four projects and develop a plan of how to make those documents accessible
to the NASA laser community. Novo-Gradac said, “Our ultimate goal is to upload the most
critical information into a searchable online electronic library and have the less critical
documents sorted in their existing format in a safe accessible location.” That team member had
to dredge through three or four projects-worth of information to sort out what deserved to be in
the electronic library. This was a labor-intensive project with many hours of work spent
slogging through boxes and boxes of material and developing appropriate search keywords for
the information. Novo-Gradac said, “We need an architect who knows what information is being
gleaned and then tell us how to keep it and make it accessible.”
One of the dilemmas the organization faced was that the cost curve of building a KM
system upfront was so high that many wondered if it was worth doing all that work “just in case”
someone might need it. As Novo-Gradac remembered:
Do
No
The director of the organization (NASA Earth Science Technology Office) that
provided funding for the Laser Risk Reduction Program had to be convinced of
the value of developing a database of laser related knowledge. Money for that
would have to come out of the current program manager budget. He thought we
were going to focus on developing the software/hardware for a knowledge
database. And he had seen several such efforts that were under-utilized. He was
hesitant and not interested in paying for another database that no one used. We
had to convince him that instead of designing software, we were focused on
collecting valuable information and uploading into an already existent data
management resource. We explained that the reason the other databases went
unused was that the content was weak. He reluctantly agreed to fund us for a
year, and during that year he came to understand what we were trying to do. Then
he became much more enthusiastic about spending his money on the activity.
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My division director was a very enthusiastic supporter of our attempt to capture
data and manage the knowledge from the very beginning. Yet, being a more
senior aged manager, she did not really understand what this would mean as far as
resources went. She was used to thinking in terms where all knowledge went into
books, or notebooks, that could simply be added to a physical library or copies
could be made and disseminated to relevant team members. When we explained
that we would need a web server and the long term resources to ensure that the
web server was maintained beyond the short life of the Laser Risk Reduction
Program (one to three years), she was a bit taken aback. It had not occurred to her
that we would need such a resource and the means of supporting it indefinitely.
But she was supportive of the idea and immediately began to brainstorm about
how long term funding and maintenance could be found—it just wasn’t an issue
she had ever thought of before.
Cost was not the only obstacle to knowledge management implementation. Some like
Novo-Gradac accepted the notion that oral histories would remain a major factor since people
were generally more willing to speak than to write down what they knew—for several reasons.
As Novo-Gradac explained, building lasers for space flight was a leading edge activity and not a
lot of people were skilled enough to do it. Disseminating or trading laser information within the
United States was one thing, but that knowledge was not really intended to be freely shared with
the rest of the world.
tC
Another contributing factor was the general human condition that few individuals wanted
to broadcast their mistakes, so they were more comfortable with oral heritage. Putting it in
writing or on video stream for all to see was another thing. As Ormes said, “KM was a
balancing act between a desire to learn and a desire to protect information. We have to preserve
the right for people to express opinions openly without recording. But we also have to build trust
in our need to learn and protect content so we can learn from it.”
No
Ed Rogers: Knowledge Management Architect
The son of a physicist, Edward Rogers was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, grew up in
Saudi Arabia, and graduated from Kodaikanal boarding school in India. He returned to the
United States, completed his undergrad work at Ohio State, and then moved to southern Lebanon
to do international relief work from 1982 through 1987 with his young wife.
Do
Now with two children, Rogers and his wife returned to the United States where he
earned his MBA in 1991, at the University of South Carolina and in 2000, his PhD from Cornell
University. With the birth of two more children, Rogers set his inherent curiosity, worldwide
education, and interest in understanding how and why people cooperate intellectually to use in an
academic setting—taking a faculty position at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and
settling in for a comfortable career. While in Huntsville, Rogers had an opportunity to do a
summer faculty fellowship at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He became fascinated with
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the organization, and the 10 weeks he spent with NASA provided him with an awareness of the
amazing capabilities of the agency’s workforce.
When Rogers read the information about Goddard’s search for a Knowledge
Management Architect, he was intrigued. First, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and
second, he asked himself how many PhDs in knowledge management from top-tier schools were
there in the United States? The search announcement read:
Knowledge Management Architect for term of three-year appointment:
Integrate the human capital, process, and technology aspects of the center’s cutting edge
knowledge management strategy.

Lead ongoing efforts to build and nurture a knowledge-sharing culture.

Systematically capture and share critical knowledge for a unified knowledge network.

Serve as advisor to management and provide leadership at NASA for working groups on
knowledge management policy, processes, and techniques.
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
tC
A government job was never something Rogers had considered. But after talking it over
at home, he decided to respond with a statement about his philosophy regarding knowledge
management. If his letter resonated, he thought he would hear from Goddard and if it didn’t then
“it was probably not an effort I wanted to be a part of anyway” (see Exhibit 4). Although
Rogers received a notification of application postcard in November of 2002, he heard nothing
else from Goddard for three months.
No
With the approach of a new academic year, Rogers was beginning to wonder if NASA
was still interested. So in March of 2003, he called Goddard to see if the search was still active.
The KM position had been advertised nationwide in places where government jobs were not
regularly advertised—like in the Wall Street Journal. He found out the center was committed to
addressing knowledge issues, had a timetable for a beginning of summer start, and believed they
needed an academic inside NASA working on KM. The Columbia tragedy (in February of 2003)
had only added pressure for NASA to show that it was learning from its past mistakes. Rogers
made his own views clear and helped define what he hoped the position would entail. He
listened to the reasons that were being given for hiring someone with his background:
Issues of knowledge management, learning, and organizational struggles were first
thought to be more easily solved, yet problems in this area kept presenting themselves as
challenges. There was recognition that Goddard needed focus in an area that kept
popping up as problematic.
Do


The original approach to KM had been much like how NASA solved engineering
problems; hire experts and put a team on it to solve the structural problem.
Organizational issues were now at the level where it was acknowledged as important and
persistent, yet it was a functional area that few people understood well.
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KM was not a problem that could be solved by hiring a consultant. Instead, KM was an
endemic part of organizational structure that needed to be understood in-house and
worked on in a consistent manner.
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Rogers felt that if Goddard recognized these issues, he would take on the challenge.
Bringing what he called “smartness” into a center already full of clever people was an
assignment he felt was challenging enough to warrant abandoning his academic aspirations. The
KM architect position at Goddard fit like a glove with a career plan vision Rogers had written in
1994 while applying for another job (see Exhibit 5). After flying to Goddard and interviewing
in the latter part of March, Rogers was offered the job starting May 13, 2003. He returned to
Huntsville and resigned from the university.
Do
No
tC
After one full month under his belt, Rogers wondered how he should proceed helping
Goddard Space Flight Center become a learning organization. It was, in fact, the kind of
opportunity he had looked forward to for many years—but what would his plan of attack look
like? How could he help this collection of rocket scientists and engineers work together better?
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Exhibit 1
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GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
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Changes in Federal Spending 1993–2002
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No
Source: Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Vol 1, August 2003: 103.
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Exhibit 1 (continued)
NASA Budget
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Fiscal
Year
1965
1975
1985
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
NASA Budget
Real Dollars Constant Dollars (in
(millions)
FY 2002 millions)
5,250
24,696
3,229
10,079
7,573
11,643
14,310
17,060
14,570
16,965
13,854
15,790
13,884
15,489
13,709
14,994
13,648
14,641
13,653
14,443
13,601
14,202
14,230
14,559
14,868
14,868
15,335
NA
(requested)
15,255
NA
2004
Do
No
Source: Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Vol 1, August 2003: 103.
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GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
Goddard Missions
Goddard Missions
Year
Projects
High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI)
Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (QUIKTOMS)
Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Thermosphere, Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED/Jason)
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP)
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-M (GOES-M)
AQUA (formerly Earth Observing Spacecraft PM-1)
Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (NOAA-M (POES))
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-1)
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)
Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 3B (HST SM 3B)
Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite, Cooperative Astrophysics and Technology Satellite (ICESAT/CATSAT)
2002
SeaWinds (ADEOS II)
Aqua (PM)
CONTOUR
Galaxy Evolution Explorer
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, Pathfinder
High -Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager
Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 3B (STS-109)
International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
NOAA-M
STS 107 (FREESTAR)
Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite I
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite J
No
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2001
Do
2003 Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer (CHIPS)
STS-107, Fast Reaction Experiments Enabling Science Technology Applications and Research (FREESTAR) Hitchhiker
Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE)
Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX)
Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF)/Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
All-Canadian Science Satellite, SCISAT-1
Coupled Ion-Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI)
Swift
Source: Compiled from Goddard Space Flight Center Annual Reports.
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Exhibit 3
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GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
Do
No
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Goddard Employees1
1
Source: Goddard http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/04implement.pdf.
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Exhibit 4
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GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
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No
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Statement of Research and Career Interests
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Exhibit 5
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GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER:
BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION (A)
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No
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My Career Plans
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