The Great Disruption

The topic of disruptive innovation is one that caught my eye a few years ago as I ponder the direction of our Government-led human spaceflight endeavor and a future involving commercial space.  To help bring home the case that disruptive innovation is all around us, over on frugaldad.com is this infographic about disruptive technologies that most of you have encountered in your daily lives.  Look at technologies on this infographic from the perspective of disruptive innovation, and ask yourself this question: what are the corresponding disruptive innovations for human spaceflight?

Source: FrugalDad

Ethics and Human Spaceflight

“Defining your moral standards serves as an ethical compass that prevents you from straying off course when the winds of temptation begin howling around your ship of life.”
–Robert J. Ringer

 

A very interesting class I’m taking this term is Ethics and Moral Development.  Understand that I think of myself as an ethical person.  Yet to be perfectly honest about it, if you were to press me as to why, I’d probably give you a blank stare.  Prior to entering into federal service, I had no formal academic courses or training in ethics.  Everything I learned about ethics was environmental: through family and friends, through my long childhood association with the Boy Scouts, and through my academic background in the sciences.  Now in federal service, I get the annual ethics refresher that all us government employees get, plus the special briefing related to ethics and the procurement process whenever I kick off a new procurement strategy team.  That’s about it for any “ethics training” I’ve received so far.  That is why I’m finding this class so insightful, and why I’m choosing to write about it today.

I’m pleased to say that ethics is a matter taken seriously in the federal workplace and at NASA.  Because huge sums of money are involved in the role in which I serve – on the order of $200 million annually for NASA’s Mission Control-Houston, astronaut training facilities, mission planning systems, and mission operations “plan/train/fly” services – the confidence that the public has in a part of NASA could be at stake should any questions of integrity arise with my work.  I view ethics and moral behavior as a key means of instilling confidence in the American taxpayers that we are faithful stewards of their tax dollars.

As for the class, we’ve explored several topics on ethics so far with more to come.  One of the first is relativism, which has its roots in, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” and “Who can say whose morals are right?”  I consider myself as highly adaptable and tolerant, and quickly identified with the characteristics of relativism as described.  However, that was an intentional trap: relativism is inherently contradictory (although some have attempted to resolve the contradictions – see the Wikipedia article on relativism).  What I learned is that tolerance as a value is not to be confused with relativism as a means, and I think that is an important lesson.

We’ve also explored utilitarianism – which is weighing societal benefits versus societal costs, a form of the value equation about which I’ve written previously, rights and duties – which gets into the political supercharged topic of negative rights versus positive rights, and Kant’s categorical imperative as a basis for why moral rights exist in the first place.  Along the way, we’ve explored case studies in ethics, such as the Arthur Andersen’s dual role at Enron, slavery in the chocolate industry, the Ford Pinto debacle, and Unocal in Burma.  In one sense, it is quite easy to see the ethical problems with the advantage of hindsight in each of these cases – each are rather clear-cut to me.  The challenge I see is different when the situation is at hand – is it necessarily as clear cut when one is “in the middle of it”, or the situation deals with something close to the heart, such as ethics in human spaceflight.

With that, I’m curious to hear from you.  What ethical dilemmas do you see involving human spaceflight?  It could be something that human spaceflight is doing specifically, or the way it is conducting business, or something it is not doing that it should be doing based on ethical standards that you hold.  It could be a question you have or a position you hold, or something you’d like to get off your mind.

Fire away!

Text © 2012 Joe Williams.  All rights reserved
Photo via iStockphoto

Team Effectiveness Model

Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.
–Stephen Covey

 

 

The first class in the Executive MBA program at the Naval Postgraduate School is a course on managing teams.  What my classmates and I learned during orientation week is that the program has a strong team component, and that the NPS has seen improved effectiveness by participants when starting the program with this course.  Central to this improved effectiveness is a model[1] introduced by McShane and VonGinow that provides a framework for discussing and evaluating team effectiveness in general.  In my own journey to define team effectiveness, I hit upon parts of this framework, about which I’ve written previously.  However, seeing it all together in one model brought it home for me in a way that I haven’t achieved on my own.  In this post I’d like to share the parts of this model, along with applying the model to my own recent experiences with building and leading effective teams.

 

The model starts with a description of the Organizational and Team Environment, defined by contextual factors that influence a team’s design, processes, and outcomes at the start:

• Reward systems – how members are at least partly rewarded for participation;
• Communication systems – how the team communicated both internally and externally, which is of special criticality for virtual teams;
• Physical space – the co-location and layout of physical space for the team;
• Organizational environment – the collection of resources, policies, procedures, expectations, and regulations the surround the team;
• Organizational structure – the relationship between the team and key stakeholders, along with the reporting structure; and
• Organizational leadership – the degree of buy-in and support the team can expect to receive from key leaders outside the team.

In my own recent experiences with leading teams to develop strategies for purchasing the goods and services we need for Mission Control-Houston, astronaut training facilities, mission planning systems, and mission operations “plan/train/fly” services, I’ve hit upon all of these.  Regular readers of Leading Space will note that I’ve spent quite a bit of my own time over the last few years writing on human spaceflight policy and fiscal matters, and engaging the teams I lead in conversation on how those might impact our workings as a team.  (That’s a check in the Organizational environment column.)  Through experience, I’ve developed and shared a working understanding of the supporting and stakeholder organizations in our work, which are different than what is typically encountered by the team members. (Check in the Organizational structure column.)  I’ve also taken great pains to work with upper management in my organization to outline expectations, timetables and communication mechanisms, and to have the upper management address the team at a kick-off meeting before the team starts work.  (Check in the Organizational leadership and Communication systems columns.)  I arrange for the team members to be assigned to the team full-time for the duration of the effort, and for us to be co-located in a secure facility affectionately known as “The Bunker.” (Check for the Physical space column.)  Lastly, I arrange with management for specialty rewards and recognitions for team members, and provide inputs into their respective performance reviews. (Check for the Reward systems column.)  Based on this model, I’m doing well at identifying and addressing all of the contextual factors that can influence the good start of a team.  I just need to keep at it and continue to find ways to improve my performance in each.

The next major area of the model is Team Design, consisting of the following elements:

• Task characteristics – a categorization of the work of the team in terms of degree of interdependence: reciprocal, sequential, or pooled;
• Team size – the number of people on the team (theories abound as to the ideal number; the best number is the amount necessary to do the work, and no more); and
• Team composition – the balance between homogeneity (to unify) and diversity (to broaden possibilities).

Regular readers of Leading Space will note that I’ve devoted a lot of effort to the team composition element, one that I’ve determined previously as being critical to team success.  The model agrees that it is an important component, but not a sole criterion for success.  Team size and task characteristics are important as well, and these are areas that I’ll need to address carefully in the future.  For instance, on task characteristics I’ve defaulted to an approach assuming the work requires reciprocal interdependence, meaning that it is highly interactive and collaborative.  This is born out by the fact that I led most of the work through long team meetings in a conference room.  In retrospect, a significant fraction of the work doesn’t require that approach, and might be better suited to a sequential or pooled approach.  Additionally, I’ve tended towards teams with 7 members, because that is the maximum I’m permitted under current guidelines.  However, there are clear instances where a smaller team (say, 4-5) is more appropriate.  Both of these are something for me to emphasize for future teams.

The third major area of the model is Team Processes, consisting of the following elements:

• Team development – this is the “forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning” lifecycle of a team;
• Team norms – the list of behaviors that the team agrees to exhibit and discourage, developed and agreed to by the team itself;
• Team roles – the functions and positions held by team members that permit the team to perform work;
• Team cohesiveness – the degree of attraction the members feel towards the team and their motivation to remain team members, driven by interactions, feedback, and team “maintenance” functions; and
• Boundary management – addresses who is and is not on the team, and who the other critical “partners” are in other parts of the organization.

Assessing my performance in the area, I see lots of reason to be pleased.  With each of the team I lead a team norms development meeting where we establish and agree to the norms of behavior for the team, which are posted in the common area and are enforced by each team member.  I’ve also shared the team lifecycle description with team members and use the language during the entire time the team is together, such as “we’re storming!” or “we’re really performing!”  As for roles, I strike a balance between initiative of individual team members to tackle what needs to get done, as well as to assign tasks to members based on preferences, aptitude, experience, and natural talents.  As for cohesiveness, we spend time talking about non-team related items, whether they are happenings in the larger space community, or about our respective interests and activities outside work.  We also routinely get away from the Bunker and each lunch together every Friday.  Still, I could do a bit more in this area, such as starting the team with sharing stories about ourselves, which I have seen other leaders use quite effectively.  Finally, I haven’t addressed boundary management in my previous teams.  This is definitely worth adding to my repertoire.

The final area of the model is Team Effectiveness, which addresses the elements that define team success.  These are as follows:

• Achieve organizational goals – obviously, did the team deliver meaningful results?
• Satisfy member needs – were the needs of individual team members met?
• Team growth/learning – did the team members learn something new from the experience?
• Maintain team survival – for continuing teams, do they survive outside challenges and threats?
• Satisfy outside stakeholder needs – obviously, did the work of the team meet expectations?

Assessing my performance in this area, again I’m rather pleased.  I’ve focused on achieving organizational goals and satisfying outside stakeholder needs, so nothing more needs to be discussed here.  I’ve also put special emphasis on team members learning something new from having been a part of the team, such as learning more about the business side of NASA, or about the other team members.  Both will have benefits that extend beyond the lifetime of the team, and carryover into the work when the team members return to their respective parts of the organization.  However, I can see room for improvement on satisfying member needs.  This starts with a question, up front: what are your needs?  From there, continue to monitor and reassess to ensure that individual needs are being met to the most practicable extent.

I continue ahead in the Executive MBA program with a concrete example of a benefit from participation.  I would not have received the affirmation of a sound approach to building and leading teams that I’ve built on my own.  I also now have several areas for improvement identified by this model, which I will implement right away.  Overall, I’m pleased and excited and am looking forward to new discoveries as I continue in the program.

---

[1] Gibbons, D. and Hocevar, S. “Management of Teams.” 2011 McGraw Hill Create. Pages 7-21.

 

 

Text © 2012 Joe Williams.  All rights reserved
Photo credit: “Bride, groom and best man at wedding” by Andy Brooks via FotoPlanet, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

 

Complex 39

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”
–Brian Tracy

 

For me, personally, it’s an interesting time.  Recently, I mentioned that I’m about to embark on a two-year distance-learning program for an Executive MBA at the Naval Postgraduate School, about which I’ll share more in the coming weeks.  Today, however, I’m about to share a different and interesting tidbit that has been in the works for a few months: I’m joining the Board of Advisors for Complex 39, a virtual incubator in the mobile technology space.

It’s an interesting story (well, at least to me) as to how I got to this point.

A few years ago I attended a workshop hosted by Kathy Kolbe and the Kolbe Corporation, and it was there that I met Matt Williams.  Besides sharing a last name, there were a number of other things we had in common and, at least from my perspective, proved to be a bond for us.  I was especially fascinated by Matt’s track record of creating companies from scratch, all of which are still in existence today and are making money.  You would think that being a serial entrepreneur is about as far removed from being a rocket scientist as there is.  Yet the instincts and natural talents that Matt deploys have a certain similar affinity with those I have, such as a willingness to take some risks and a desire to experiment to see “what happens” as a way to learn and affect change.  To date, I’ve just chosen to manifest them differently than through serial entrepreneurialism – I’m more of an “intrapreneur” in my role at NASA as I’ve moved from hard core “rocket science” to business models.  Somehow, Matt understood quickly what “makes me tick” and suggested a number of ideas and resources for me to use as I work towards unlocking NASA’s tremendous capabilities and resources for reimbursable commercial use.  I consumed everything he suggested, and have applied them in several situations.  Matt and I have remained in touch since that initial meeting a few years ago.  Little did I know what was to come next.

A few months ago, Matt and Keith Allaun contact me about a new venture called Complex 39 that they were starting with a third partner, Larry Slotnick.  Matt and Keith talked to me about joining their Board of Advisors.  I had never done anything like that before, so I asked for more information.  Complex 39 is about incubating ideas, concepts, and approaches in the mobile technology space for companies that might have encountered obstacles with advocacy and funding through more traditional means.  The name “Complex 39” was chosen from the launch facility at the Kennedy Space Center to help symbolize the company’s role in “launching new businesses.”  (Obviously, the name is very catching for me.)  As a member of the Board of Advisors, I would provide consultation, assessments and review of strategy, business, sales, marketing and technical plans, and advice to Complex 39 and to potential client companies.  Matt and Keith expressed a strong desire to have me on board to bring to bear all of the ideas, concepts, and perspectives that I’ve written about elsewhere here on Leading Space.  After reflecting on the offer for a while, and clearing it through the legal community, I chose to accept Matt’s and Keith’s offer.  It’s an unpaid advisory role that I will do outside my normal role at NASA.  I’m honored that Matt and Keith extended the offer to me.  Looking at the roster of the Board of Advisors, I’m excited at the prospects of working with them to help new businesses get off the ground, as well as learn more about myself and the possibilities that come from working with such innovative, creative, risk-taking people.

Like I said, it’s an interesting time.

You can read more about Complex 39 here.

 

Text © 2012, Joe Williams. All rights reserved.
Photo credit: “Sky and Branches” by Ana V. Ramirez via FotoPlanet, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Thank You, Mr. Lincoln

“…I’m ready right now!”
–Abraham Lincoln

 

The following story is probably apocryphal, yet certainly feels real given my recent experience at writing a paper versus a blog post:

Someone once asked Abraham Lincoln how long it took him to prepare for a 5-minute speech. “A couple of days.” Shocked, this person asked how long it took him to prepare for a 20-minute speech. “6-8 hours.” Totally befuddled, he asked how long it took him to prepare for a two-hour speech. “I’m ready right now!”

I just finished my first paper for the Executive MBA program that I start in a few days.  The assignment was to write a 500- to 700-word essay on an experience with an effective or ineffective team.  If you’re a long-time reader of Leading Space, you’ll realize that I have lots of material on that topic already.  The challenge was sifting through those previous writings to craft an essay in the required word range.  At the start, I figured “no problem” since a typical blog post is of that size.  However, I found that unlike the typical blog post that I roll off my head in mere moments, I was writing, re-writing, editing, and revising for far longer than I thought it would take – well over a week.  Finally, I finished and submitted the paper today.

Thank you, Mr. Lincoln, for the warning.

Anyway, here it is.  (In the copy below, I’ve added links to source material posts.)

~*~*~*~*~

In my role at NASA, I lead teams that formulate contract strategies for major goods and services supporting NASA’s human spaceflight programs.  In particular, I focus on NASA’s Mission Control-Houston, astronaut training facilities, mission planning systems, and mission operations “plan/train/fly” services.  Each team I lead functions as a project “tiger” team, coming together to formulate the strategy, then disbands upon approval of the strategy by NASA executives in Houston and Washington, DC.  The team is self-directed, operating autonomously from the standard line management, and has dependencies upon other NASA organizations for support in policy, legal, and logistics matters.  Finally, recent trends in national human spaceflight policy and continuing federal fiscal pressures and uncertainties have created a need to incorporate innovative approaches as part of future contract strategies as a way to be flexible and save money.

My most recent assignment was a year ago to lead a team for six months to devise a complex strategy with two elements: (1) to procure contractor personnel to work side-by-side with NASA Civil Servants on mission operations “plan/train/fly” services for current and future NASA human spaceflight programs, and (2) to bring forth potential “reverse partnerships” with firms in the emerging commercial space sector for “plan/train/fly” services to be provided back to them by the Government-run mission operations organization in Houston.  The latter would be a means to help commercial space firms succeed and to keep the Government-led mission operations workforce intact until human spaceflight policy and funding for beyond low earth orbit exploration is settled.

Before starting, I met with the director of NASA’s mission operations organization in Houston (“The Boss”) to get his expectations and success criteria for the strategy.  Wanting to start the team on the right foot, I discussed a plan with him for obtaining team members with the “right skills”, the “right aptitude”, and the “right problem-solving talents”.  From there I built a team of seven members, all male, ranging in age from early 40s to mid 50s, and representing the major technical areas of the mission operations organization.  All members were known as “team players”, were leaders in the organization, and had a vested interest in the outcome of the strategy.  Finally, the team had a good diversity of problem-solving talents.  The members were assigned to me full time, and we were located together in a separate facility called “The Bunker.” I led the daily meetings and oversaw roles and responsibilities through volunteerism augmented by my assignments based on alignment of tasks to talents.  We worked together face-to-face daily for six months, and presented our proposed strategy in person to NASA executives in Houston and over a teleconference to NASA executives in Washington, DC.

Once the team was assembled, we established groundrules for ourselves through development of a team charter covering topics such as organizational goals and strategic priorities, norms of behavior, decision-making processes, and how we would handle conflict. Once running, we solved problems through collaboration and by applying our respective skills and natural talents for brainstorming, obtaining supporting data, finding salient points, and producing high-quality supporting materials.  Finally, we communicated openly and frequently with each other and stakeholders through meetings and face-to-face side discussions.  I could see the trust and camaraderie build on a daily basis, even with the occasional lively disagreement on strategy details.

As our product, we devised a strategy for obtaining a talented contractor management team that would retain a high percentage of contractor incumbents, and that would propose specific partnerships with firms in the emerging commercial space sector while navigating some sticky legal hurdles.  In the end, the NASA executives liked the overall strategy concept except in one area, which we accommodated then received final approval.

Was this team successful?  My answer is yes: we met our challenges on time and produced a sound strategy that was approved by the NASA executives.  I also view the bonding of members to each other as a positive experience with carryover to normal duties once the team disbanded, based on team member comments I received after the fact.  Finally, I felt the team was able to utilize its diversity of individual talents effectively.

~*~*~*~*~

 

Text © 2012, Joe Williams. All rights reserved.
Photo credit: “Lincoln” by Joe Williams.

 

Back to School

“Bring us a pitcher of beer every seven minutes until somebody passes out. And then bring one every ten minutes.”
–Rodney Dangerfield as Thornton Melon in “Back to School”

 

I’m taking a break from my usual writings on NASA, leadership, space policy and high performance teams to share a personal note.

After 25 years, I’m headed back to school.

…visions of Rodney Dangerfield and the 1986 movie “Back to School” dance through my head….

As I contemplate the journey I’m about to undertake, I’m reminded of an old list.  And a story that starts in the mid-1980s.  (And yes, I’m that old.)

At the time,  I was wrapping up my undergraduate studies and was contemplating three routes for the immediate future.  I was about to graduate with a BS in physics, and I was convinced I needed more schooling so that I wouldn’t end up delivering Domino’s Pizzas like some of my peers who graduated ahead of me with a BS in physics but couldn’t find a job.  (In some ways, the job market then reminds me of the job market today.)  To delay that outcome, I decided to go to graduate school…but in what?  Here is what I contemplated at the time, in “priority order”:

1)   Engineering.  During college, I found I was more attracted to applied physics versus theoretical.  My inner dialogue was to do something, anything, that contributed something tangible to the world, rather than simply to expand our knowledge.  That to me meant engineering was a logical next step.  I didn’t know for sure which area of engineering – Electrical? Mechanical? – but the concept of engineering graduate school was very appealing.  I put this first on the list.

2)   Business Administration.  Several of my physics peers shared their plans to pursue MBAs after graduation.  “MBAs with technical undergraduate degrees are HOT HOT HOT!” I kept hearing from them.  On the surface, I didn’t view the business world as an appealing pursuit.  My roommate majored in marketing, I took an economics class as an elective, and honestly the whole business thing didn’t have traction with me at the time.  However, I kept it in mind as a possibility, simply because of the attractive job marketability post graduation.

3)   Physics.  Funny that I put this third on the list, since this was my undergraduate major.  Several of my classmates were absolutely brilliant and made no bones about their respective desires to pursue advanced degrees in physics from some of the best schools in the country – MIT, Princeton, etc.  From a theoretical physics standpoint, I couldn’t hold a candle to them.  Many of the advanced senior-level topics in physics, ranging from advanced quantum mechanics to thermodynamics, were at the limit of my understanding, and I had to work hard to get the A’s and B’s I got.  Experimental physics was more my strength, although opportunities for exploring that avenue as an undergraduate were limited to one senior lab and to working as an unpaid lab assistant.  The latter wasn’t an option for me; I was already holding down a half-time job in a research lab as a FORTRAN programmer to pay for school.  In the end, because I didn’t see hard-core physics as my strength, I put it third on the list.

As I weighed these graduate school choices – engineering, MBA, or physics – I leaned heavily upon advice from one advisor.  He recognized my strengths in experimental physics and encouraged me to consider that strength very carefully.  After a lot of soul searching and much reflection, I made a decision for graduate school: physics.  Yes, I chose the third one.  It worked out quite well in the end.  I pursued a MS in physics, had a teaching assistant position and tuition waiver that covered all my expenses, and after getting the MS degree I was ready to enter the working world.

As for the next step, I ended up relying not upon my schooling, but instead upon the programming skills I learned in my half-time job as an undergraduate to land a position at NASA in – you guessed it – an engineering field.  That opportunity led to a very enjoyable and fruitful early career in mission operations for the shuttle, about which I’ve written plenty before.  So, although I didn’t pursue engineering for graduate studies, I ended up in number 1 for a career.

What I find interesting is that as my career at NASA has advanced, I am finding that I’m involved more and more on the business side.  Yes, the list is becoming an AND list rather than an OR list, completed by the real subject of today’s post.

I am about to embark on number 2 – getting an MBA.

The NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston is starting a pilot program, in cooperation with the Naval Postgraduate School, for an Executive MBA program.  NPS has an existing Executive MBA program targeted at career Navy and experienced Department of Navy civilians, which is being used as the basis for the new cooperative program with JSC.  I and a handful of other NASA candidates will enter the program as a cohort in March for two years of distance learning one day per week, focusing on management fundamentals, financial management, acquisition (which is my “day job” today more or less), and analytical and critical thinking skills to make decisions under conditions of extreme uncertainty (like what we’re facing in human spaceflight today).  The cohort takes all classes together so that we interact, share, and learn from each other.  At the end of the two-year program, we earn an accredited MBA.

I’m deeply honored to have been selected for the program.  It fits perfectly into the role I serve at NASA, and I look forward to the academic learning experience, working with my cohort, and actively applying what I learn the other four days of the week in my regular day job to make a difference as we move forward in human spaceflight.

I reviewed the course syllabus that outlines the classes over the two years.  Several of the topics may make for interesting blog posts as I learn the material and apply it in the context of human spaceflight – especially in today’s world of challenging space policy implementation and increasing budgetary pressures.  I envision using this blog in part to share my experiences in the Executive MBA program, and hone my perspectives (along with your feedback as well!) on how to move forward in human spaceflight.  Through this exchange, I hope you will benefit as well as learn something new about your space program.

OK, bring on those pitchers of beer…!

 

Text © 2012, Joe Williams.  All rights reserved.

Services and Human Spaceflight

Let the good service of well-deservers be never rewarded with loss. Let their thanks be such as may encourage more strivers for the like.
–Elizabeth I

I’ve been thinking a lot about services (and likewise have been thinking about this post for a long time).

Since wrapping up the underlying contract strategy two years ago for making NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory and Space Vehicle Mockup Facility available for reimbursable commercial use, I’ve been focused on a similar strategy for making NASA’s core “plan/train/fly” human spaceflight services also available for reimbursable commercial use.  The fits and starts with wrestling with a new strategy in an unpredictable space policy environment have been a challenge, yet the challenges go beyond that, to the following fundamental question: what is a service?  Whether we’re talking about commercial crew and cargo transportation services to low Earth orbit, the “plan/train/fly” services I just mentioned, or even NASA internal support services such as information technology, human resources, procurement, etc., we still have to wrestle with the same fundamental question: what is a service, and how does thinking about services differently make for a better future?

“Wartime Leadership” in Human Spaceflight

“Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”
–Winston Churchill

About a year ago I read a blog post from Ben Horowitz, cofounder and General Partner of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, entitled “Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO.”  The basic idea proposed by Horowitz is that an organization in peacetime has a large advantage versus the competition in its core market, and an organization in wartime is fending off an imminent existential threat; in both cases, there is a best-suited style of leadership for each.  I’ve thought repeatedly about the topic since I first read the post, and wonder: is the key challenge we face in moving ahead in human spaceflight one of having the wrong kind of political and executive leadership in place right now?

2012 NASA-JSC Strategic Implementation Plan

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
–Larry Elder

Late last week, the leadership team at the NASA Johnson Space Center released the 2012 NASA-JSC Strategic Implementation Plan.  The Plan ties to the Agency-level strategic plan released last year and focuses on JSC’s strength: leading human space exploration.  In the coming weeks we’ll be discussing internally how our respective organizations will work to reach those goals.

The last piece is for each of us to examine our respective roles in implementing this plan.  So, to that end, I’m going to do a very public examination of my current role at NASA-JSC and how it fits into the Plan, for the whole world to see.  (Well, at least that tiny sliver of the world that reads this blog.)  First, the Plan:

2011 in Review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.