Gravity Probe B: Testing Einstein — with a Management Experiment?
Giving Stanford University management responsibility for the complex Gravity Probe B project was an experiment that uncovered important lessons about NASA collaborations with university prime contractors.

Managing Meetings... Remotely
When I issued a meeting notice, with the location described in bold, somebody would inevitably remind me to "publish the call-in numbers."

The Morning Meeting
The idea was simple: a short all-hands meeting once a day to maintain the week's action item list.

The Join-Up Meeting
A 1:1, face-to-face, join-up meeting is the only way I know to build solid trust between the project manager and the team members and their hierarchy. Join-up meetings are a way to build trust between the project manager, teammates and hierarchy.

What Did You Do at Work Today?
Tailor your strategies to run more effective meetings.

Mentoring: Teaching What It Means to Be a Leader
Many senior people give mentoring lip service but are unwilling to spend the time to do it.

Bringing Up Baby
You don't want to lose key project knowledge. When a person being replaced has key project knowledge, seek ways to make sure that knowledge remains available to you. Be sensitive during transitions. You don't know how emotional fallout will affect the project. Allow people to step out of their roles with dignity. Don't overlook the teammates of a leader who is replaced. It is not your job to convince them that this is the right decision, but you should respect their feelings toward their colleague.

Sounds Clear Enough
Project management requires skills and experience, but first of all it requires dedicating sufficient quality time to the project. A novice project manager must understand that his or her new role will demand significant energy and time. When a project manager is replaced, even if the transition is handled in a timely fashion and with sufficient sensitivity, the project may still require a great deal of oversight on the part of project sponsors. Substituting one project manager for another should not be seen as a "quick-fix."

Walking a Fine Line
Project sponsors must be prepared to move from monitoring to intervening when a project runs into trouble. Timing is everything; a project sponsor must recognize both when intervention is necessary and when it is no longer needed. Effective managers demonstrate leadership by supporting their teams — including managing-by-walking-around and serving as a "soldier" when needed.

An Old Dog and New Tricks
In mentoring, one gets to challenge his or her assumptions about project management. Prototypes can be used as a strategy to mitigate risk.

A Good Fellow
Those who are successful mentors need not always be formally trained in their discipline.

From Apprenticeship to Management
For mentoring to work, the mentor and mentee must have mutual respect and trust in each other. They must be committed right from the start to being open and honest with each other. The mentor should accept responsibility for mistakes, but together with the mentee should plan corrective actions to recover.

How to Say No
You can be a mentor without realizing it.

Mentors Come in All Shapes and Sizes
Great mentors aren't always easy to spot, and may come from a variety of backgrounds.

Natural Relationship
A young person can mentor a senior person. Greater experience in an area of mutual interest is what matters most.

Tough Questions
Mentoring can be as rewarding for the mentor as it is for the mentee.

Cassini-Huygens: International Cooperation for Astronomical Achievement
Collaborating with foreign space agencies has its own unique challenges.

University Collaborations: Teaching and Learning
One NASA project manager learns some of the dos and don'ts of working with university students.

Cultivating a Community
By involving the local community in their solar-powered airplane development, project managers created an advocacy group that supported the work.

Smart Buying
Prototyping can be a key management and communication tool. Using the products of different vendors allows the user to refine his or her objectives.

Supplying the Giant
Achieve remarkable results from a contractor by releasing them from bureaucratic constraints.

Thank You, Judy
A lack of integrity makes a bad situation between government and contractor even worse. Organizations benefit when experienced practitioners share their stories liberally. Manage through your organizational values when making tough decisions.

How Do We Work Together
Complete openness and candor is an important part of a successful government-contractor relationship. The government-contractor relationship requires nurturing by their respective managers.

Check Your Ego at the Door, Please
Reviews should be a source of vital learning for the project team. With the right attitude, a contractor can use the government as an asset in risk reduction.

Horse Trading
Use horse trading so as NOT to undercut the advantages of a fixed-price contract.

Trading on Trust
Coping with changes in a fixed price contract requires trust above all between government and contractor. I did what I was supposed to, saying that I thought it was best for the program to convert to a fixed-price contract.... He hesitated, but because he trusted my judgment, he agreed and we settled on a price and modified the contract to fixed price. Use horse trading so as NOT to undercut the advantages of a fixed-price contract.

You Don't Have to Crash to Have Impact
Openness between government and contractor can transform a lackluster project team to high performance. Simple and frequent reviews allow for quick responsiveness and continuous monitoring of cost and progress.

Chaos Is the Fraternal Twin of Creativity
Collaborate by recognizing mutual interdependence.

PI-in-a-Box
Don't be distressed if it takes time for customers to work together to bring project goals into alignment. Be aware and be sensitive to adapting to the different needs of customers at different times in the project.

Cross-Training within the Project Team
To prevent...conflict from undermining the project, I believe it is helpful to set up short cross-functional training sessions that allow project team members to explain the key elements of their job to the other members of the project team. The intent of these sessions is to: (1) establish closer cross-functional working relationships among project team members; (2) identify dysfunctional gaps and overlaps between team members; (3) raise the general level of project knowledge among team members; and (4) raise the level of trust and openness among all project team members. Conflicts between different functional organizations can be circumvented by teaming efforts within the project.

It's All About Passion
In an era of scarce resources, effective government-contractor partnerships can pay huge dividends on a project.

Partnering with the Customer
Recruiting the customer's involvement is a critical component of project management.

Reforming a Mindset
People will draw inspiration from seeing you "walk" what you "talk" and thereby follow your lead. Let contractors know their work is appreciated by recognizing and rewarding their contributions. Successful change starts with managing from a complimentary set of principles.

Supplier Integration
Project success often depends on how the project manager makes vendors feel like part of the project team.

Seven Key Principles of Program and Project Success
NASA's Organization Design Team says clear vision, good communication, and systems engineering expertise are among the essential ingredients of project success.

Cleaning Out the Closet
Like the closet that accumulates all the stuff we buy and never get rid of, we felt our list could stand a little spring cleaning.

Mr. Stardust's Wild Ride
Effective budget planning considers not only how much money a project requires, but also when the money is needed. Many times, project success isn't about not making mistakes; it's having the courage to face mistakes and take action.

One Way or Another
Don't second guess yourself into a state of inaction because you can't anticipate every contingency. Part of planning ahead should include allowing oneself the flexibility to rethink the plan and improvise if necessary.

Letting Go of "Once and For All"
Sometimes, if we let it, research can shake our core beliefs. Under conditions of uncertainty, it is impossible to finalize project objectives at the outset once and for all.

The Storyboard's Big Picture
A storyboard makes certain that team members are all working toward the same goal.

Perfection Is in the Details -- Or Is It?
So much of learning begins with unlearning. Uncertainty is not an exceptional state in an otherwise predictable process of project work.

Back to Basics
Organizations must recruit and develop the specialized expertise they need to stay atop their field. The "basic building blocks" of expertise must be in place before starting a new and challenging project.

PERT Charts Take Precedence
PERT charts provide a virtual model of a project and communicate plans and project status to the team and customers.

Project Planning and "The Three Little Pigs"
Decide which risks are too costly to plan for, and which ones are too costly not to plan for.

Start-Up
Build a team simultaneously while formulating requirements and selling the project. Spend your greatest efforts early in the project recruiting the most suitable candidates for your team.

The Dream and Its Demise
Trial and error are integral to the planning process.

Timing Is the Key
When information required for a decision is incomplete or absent, then postpone the decision.

Going and Coming
Do not consider planning assumptions to be facts. Continually review and be ready to revise. There is a time for fixing a plan, and there is a time for starting anew. Know both, and be prepared to defend that choice.

From Planned Football to Spontaneous Basketball
Prepare your people to respond quickly to frequent and unanticipated changes.

The "Fifth Dimension" of Program and Project Management
A candid look at how politics and people's perceptions can influence a project's outcome.

Getting Politically Active
Dedicate time and attention to working closely and openly with customers and stakeholders.

Stumping for the Project
There are times when the role of the project leader is simply to sell the project.

Start-Up
Build a team simultaneously while formulating requirements and selling the project. Spend your greatest efforts early in the project recruiting the most suitable candidates for your team.

Hearts Lifted to Heaven
I came upon this story in the book Gates of Prayer, and it reminded me of an experience I had a couple of years ago. In the story, a spiritual leader of a community refused to enter a House of Prayer. He said, "I cannot enter, it is crowded with teachings and prayers from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling. How could there be room for me?"

Even Politics Is Project Work (Or the U.S. Congress is Looking for a Few Good Project Managers)
All white collar work is project work. Almost every issue that comes up on Capitol Hill has a science or technology component.

Know Thyself, But Don't Forget to Learn About the Customer, Too
Projects can, and do, succeed because of politics — and they fail because of politics as well. Politics does not have to be a dirty word. Sometimes the most compelling thing you can say to someone is "I understand what you are saying."

Growing Space Systems Engineers: The Key to Realizing the Vision for Space Exploration
Developing high- caliber space systems engineers depends on providing the right kind of hands-on experience.

How Do You Make Good Managers Better?
To improve project manager training, SAIC defined project management excellence as a blend of education and experience, and the steps needed to acquire them.

Goddard's SEED Program: Growing Systems Engineers
The Goddard Systems Engineering Education Development program uses hands-on project experience to teach systems engineering expertise.

A Balancing Act
We believe we have to be perfect...maintain the 1950s sitcom home while having a fulfilling career.

ASK Talks With Tom Gavin
You must be able to inspire the confidence of the project team who is going to work for you.

Passing the Baton — Lessons in Regret
My conviction is that leading a project in a way that best allows a seamless transition to another leader at some uncertain time in the future is fundamental to project success. I developed a somewhat deserved reputation as a bridge-burner. If one of my peers from outside the project office didn't agree with what I was doing, I simply went around or ignored him or her. It worked for me, but my successors had to rebuild lots of bridges, which took time, energy, and focus away from executing the project.

The Journey Back
We need to re-examine our career "musts" and "wants," and the actions we're taking to achieve them.

Class Act
A project manager who wants to recruit strong teams should establish a reputation as someone who takes care of people. Good managers do not stand in the way of employee advancement and development.

Sink or Swim
The normal career development path never leads to getting into water over our heads, but then wading comfortably around doesn't produce swimmers.

So, Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?
Luck is only as good as the preparation that goes in it.

Staying on the Lookout
Informal meetings with collegues may provide opportunities to expand your network.

Would You Raise Your Hand?
Being able to speak freely without repercussion is an important element in any team or project. Sometimes our negative fantasies keep us from making positive contributions to our team or project.

Listening to That Voice Inside
The more we share and discuss decisions based on intuition, the more we learn about when and how to employ it.

See Attachment
Achieving work-life balance has a lot to do with how dutifully we can refine our time management skills.

100 Lessons Learned for Project Managers
More than 100 lessons that Madden collected over the course of his long and distinguished career.

Letting Go of "Once and For All"
Sometimes, if we let it, research can shake our core beliefs. Under conditions of uncertainty, it is impossible to finalize project objectives at the outset once and for all.

Perfection Is in the Details -- Or Is It?
So much of learning begins with unlearning. Uncertainty is not an exceptional state in an otherwise predictable process of project work.

My Schooling in Leadership
Leaders not only "learn" from their experiences but "unlearn" old ways of thinking.

A Big Raise, A Promotion, Or...
As we demand more from people, we must remember to honor their accomplishments.

Is There a Perfect Organization?
Change is a great opportunity to rejuvenate. Cultures do exist that respect the knowledge of the practitioners and the power of team.

Three Insights About Change
Better to view your role as helping good things to happen rather than preventing bad things from happening.

When My Name Suddenly Was "Murphy"
Learning by doing expedites doing something well. Letting people know you have confidence in them will generally make them more self-motivated and confident in themselves.

Keeping the Deal
Assign responsibilities outside people's comfort zones to broaden their experience. Build your organization and your team norms around the talents and personalities of your staff.

Even Politics Is Project Work (Or the U.S. Congress is Looking for a Few Good Project Managers)
All white collar work is project work. Almost every issue that comes up on Capitol Hill has a science or technology component.

There Are No Mistakes, Only Lessons — The Don Quixote Complex
Maintain focus no matter how attractive an objective outside the focal plane may seem. Stay healthy by separating your ego, or your self worth, from your job. When you make a mistake, learn to forgive yourself and move on.

Stories As Agents of Change
Project managers should set aside time for telling stories.

Listening to the Voice Inside
To make things happen you sometimes have to fight for what you believe in. Knowing what NOT to do can be as important as knowing what to do.

Arrogance: Number One Enemy of Learning
Managers who treat questions as annoyances and regard them as signs of ignorance are not learning.

How Did I Get Here?
People develop primarily by working with and for experienced people, and by seeking feedback. The best preparation for leadership is by experiencing a variety of tasks.

Learning to Drive the Mars Rovers
3-D simulations and a months-long apprenticeship teach trainees to drive the Mars exploration rovers.

Featured Invention: Emulsified Zero-Valent Iron
Nanotechnology is the key to a better way of leaching toxic chemicals from the environment.

Unexpected Delays Equal a Chance to Innovate
When a priority project suddenly faces cancellation, a team avoids discouragement and uses the delay to test their ideas and improve the design.

Practices: The Innovation Report — The ICB: Recognizing and Rewarding Innovation
The ICB recognizes and rewards the technological inventiveness of NASA employees and NASA contractors.

An Old Dog and New Tricks
In mentoring, one gets to challenge his or her assumptions about project management. Prototypes can be used as a strategy to mitigate risk.

As Small As Possible
Competition is a powerful motivator — as is personal pride — which can elicit creative solutions.

Dropping in on Mars
Prototypes focus attention on the most essential characteristics of a problem. To develop innovative products, you must test tenaciously in the spite of repeated failures.

Playing with Prototypes
Coupled with the serious nature of work is the joy that comes from playing with a prototype or model.

Proof of Concept
Ideas can be tested and verified quickly by prototyping, before an extensive commitment of resources. A good prototype has the power to communicate more convincingly than any analysis.

Prototyping "Rope-a-Dopes" and Other Pitfalls
People have misused prototyping at least as often as they have used it wisely.

Right-Rapid-Rough
Use all your senses to attack a problem. In design work, embrace failure as a means to ultimate success.

Smart Buying
Prototyping can be a key management and communication tool. Using the products of different vendors allows the user to refine his or her objectives.

Garage-Style Engineering
Prototyping early and often helps management see the potential of a concept.

Rapid Prototyping
Rapid prototyping success depends on a significant amount of customer input.

Preserving Deep Smarts at NASA
How an organization can ensure that rich, experiential knowledge is passed on to a new generation.

Tell Me About Your Lemonade Stand
As I looked back over the last five years, it was clear that some of our program managers consistently generated great results and others did not.

Class Act
A project manager who wants to recruit strong teams should establish a reputation as someone who takes care of people. Good managers do not stand in the way of employee advancement and development.

Back to Basics
Organizations must recruit and develop the specialized expertise they need to stay atop their field. The "basic building blocks" of expertise must be in place before starting a new and challenging project.

Learning the ABCs (of Project Management)
Anticipation is an ongoing thought process that entails reviewing plans at intervals throughout the project. Exuding your enthusiasm for a project can be contagious, and it goes a long way towards recruiting the best available talent.

Keeping the Deal
Assign responsibilities outside people's comfort zones to broaden their experience. Build your organization and your team norms around the talents and personalities of your staff.

Enough Is Enough
Have all key parties sign off on the requirements to assure that they understand and are committed to them. Requirements should not be finalized until after implementation approaches have been considered.

Requirements: The More the Better?
Being overly constrained by too many requirements with too little wiggle-room will invariably cause problems.

The Clock Is Ticking
Close communication between the project team and the customer facilitates a continuous learning process. Knowing when to be flexible and when to be firm in addressing requirements is a hallmark of successful project management.

Start-Up
Build a team simultaneously while formulating requirements and selling the project. Spend your greatest efforts early in the project recruiting the most suitable candidates for your team.

My Son's Requirements
Asking the customer about requirements makes it much more likely you will get them right.

Applying General Principles to Unique Situations
Do not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach for satisfying customer requirements.

The One Thing You Need to Know
Allow team leaders to take the lead on issues where you do not have the same expertise. A project manager must trust his team. As the overall team leader you must allow team members to take the lead on issues in which they clearly have an expertise you do not. On projects with a great deal of uncertainty it is best not to spell out requirements too early.

Better: The Enemy of Good Enough
Project managers must be diligent not to allow requirements creep to bankrupt the project.

Lessons from the Great Masters
Visualize project requirements as a whole, not in several pieces.

The NASA Fabrication Alliance: Cooperation, Not Competition
How the NASA Fabrication Alliance turned a cost-cutting mandate into an opportunity to share work and exchange expertise.

Putting EVM to the Test
In many instances there is no forewarning; schedules slip, costs soar, and the project manager is faced with the near impossible task of explaining why each impact occurred.

A Fly on the Wall
Typically, when you're being reviewed, it's difficult to see what's happening objectively.

Implementation Reviews
Many of a project's problems can be attributed more to implementation flaws than design flaws. Reviews conducted too early can prevent you later on from being on top of problems.

I Hate Reviews!
Nothing cuts off communication in a review like an environment in which people feel threatened or defensive.

So This Is Knowledge Sharing
By sharing their knowledge experienced project managers encourage less experienced project managers to reflect on their own experiences. Ensure that the review process is seen as feedback from independent and supportive experts.

A Gentle Touch
A gentle, or quiet, approach may work best in establishing trust with a customer from a different "project-cultural" milieu. Consider "auditing by walking around" as an approach to reviewing the state of a project.

Calling Down the Fire on Yourself
Use reviews as a resource rather as a means of checking a box.

Check Your Ego at the Door, Please
Reviews should be a source of vital learning for the project team. With the right attitude, a contractor can use the government as an asset in risk reduction.

Standing Offer
Don't be so proud that you can't accept an offer of help from someone qualified to give you help. In preparing for a review, take advantage of all resources available, including seasoned veterans.

Tangled Up in Reviews
Reviews should encourage joint problem solving on the part of the reviewed and reviewer.

The Hour Glass and the Project Manager — Part 1
Improve project success by conducting peer reviews at the right time in the project.

You Don't Have to Crash to Have Impact
Openness between government and contractor can transform a lackluster project team to high performance. Simple and frequent reviews allow for quick responsiveness and continuous monitoring of cost and progress.

Sharing Responsibility for Risk
One project takes risk management a step further by creating metrics to measure how successful risk management efforts have been.

A Lengthy Career's Lessons on Risk
Throughout the years, I developed the philosophy that you can be very successful if you spend the time to organize yourself, find qualified people, and understand the objectives.

No Launch Before Its Time
I remember a member of the crew asking me, "Is this normal?" And in my experience, it wasn't.

Managing the Unexpected
You can go through your whole career and never have someone drop one of your spacecraft. I think that would have been nice.

A Glass Can Be Half Full — Even in Microgravity
The project team's response to this challenge taught me how resilient people and projects can be when you give them the chance.

Fixing What's Broken
If I hadn't wondered if the project was in some way cursed, this latest string of problems was enough to make me consider the possibility.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Project managers need to identify in advance those critical tasks for which they don't have sufficient overlap or redundancy in their work force.

An Old Dog and New Tricks
In mentoring, one gets to challenge his or her assumptions about project management. Prototypes can be used as a strategy to mitigate risk.

Implementation Reviews
Many of a project's problems can be attributed more to implementation flaws than design flaws. Reviews conducted too early can prevent you later on from being on top of problems.

Project Planning and "The Three Little Pigs"
Decide which risks are too costly to plan for, and which ones are too costly not to plan for.

Scheduling in the Real World
Balance best — and worst — case scenarios when scheduling. Be willing to take calculated risks when established approaches aren't likely to achieve desired results.

Learning the ABCs (of Project Management)
Anticipation is an ongoing thought process that entails reviewing plans at intervals throughout the project. Exuding your enthusiasm for a project can be contagious, and it goes a long way towards recruiting the best available talent.

Test What You Fly?
Before you break a rule, consider the ramifications and get buy-in from all major stakeholders. Lead by seeking cooperation and you are much more likely to get buy-in. Test what you fly doesn't always apply.

Continuous Risk Management
Risk identification is an ongoing activity that takes place during the routine project workflow.

When to Say No
Saying "no" to a project can sometimes be an affirmation of your integrity. Do your homework prior to important decisions — or else risk making career-damaging mistakes.

Refining Procedures: Calling All Stakeholders
Always put the person closest to the problem closest to the solution. Treat the writing of procedures as a continuous improvement process.

What's a Ceiling?
Overprotecting the less able does little to prepare them for dealing with risk.

For Safety's Sake
We needed someone who would say, "Hey, I'm interested in this; it could be the wave of the future."

A Stormy Situation
When we resumed testing, another instrument showed damage. Now we were both confused and in trouble.

Management as Improvisation
Quick, simple, and inexpensive fixes are sometimes the answer to staying on schedule and within budget.

Lessons Learned Again and Again
Project scope drives project cost and schedule.

Scheduling in the Real World
Balance best — and worst — case scenarios when scheduling. Be willing to take calculated risks when established approaches aren't likely to achieve desired results.

Speed Merchants
Focusing on speed encourage creative thinking on projects. A lot of our processes that we have, both procurement and post-award, are built on lack of trust. That's essentially what it is. When you hand somebody an 11-page specification rather than a 100-page document, however, you are sending a clear signal that you trust them to do the right thing. In general, we don't do that because we don't trust, or the system won't allow us to trust; I'm not sure which. But my own belief is that, as an individual project manager, you can go a long way in that direction by starting not with the notion that someone has to earn your trust, but starting with the presumption that they're trustworthy until proven otherwise.

Thanksgiving Hocus Pocus
Emotional intelligence is critical for effective leadership, especially during a crisis. Improvisation and responsiveness are critical in meeting a blitz schedule. Worrying about accountability in the thick of a crisis is counterproductive behavior.

The Art of Scheduling
Creating a realistic schedule for a complex project is mostly an art, requiring intuition, judgment, and knowledgeable guesswork.

Gravity Probe B: Testing Einstein — with a Management Experiment?
Giving Stanford University management responsibility for the complex Gravity Probe B project was an experiment that uncovered important lessons about NASA collaborations with university prime contractors.

A Collaboration on Collaboration
We learned quickly that we were a group with diverse backgrounds, in every sense of the word.

Hanging On by a Thread
To move the aircraft about on the ground, as well as to stabilize it during take off and landing, we needed to come up with a lightweight solution.

Right On Time, Radically
Nurturing a collaborative culture on a project can go a long way towards achieving tangible costs and schedule results. Manage expectations, not only from the people working for you, but for the key people, i.e. stakeholders, that are above you. We had gone from a hierarchical, structured environment, to teams who had the trust, confidence, and openness to stop in the hallways to discuss problems and make decisions without having to worry about any repercussions if they didn't pass everything through their management team each time.

Dedication
Under conditions of uncertainty and tight deadlines, project teams need to adapt quickly. When a quick response is required, cohesive teamwork becomes paramount.

The Enterprise Project
Listening and seeing how divergent ideas emerge from individuals strengthens the team as a whole.

Earthly Considerations on Mars
Project managers must find the right balance between giving people the right independence (trust) to accomplish great things and providing the guidance to help them do it. Project management is a people industry. Gaining the trust of your followers will grant you more influence than any formal authority. Find a balance between giving people independence and providing guidance. Gaining the trust of your team will grant you more influence than any formal authority.

Grins and Giggles: The Launch Pad to High Performance
Shared experiences create space where team members can get to know one another, and discover how much they have in common with each other. These commonalities are the building blocks of trusting relationships. And trust is the foundation required to build a high performance team. With a high performance team, you can accomplish anything. Play can stimulate a cycle of solving problems and uncovering new ones. Regardless of your position on the team, you can create the fun and energy needed to build high performance teams.

A "Sweet 16" of Rules About Teamwork
Trusting relationships are conducive to full and open exchange of information within the team. In contrast, when project parties distrust each other, they withhold relevant information and distort intentions, thus adding uncertainty to the project. Trust reduces the cost of planning and monitoring transactions between organizations. Dynamic environments call for dynamic management of project teams.

Activation Energy
Openly confronting internal conflicts is a hallmark of high performance teams.

How I Love My "80 Percenters"
Respect people and you are much more likely to find they perform up to, or beyond, their potential.

The Idyllic Workplace
A culture of freedom and trust coupled with excellent people can enable you to make rapid progresss on achieving a goal.

Willpower
Lack of discipline is a key reason project teams fail to meet their objectives.

Are You on This Team?
Teams must have allegiance to every member if they are to be champions.

The Trouble with Success
Crisis situations, even though they may be undesirable, bring out the best in the best of teams. If results do not meet expectations, for better or worse, we have little choice but to see this as an opportunity for learning.

Fly Safe, But Fly
One thing was certain, the airplane and the program had to be grounded until we could figure out what had happened.

For Safety's Sake
We needed someone who would say, "Hey, I'm interested in this; it could be the wave of the future."

Testing Positive
Because the spacecraft is going to Mercury, its launch date was constrained, and everything that came before it had to go according to plan.

Fixing What's Broken
If I hadn't wondered if the project was in some way cursed, this latest string of problems was enough to make me consider the possibility.

A Stormy Situation
When we resumed testing, another instrument showed damage. Now we were both confused and in trouble.

Dropping in on Mars
Prototypes focus attention on the most essential characteristics of a problem. To develop innovative products, you must test tenaciously in the spite of repeated failures.

Off the Charts
Iterative testing may sometimes prove the best way to verify eccentric concepts.

Customer Responsiveness
Question: Given that trust and openness are critical to a successful contractor-customer relationship, what do you do as the project manager for the contractor when you cannot develop a trusting relationship with your customer? The gravity of not doing a test depends on what your responsibility is towards the project. It is project manager's responsibility to resolve communication conflicts with the customer.

Test What You Fly?
Before you break a rule, consider the ramifications and get buy-in from all major stakeholders. Lead by seeking cooperation and you are much more likely to get buy-in. Test what you fly doesn't always apply.

Boiling Point
Don't be buffaloed by experts. It's not uncommon for elitists to bleed to death soon after they are nicked by the real world.

The Trouble with Success
Crisis situations, even though they may be undesirable, bring out the best in the best of teams. If results do not meet expectations, for better or worse, we have little choice but to see this as an opportunity for learning.

Letter from the Editor — A Tale of Two Houses: Building on a Foundation of Trust or Mistrust
Trust among project partners is not just an attitude that is nice to have. It is a must, since lack of trust costs money — often a lot of money. Trust helps resolve conflicts before they arise; trusting relationships are conducive to full and open exchange of information within the team.

Passing the Baton -- Lessons in Regret
My conviction is that leading a project in a way that best allows a seamless transition to another leader at some uncertain time in the future is fundamental to project success. I developed a somewhat deserved reputation as a bridge-burner. If one of my peers from outside the project office didn't agree with what I was doing, I simply went around or ignored him or her. It worked for me, but my successors had to rebuild lots of bridges, which took time, energy, and focus away from executing the project.

Right On Time, Radically
Nurturing a collaborative culture on a project can go a long way towards achieving tangible costs and schedule results. Manage expectations, not only from the people working for you, but for the key people, i.e. stakeholders, that are above you. We had gone from a hierarchical, structured environment, to teams who had the trust, confidence, and openness to stop in the hallways to discuss problems and make decisions without having to worry about any repercussions if they didn't pass everything through their management team each time.

The Eye Cannot See Itself
The most experienced and successful project managers....spent a great deal of effort to develop teamwork based on trust and mutual interdependence. They practiced it religiously, and it was central to the way they managed their projects.

Earthly Considerations on Mars
Project managers must find the right balance between giving people the right independence (trust) to accomplish great things and providing the guidance to help them do it. Project management is a people industry. Gaining the trust of your followers will grant you more influence than any formal authority. Find a balance between giving people independence and providing guidance. Gaining the trust of your team will grant you more influence than any formal authority.

Transfer Wisdom Workshops: Three Stories — Get in Bed
We had product advocates who were trusted by both the customer and the supplier.

Grins and Giggles: The Launch Pad to High Performance
Shared experiences create space where team members can get to know one another, and discover how much they have in common with each other. These commonalities are the building blocks of trusting relationships. And trust is the foundation required to build a high performance team. With a high performance team, you can accomplish anything. Play can stimulate a cycle of solving problems and uncovering new ones. Regardless of your position on the team, you can create the fun and energy needed to build high performance teams.

Transfer Wisdom Workshops: Three Stories — Trusting the Enemy
The project scientist did a wonderful job presenting my charts — but not before praising me for the job I had done. This from a person who looked more like an enemy than a friend when I first met him. You can go far when you reach out to "enemies" and listen.

Give It to Chuck
A project manager must trust his team. As the overall team leader you must allow team members to take the lead on issues in which they clearly have the expertise to get the job done. Allow team members to take the lead where they have the expertise to get the job done.

Speed Merchants
Focusing on speed encourage creative thinking on projects. A lot of our processes that we have, both procurement and post-award, are built on lack of trust. That's essentially what it is. When you hand somebody an 11-page specification rather than a 100-page document, however, you are sending a clear signal that you trust them to do the right thing. In general, we don't do that because we don't trust, or the system won't allow us to trust; I'm not sure which. But my own belief is that, as an individual project manager, you can go a long way in that direction by starting not with the notion that someone has to earn your trust, but starting with the presumption that they're trustworthy until proven otherwise.

Customer Responsiveness
Question: Given that trust and openness are critical to a successful contractor-customer relationship, what do you do as the project manager for the contractor when you cannot develop a trusting relationship with your customer? The gravity of not doing a test depends on what your responsibility is towards the project. It is project manager's responsibility to resolve communication conflicts with the customer.

How Do We Work Together
Complete openness and candor is an important part of a successful government-contractor relationship. The government-contractor relationship requires nurturing by their respective managers.

A "Sweet 16" of Rules About Teamwork
Trusting relationships are conducive to full and open exchange of information within the team. In contrast, when project parties distrust each other, they withhold relevant information and distort intentions, thus adding uncertainty to the project. Trust reduces the cost of planning and monitoring transactions between organizations. Dynamic environments call for dynamic management of project teams.

Hot Meetings
What distressed my colleague who stood outside the door was that he assumed if people were raising their voices at each other they must be fighting. Nobody was fighting. There was enough trust and respect among team members that we understood it was okay to express ourselves in this way. When there is trust and respect among team members, it is legitimate to express opinions passionately.

The Idyllic Workplace
A culture of freedom and trust coupled with excellent people can enable you to make rapid progresss on achieving a goal.

The Join-Up Meeting
A 1:1, face-to-face, join-up meeting is the only way I know to build solid trust between the project manager and the team members and their hierarchy. Join-up meetings are a way to build trust between the project manager, teammates and hierarchy.

The One Thing You Need to Know
Allow team leaders to take the lead on issues where you do not have the same expertise. A project manager must trust his team. As the overall team leader you must allow team members to take the lead on issues in which they clearly have an expertise you do not. On projects with a great deal of uncertainty it is best not to spell out requirements too early.

Our Man in Kauai
Cultural factors can have major impact on the project, so adjust to the demands of the local culture. Without Dave's karaoke parties we probably still would have eventually ingratiated ourselves with the community, but developing a social relationship certainly broke the ice and formed a basis of trust. It helps to think broadly when thinking of how communication can affect project success.

Trading on Trust
Coping with changes in a fixed price contract requires trust above all between government and contractor. I did what I was supposed to, saying that I thought it was best for the program to convert to a fixed-price contract.... He hesitated, but because he trusted my judgment, he agreed and we settled on a price and modified the contract to fixed price. Use horse trading so as NOT to undercut the advantages of a fixed-price contract.

ASK Talks With Joan Salute
Knowing what NOT to do can be as important as knowing what to do.

Pin the Deputy's Badge on Me
Gaining the trust of your followers will grant you more influence than any formal authority. Soft is hard. Gaining the trust of your followers will grant you more influence than any formal authority. To try and do more with less sometimes you have to lead by following.

The Big Briefing
I let down the senior leadership who had entrusted me with my position. I had compromised my integrity by not making sure that my audience clearly understood the true message.

Cross-Training within the Project Team
To prevent...conflict from undermining the project, I believe it is helpful to set up short cross-functional training sessions that allow project team members to explain the key elements of their job to the other members of the project team. The intent of these sessions is to: (1) establish closer cross-functional working relationships among project team members; (2) identify dysfunctional gaps and overlaps between team members; (3) raise the general level of project knowledge among team members; and (4) raise the level of trust and openness among all project team members. Conflicts between different functional organizations can be circumvented by teaming efforts within the project.

Reforming a Mindset
People will draw inspiration from seeing you "walk" what you "talk" and thereby follow your lead. Let contractors know their work is appreciated by recognizing and rewarding their contributions. Successful change starts with managing from a complimentary set of principles.

From Apprenticeship to Management
For mentoring to work, the mentor and mentee must have mutual respect and trust in each other. They must be committed right from the start to being open and honest with each other. The mentor should accept responsibility for mistakes, but together with the mentee should plan corrective actions to recover.