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As I write this I am helping to facilitate a workshop dealing with how to transition the US portion of the International Space Station (ISS) into the first National Laboratory in space.\u00a0 We have 200 experts from all over the world working to figure out what the early experiments should be and how to implement them over the next 5 years.\u00a0 Just the planning for this workshop has been quite a lesson in project planning and execution.\u00a0 Chaired by Nobel Prize winner Baruch Blumberg and with a keynote address by J. Craig Venter of human genome fame it has been quite an interesting event.\u00a0 It has caused me to think back on the lessons that I have learned over the last twenty three years I have been involved with the space station about managing mega-projects.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For those of you who are not familiar with the ISS it is a permanently manned,16 nation collaboration that is in orbit overhead every 90 or so minutes.\u00a0 It is over 300 ft. long and weighs over 400,000 lbs.\u00a0 When construction is complete in 2010 it will weigh over 1 million lbs.<\/p>\n
To say the least it is a very complex vehicle and by the time it is completed American taxpayers will have spent upwards of $100 billion to build and operate the ISS.\u00a0 I have been involved with the ISS in its various incarnations since the early 1980’s.\u00a0 There are some good and not so good project management lessons learned in this project.<\/p>\n
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1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Don’t start vast projects with half vast resources.\u00a0 When the ISS (it was called Space Station Freedom back then) was first announced by then President Reagan in 1984 the ISS was supposed to cost $8 billion.\u00a0 As we can see it cost more, a lot more.\u00a0 There have been so many redesigns over the first fifteen years that it is hard to keep them all straight and all these changes cost big money.\u00a0 Having Congress in the loop holding the purse strings doesn’t help either.\u00a0 So make sure you have a handle on the costs and that the value proposition is well defined and that you get alignment with the customer.\u00a0 Which brings us to our next lesson learned;<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spend 10% of the project budget making sure you understand problem, the key technologies involved, and have looked at all of the options before you dive into the detailed design.\u00a0 Many studies have been done that show by the time 5% of the project budget has been spent 70% or more of the project cost will be locked in and not just the development cost but the life cycle cost.\u00a0 So cutting this upfront study effort is a really bad idea but we do it all the time.\u00a0 If there is a better example of penny wise and pound foolish I can’t think of it.<\/p>\n
3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Keep the team as small as possible.\u00a0 Having been on several of these mega-projects they seem to grow magically.\u00a0 People are attracted to the project like moths to a flame.\u00a0 But be careful in that all of these people need to be managed and if left to their own devices they can be much more trouble than they are worth (more on this later).\u00a0 You need to make sure that have the proper skills and technologies represented and some good systems thinkers who can see the “big picture” we talked about last time.\u00a0 Even on an effort that could grow into a billion dollar program starting off with 8-12 really good people is much better than starting off with hundreds of confused or clueless people.\u00a0 Be careful of people who are just there to stake out turf for later phases of the project.\u00a0 They can sabotage your project (intentionally or unintentionally).<\/p>\n
4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Don’t bring on the design engineers too soon.\u00a0 One of the worst things you can do in the early phases of a project is to bring on a bunch of detailed design engineers and then not give them clear direction and close supervision.\u00a0 What will these bright and motivated folks do in a situation like this?\u00a0 They will deign something.\u00a0 Even if they don’t really understand what the problem is and even if they don’t have any requirements they will start designing something.\u00a0 It is kind of like going to the symphony where there is no score and each musician just plays their favorite piece as loud as they can.\u00a0 I don’t know about you but this isn’t something I want to go hear.<\/p>\n