Table Of Contentfll ." j t'l _
Training to Enhance Design Team Performance:
A Cure for Tunnel Vision
James W. Parker
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Marshall Space Flight Center,
Huntsville, Alabama, USA. Emaih ,[ames.Parker@m_f¢,nosa._ov
ABSTRACT design organization(s) identify all unique en-
gineering disciplines/functions present in the
Design Team performance is a function of the organization, identify the prominent expert in
quality and degree of academic training and that discipline, and task each to develop and
the cumulative, learned experience of the indi- deliver an awareness Minicourse for each dis-
vidual members of the team. [1] Teamwork, cipline. The remainder of this paper will ex-
leadership, and communications certainly are plain an approach taken at the Marshall Space
factors that affect the measure of the perform- Flight Center (MSFC) in the design, develop-
ance of the team, [2] but they are not addressed ment, and delivery of a Pilot program that has
here. This paper focuses on accelerating the now been delivered four times.
learned experience of team members and de-
scribes an organizational approach that can This undertaking is a joint NASA Headquar-
significantly increase the effective experience ters and MSFC effort. Other NASA Centers
level for any engineering design team. The are initiating their participation in this NASA
performance measure of the whole team c_anbe Engineering Training (NET) initiative.
increased by increasing the engineering disci-
plines' cross awareness of each other and by Keywords: Team Performance; Learned Ex-
familiarizing them with their affect at the sys- perience; Curriculum; Engineering Disci-
tem level. Discipline engineers know their plines; System Level; Minicourses
own discipline well, but typically are not inti-
mately familiar with their technical interaction
with and dependencies on all the other disci-
1. INTRODUCTION
plines of engineering. These dependencies are
design integration functions and are worked
out well by the discipline engineers as long as In this paper the design, development, and de-
they are involved in the design of types of livery of the curriculum for an initiative titled
systems that they have experience with. the Comprehensive Systems Skills Initiative
(CSSI) will be described. The motivation for
This approach can be accomplished by an or-
the development of this curriculum comes
ganizational shared vision and effort, and
from the realization of a flaw in the experience
through a focused training curriculum whose
lifecycle of engineers, lead systems engineers,
design, development, and delivery is centered
and program managers, regardless of their af-
around increasing the awareness of each of the
filiation. Whenever a college graduate engi-
engineering discipline's sensitivities to each neer is hired, he or she is of an academic, or
other and to their sensitivities to decisions
textbook, culture. Most engineering organiza-
made at the system level. This requires that the
tions hire graduate engineers of a specific aca-
demicdegreetostaff upaparticularengineer- least,moreaware.Hereinlies the flaw men-
ingdiscipline,orjob description.Collegesand tionedearlierregardingthe"experiencelifecy-
universitiestypically do not offer degreesin cle(Figure1)."
thenarrowspecializationsofmostindustryand
governmentorganizationsthatbuild one-of-a- Learned experience, through specialized
kind or highly specializedproductfunctions. training like we aretalking aboutabovewill
Therefore,anewhireis placedin aparticular certainlyimprovetheperformanceof anindi-
disciplinewithin anorganizationandremains vidual andconsequentlytheoverall perform-
there, usually, for a considerableperiod of
anceofa_
time performingthatfunction.Therearetwo
,_.]Diagramomittedtosave
basicscenarios.Thefirst is thattheengineer
"acquires experience" over time asvarious Fit [ bandwidth
projectsare completed,andafter numerous
projectshavebeencompletedthe engineeris
thoughtof as"highly experienced,"butusually 2. DESIGN OF THE CURRICULUM
in a narrowbandof thedisciplinesof design.
Theotherscenariois where,aftermuchexpe-
The design of the curriculum for the CSSI was
riencehasbeengained,the engineeris ele-
undertaken by key individuals from each of the
vatedto a leadsystemengineeror maybea
four engineering and product line Directorates
program/projectmanagerw, heremuchbroader
at the MSFC. This team of approximately
experienceis acquiredasprojectresponsibili-
twenty members met for two full days, deter-
ties comeandgo. However,this engineeris
mined the vision for the course curriculum,
still anexperienceddisciplineengineerturned
decided on an approach to take, and arrived at
manager.Thetruth isthatourdisciplineengi-
a shopping list of things to be achieved by the
neers,wheneverplacedonaprogramthatre-
curriculum.
quiresanunfamiliar subsetof thedisciplines
of engineering,maybe unawareof thetraps
To enable the students to compare and contrast
waiting.The pointis,all newdisciplineengi-
easily the differences between and among the
neerscanbegiventrainingatthebeginningof
various disciplines, the overall strategy was to
theircareersthatwill makethemawareof all
develop, standardize, and use a common tem-
engineeringdisciplinesin the company,how
plate for the Minicourses. The template pro-
they generally dependon eachother, what
vides a list of course topics to be covered by
tradesandanalysesmustbedone,manyles-
each Minicourse designer and Instructor. The
sonsalreadylearned,andhowexperiencedex-
Instructors template follows:
pertsgoaboutdoingtheirjobs.
Thevisionforthecurriculumisthat"overtime
1. Provide a definition, using the local
it will evolve the engineeringcultureto one
context of the MSFC, for the disci-
with amoreefficientdesignprocess"andlead
pline(s) that you are covering.
tofewerprogramcancellations,lessschedule
2. Identify the points within the project's
slips,andfewercostoverruns. Theultimate
lifecycle where your discipline typically
targetistoincreaseCenterwin-rates.
does, or should, get involved.
3. Identify common trades and analyses
A largepercentageof theissuesanditemdis-
that you typically do and correlate each
crepanciesthat arefound at major reviews,
to when it should be performed in the
later in the developmentlifecycle, could be
project's lifecycle.
avoidedif thedesignteamparticipantswere,at
4. List inputs your discipline typically Inherent in the design of this curriculum is the
needs from other engineering disci- utilization of a prominent expert in each engi-
plines,andatthesystemlevel. neering discipline as the Minicourse designer
5. List outputs that aretypically required and instructor. Also, to regain the discipline
of you, by the other engineeringdisci- experience lost to retirement, instructors are
plines,andatthesystemlevel authorized to retain an MSFC retiree to sup-
6. Discussyour discipline's involvement port them and deliver a Minicourse on Lessons
in current and past projects, and les- Learned. This is a huge success with the par-
sonslearned,etc. ticipants.
7. Discussyour discipline's keyinterfaces
and identify when they should betied The use of current and retired discipline ex-
downin thelifecyclephases. perts in the delivery of the curriculum topics
8. Discusstypical trade-offs required be- teaches the existing engineering culture of the
tweenthis and other, applicable disci- organization and the Minicourses are being
plines(intra & inter). used back at the instructors office in the train-
9. Identify key technologiesthat are typi- ing of all discipline staff and new hires. Since
callyinvolved in this discipline (off the this class was designed to bring about more
shelf, new technology,developmentof systems awareness, facilitation of each class
technology,technologyroadmaps). by an experienced systems oriented engineer
10. Provide Rules of Thumb usedin your keeps the class moving and allows the maxi-
area (experience driven, instinct mum potential to be achieved. Rotating this
driven). function between organizations results in a
11. Identify the "Lessons Learned" in your further training mechanism for senior systems
discipline (cover management and responsibilities. It is recommended that facili-
technical lessons learned). tating at least twice allows another potential
12. If you were "King For a Day" what source of lessons learned that can be factored
improvements would you make that into the curriculum and a curriculum czar is
would increase the engineering effi- recommended to assure continuity with the
ciency at MSFC? original goals and continuous tracking of the
organization's evolution.
Additional guidelines given the instructors
were:
A library containing current topics in engi-
Attempt to increase the awareness of all neering is growing rapidly and the Agency's
other engineering disciplines, engineering "Great Books" program is very popular. Par-
management, and program managers of ticipants in the CSSI are allowed an engineer-
your discipline's definition and associated ing textbook of their choice after participating
needs in the class and each participant is allowed to
order another book on a quarterly basis.
Attempt to educate the participant about
your discipline's sensitivity to system level
constraints and trades 3. RESULTS AND FEEDBACK
Provide as many examples of "Lessons On Delivery of the Curriculum:
Learned" as is possible (include retirees if
desired) Training of this magnitude is a major invest-
ment of the participants time and in the case of
theMSFC courseoffering, it takessix weeks
at a rate of threehalf-daysper weekto get
through the MSFC sponsoredportion. This,
howeveris asmallpricetopayfor theunder-
4. CONCLUSIONS
standing,at an awarenesslevel, of theengi-
neeringdesigncapabilitiesoftheentireCenter.
The development of the CSSI around the
Each class completed specially designed shared vision for the Center has made the
evaluationforms, andthe feedbackhasbeen Center an ideal learning organization [5] that
usedtostreamlinethecurriculum.Participants improves with each offering. The CSSI has
seemextremelyinterestedin helpingwith the been referred to as an engineering process
program andare generousin offering their "brillo pad" because when NASA teaches it-
feedback. self and experts teach experts significant class
interactions occur. These are interactions that
The ideal delivery frequencywill vary from improve ones understanding and awareness.
onegovernmentor industryengineeringorga- Instructors get a lot of valuable feedback that
nizationto thenext.However,atMSFC,after causes them to go back and rethink their men-
fourdeliveriesoftheprogramitseemsthatthe tal models of their process; and, in some cases,
abovedelivery frequencyis matchedto our instructors have been known to implement
day-to-dayresponsibilitiesandproventoreach changes due to this.
thetargetaudience.
Before undertaking the development of a REFERENCES
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