美国国家航空航天局的脚踏实地战略

NASA’s Down-To-EarthPrinciplesDeliver PositiveStrategicOutcomes Embrace SmartSimplicity The first of these principles is to stayfocused on what really matters and keepthings as simple as possible. This can bechallenging given that 90% of NASA’sprojects are managed via a complex “supplychain of thousands of organizations” and“international collaborators” around theworld, according to Edward Hoffman,academic director of the Master of Sciencein Information and Knowledge Strategyprogram at Columbia University andNASA’s former Chief Knowledge Officer.For this reason, NASA relies on the sciencecommunity to help simplify strategy designand implementation. Not every organization is preparing for future tripsto Mars or searching for planets well beyond oursolar system. But while theNational Aeronauticsand Space Administration (NASA)pursues theseand additional otherworldly ambitions, its approachto strategy delivery offers real-life lessons for allindustries. One way NASA accomplishes this is byconducting a decadal survey that asksrespondents to identify and prioritizethe agency’s strategic initiatives. Expertsfrom academia, think tanks and othergovernment agencies look out into thefuture and recommend key research areas.Directives may range from forming valuableinternational partnerships to conductinglarge-size missions on Earth surfacedeformation and change. Today NASA faces considerable challenges toimplement its strategy and achieve its mission.These include tight budgets, increasing competitionfrom venture-capital-funded startups and theall-important safety needs surrounding humanspaceflight. To address these challenges andcontinue to innovate, the government agency relieson several guiding principles. 90% of NASA’sprojects are managedvia a complex supplychain of thousandsof organizationsand internationalcollaborators aroundthe world. Photo:Mirror Assembly for the James Webb SpaceTelescope – Nov, 2016.Credit: NASA / Source: Wikipedia.org From there, NASA reviews and prioritizes projectsinto categories. These include: early stage programs,which research emerging technologies; technologymaturation programs, which test solutions in asimulated space environment; and technologydemonstration programs, which incorporate newtechnologies into an actual mission. These key performance metrics, includingtechnical performance, reliability andlifetime requirements, are designed tobe simple and easily understood acrossthe organization. An example of a lifetimerequirement may be that a craft mustoperate continuously for one year inspace. Or from a performance standpoint,a new technology must enhance systemperformance by 40%. The result is real-timetransparency into strategy execution. This“smart simplicity” helps enable NASA toquickly get at the core of an opportunity oremerging threat. Once a project begins, NASA applies a “rigorous”approach to measuring performance using“minimum success criteria,” says Stephen Jurczyk,associate administrator of NASA’s Space TechnologyMission Directorate, which manages and executesthe government agency’s space technologyprograms. A number of strategies help NASA build thiscritical talent pipeline. For one, NASA hasestablished a program management office ateach of its centers, where senior executivesuse sophisticated human capital managementprograms, such as data analytics, to takeinventory of the agency’s workforce capabilities.In the event of a skills shortage, NASA uses thisworkforce inventory to create the necessarycertification, training and career developmentprograms to increase the effectiveness of theagency’s talent pool. And in Washington, D.C.,NASA’s executive project management office(PMO) and chief engineer are able to monitorand support the program and to conduct periodicstudies of the agency’s overall skills strengths andweaknesses. 4Case StudyDedicate AndMobilize The RightResources Via APowerful Pipeline Successfully executing any high-priority strategicinitiative takes the right resources. That’s whyNASA maintains a steady pipeline of talent thatnot only satisfies current demand for skills butalso addresses workforce requirements years inadvance of a program. its Knowledge Services website is a powerfulonline resource that supports the agency’stechnical workforce with the knowledge andtraining required to deliver on NASA missions.Visitors can access career development toolsand materials, as well as share the differenttypes of knowledge needed to tackle the mostchallenging programs head-on. Courses andcurriculum span a broad range of subjects,while the site serves as a singular resource fortechnical knowledge. For example, Hoffman cites a period when aNASA PMO “identified that we didn’t have afuture pool of systems engineers” to overseeincreasingly complex missions. In response, theagency identified and selected nearly 50 high-potential employees from across the organizationand enrolled them in an intensive one-yearprogram that provides hands-on training toenhance