|
Items in cart [0] |
Questions? Call 888-624-8373 |
| ||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2009. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 131
DINNER SPEECH
OCR for page 132
OCR for page 133
The Most Important Lessons You Didn't
Learn in Engineering School
WILLIAM F. B ALEHAUS, JR.
Aerospace Corporation
Los Angeles, California
Before I begin my comments, I want to show a brief video to set the stage.
As leaders in your field, you are expected to make very tough decisions. I'd like
you to watch this, and put yourself in the shoes of the characters.
Summary of "Challenger" Video
The clip opens several months prior to the Challenger disaster in the cafeteria
of Morton Thiokol Inc., where Roger, an engineer with the company, discusses
with his manager his concern about a potential problem with hardware aboard
the rocket that carries the space shuttle into orbit. Previous launches have
revealed that outside air temperatures below 53 degrees can damage the pri-
mary O rings, impacting the way they seal and resulting in massive hot gas
blow-by. Roger has submitted a memo to his Thiokol management expressing
his concern about the sealing problem, saying that failure of an O-ring seal
could cause a "catastrophe of the highest order."
Months later, on the evening before the Challenger launch, the O-ring issue
becomes the central topic of debate during a teleconference between the engi-
neering team at Morton Thiokol and NASA teams at Marshall Space Flight
Center and Kennedy Space Center. The forecast calls for temperatures well
below 50 degrees during the launch window, and Morton Thiokol has recom-
mended that the launch be postponed until temperatures rise above 53 degrees.
Realizing that the launch could be postponed for months, a NASA manager
questions the timing of the announcement and the data that support it. Roger
makes a final plea, arguing that allowing Challenger to launch with what engi-
neers have observed during previous flights would be "an act away from good-
133
OCR for page 134
34
FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
ness. " Although frustrated and angry, NASA management is willing to follow
Thiokol's recommendations, but "We've got to make a decision here, and it's
got to be based on quantifiable data, " the NASA manager insists. Under pres-
sure, the Morton Thiokol team goes online to discuss a final recommendation.
04 line, Roger stands by his opinion that it is better to play it safe and not
recommend that the launch proceed. Thiokol managers in the room are more
concerned about embarrassment to the company because of the manner in which
the issue was raised to NASA. Ultimately, the decision is left to Roger's man-
ager, who reconnects to the NASA teleconference and recommends that NASA
go through with the Challenger launch.
This video gives us some specific lessons on the Challenger accident. It
illustrates the importance of people, technical and management judgments, vali-
dated processes, personal and organizational accountability, effective communi-
cation, and a focus on quality and mission success.
I personally learned a great deal from the Challenger accident. Although I
was not in the shuttle program chain of command, at the time of the accident I
was director of NASA's Ames Research Center; during the return-to-flight ef-
fort, I was at NASA headquarters as associate administrator for aeronautics and
space technology. Most of you are 30-45 years old. The Challenger accident
occurred on my forty-first birthday.
I would like to broaden the discussion and share with you the "Most Impor-
tant Lessons You Didn't Learn in Engineering School," lessons I have learned
during my 35 years in engineering and engineering management. Some of the
lessons were easy to learn; others were brutally painful. Some of you may have
your own lists. As current and future leaders, I hope you learn from the mistakes
of others and apply the lessons learned in your own careers.
1. Learn from the mistakes of others, and never make the same mistake
twice.
· Learn from mistakes, your own and those made by others. Don't repeat
either. When there is a failure, anomaly, or out-of-family condition, it's impor-
tant to follow a process. First, find the root cause. Second, develop and imple-
ment corrective action. Third, share the lessons learned. Fourth, revise pro-
cesses to prevent repeating the mistake.
· An organization's processes and practices are usually the result of les-
sons learned from corrective actions developed in response to past anomalies
and failures. Processes are designed to yield predictable, repeatable results and
eliminate the reliance on heroic actions to avoid failure.
· General Electric Corporation, which recognizes the importance of
learning from mistakes, instituted the practice of putting high-potential
OCR for page 135
THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS YOU DIDN'T LEARN IN ENGINEERING SCHOOL 135
people on audit teams early in their careers so they could learn from mistakes
made by business unit managers. In that way, GE hoped these high-potential
people would avoid making the same mistakes when they became general
managers.
· I have found that organizations often are not as good at inventing new
mistakes as they are at repeating the old ones.
2. Focus on mission success.
· What is mission success? Quite simply, it is making sure that your prod-
uct whatever it is works as intended. A focus on mission success is espe-
cially critical in high-consequence businesses (e.g., space, nuclear, homeland
security, etch. These are "one strike and you're out" businesses in which "fail-
ure is not an option."
.
In any project, you must manage cost, schedule, performance, and risk.
If the first three are fixed, as they were for the NASA Mars missions that failed
in the l990s, then the only relief valve available to a program manager is risk. In
such a case, the probability of failure increases.
.
Do you understand what the risk tolerance is in your business? How
many of you have risk-management plans that specifically address your area of
responsibility? In program management, you need a risk-management plan that
considers the probability, consequences, and difficulty of managing each of the
risks you have identified. You should monitor progress in retiring risk as the
program progresses.
.
Experience in the space business shows that if quality and schedule are
managed well, good cost performance results. If you manage only to cost, expe-
rience shows numerous examples of program execution failures.
.
Trade-offs on schedule, cost, and technical risk must be made at a high
level in the management chain. In my business, the failure of a two-cent part can
cause the loss of a billion-dollar mission. You don't want lower management
levels controlling cost and schedule by increasing risk.
.
Remember that, in spite of our best efforts, humans will make mistakes.
We design our systems to be robust and fault-tolerant and attempt to eliminate
single-point failures. We should also make sure that processes are human-error
tolerant.
· Develop a motto of "no surprises" by staying on top of details through an
effective review process. Stress early problem identification and the timely,
aggressive application of remedial measures. Create an environment that is
conducive to the reporting of problems. Sam Goldwyn, the late move mogul of
MOM, said, "I don't want 'yes' men around me. I want people to tell me the
truth, even if it costs them their job." We want people with moral courage, but
we don't want the type of environment that shoots the messenger.
OCR for page 136
136
FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
3. Put the right people in the right positions and hold them accountable
for accomplishing agreed-upon goals.
· People are the key ingredients in any successful organization. Make sure
they have the right skills, motivation, and experience, and then give them the
authority and accountability to get the job done.
· I cannot overemphasize the importance of individual and organizational
accountability. The reason for mission failures are very often that the people we
relied on failed to do properly what we were relying on them to do. Make sure
accountability flows down to those who are doing the work.
· With human beings, you generally get the behavior that you incentivize,
so pay attention to the incentives you put in place. People need to be tied
directly to agreed-upon goals that will lead to success; otherwise you get the
wrong behavior, and that can have unintended consequences.
4. Communicate effectively.
· An outstanding technical perspective is worthless without effective
communication whether you are communicating research results, managing
a project, or trying to influence NASA management the night before a launch.
· I have heard papers presented at conferences where you know the person
has spent years doing excellent work, but only 10 minutes preparing the presen-
tation of the work. They are often surprised that others don't immediately see
the value and cleverness of their accomplishment.
.
Also, as we learned from the video, an organization must be sure that
lines of communication are in place that allow important information to get to
decision makers. Effective communication doesn't just happen in the lunch
room by chance.
You must communicate in a way that your audience can receive the
message. We live in a sound-bite world, so you must be crisp and to the point.
· Engineers are developing systems solutions to meet the needs of modern
society. Hence, they must be able to communicate with a wide variety of stake-
holders with diverse interests (e.g., economic, sociological, environmental, medi-
cal, political, military, etc.~. You must know your audience and their interests
and backgrounds.
· It's interesting to note that very few members of Congress have technical
degrees. You may have heard about a congressman who asked a former NASA
administrator, "Why do we need meteorological satellites when we have the
Weather Channel?" Where did he think the weather pictures and data came from?
.
5. Optimism is admirable but Shape is not a strategy.
· When faced with seemingly unmanageable challenges, hoping those chal-
lenges will vanish is not a viable strategy. Always face reality, develop effective
strategies and plans, and manage your way through the crisis.
OCR for page 137
THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS YOU DIDN'T LEARN IN ENGINEERING SCHOOL 137
· After the Berlin Wall came down
.
in 1989, Department of Defense pro-
curement budgets also came down, by 70 percent over several years. Hoping
that defense budgets would go back up was not a viable strategy. Defense
contractors struggled to develop strategies that would enable them to continue to
grow, or at least survive. At that time, the CEO of Lockheed approached the
CEO of Martin Marietta. Not surprisingly, both had already considered a poten-
tial merger as part of their internal strategic planning processes. They recog-
nized an opportunity to expand their business bases, eliminate excess capacity,
and increase shareholder value. Of the many major defense contractors at the
beginning of the 1990s, only a handful managed to survive and prosper.
· Timing is everything. I joined the defense industry five months before
the Berlin Wall came down and ended up going through four major mergers and
acquisitions. I learned a great deal from leading transition teams and participat-
ing in the development of today's Lockheed Martin Corporation.
.
The bottom line is that you must think creatively, be ready for changes,
and work harder than the other guy. I'm reminded of something James Lofton,
the great NFL receiver, said when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of
Fame. First let me tell you that he has a dry sense of humor. When he was asked
to reveal the "secrets" of his success, here's how he answered. "One trick is to
work harder than the other guy. The second trick, always hustle. Third trick,
study and know what you're doing. Fourth trick, always be prepared. Fifth,
never give up. Those are my tricks."
.
University.
Incidentally, Lofton has a degree in industrial engineering from Stanford
6. Be accountable for delivering continuously increasing value to your
customers.
· Customers are those whom you are in business to serve, however you
earn your living. I once mentioned to a friend of mine, Ed Crawley, who was
head of the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at MIT, that I had eaten
dinner earlier in the week with his "boss," the MIT president. Ed told me I
didn't understand. He was a tenured MIT professor, he said, and so didn't have
a boss. Ed may not have a boss, but I know that Ed knows who his customers
are (his students and research-funding sources), and he works very hard to bring
value to them.
· Identify your customers' needs, and assume accountability for meeting
those needs. Provide your customer with single-point accountability whenever
possible.
.
It- you want to test the value of a person or organization, ask what they
are accountable for. If they cannot state the answer crisply, if there is confusion,
the next obvious question is, "if you aren't clear about what you are accountable
for, then what value do you add?" This was on my mind constantly during the
massive downsizing in the aerospace business during the 1990s when we really
OCR for page 138
138
FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
had to focus on the value-to-cost ratio in determining which organizations and
people to retain.
· Personally, I've always tried to identify my customers. Earlier in my
career when I was doing "useful" (i.e., nonmanagement) work I developed
computational fluid dynamic algorithms and codes for use in airplane design.
My primary customers were aircraft designers who were using wind tunnels and
linear analyses but needed a more cost-effective way to get better designs. My
other "customers" were the people at NASA headquarters who sponsored my
research.
· Incidentally, years later when I was briefed into the program I found
out that the tools we developed were used extensively in the design of the B-2
Stealth Bomber. You can also see what we did on a program called "HiMAT" in
an interview on display at an exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum in
Washington, D.C.
7. Make decisions based on "integrity to the business."
· High standards of personal integrity and ethical behavior are fundamen-
tal. If you ever get caught in a lie, you are finished because it breaks the bonds
of trust. I won't do business with you again if you lie to me. But I am talking
about something different here. Follow "principles-based decision-making" in
business. Decisions should be made based on the value structure of the organi-
zation. As a leader, you must define your organization's value structure and get
consensus around those values.
· Take, for example, the Tylenol tampering incident. In 1982, bottles of
Tylenol that had been tampered with appeared on store shelves. Cyanide in-
jected into the pills led to seven deaths. The CEO of Johnson & Johnson was
faced with a dilemma.
· You would imagine that in such a situation your attorneys would advise
you not to recall all of the product because the shareholders would sue because
of the impact on shareholder value.
.
Your marketing director would probably advise you to recall all of the
product or risk permanent damage to the brand image.
· The resolution was based on J & J's core values they are in the business
of healing. The CEO decided to recall the product, taking full responsibility,
and thereby regaining public trust in the company and product. Any other ap-
proach would have violated the integrity of the business.
8. Set a tone of speed and agility.
· Time equals money. For a commercial business, the price point and time
to market are key factors. Everything you do takes time away from other things
you could be doing. So place a high value on your time, parallel process when
OCR for page 139
THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS YOU DIDN'T LEARN IN ENGINEERING SCHOOL 139
you can to make the most effective use of your time, and don't let problems
fester. Take decisive action to fix things promptly. Your example will set the
tone for the rest of the organization.
9. Volunteer to take on tough and important assignments that address
your organization's top problems.
.
When you are a manager fully accountable for meeting aggressive objec-
tives, whom are you going to select for key positions in your organization? Most
likely, you will select people who have demonstrated they can deliver by taking
on important and challenging problems and succeeding. That is often how people
in senior management got there.
.
Problem selection is one of the most important qualities of a successful
researcher. Each project should serve the stakeholder's needs and should be
visible. Ask yourself what the benefits will be if you are 100 percent successful
in solving a problem. Can the problem be solved in a reasonable amount of
time? Is it time to move to new areas where you can add greater value?
· Professional societies provide a low-risk environment for developing and
demonstrating leadership skills and potential. They also help you develop a
network of contacts with peers and senior people outside your organization.
Learn from observing successful leaders in business, government, and academia.
10. Expand your knowledge and become learning-agile.
· The more experience you have and the more you are able to learn quickly,
the more effective you can be in solving tough problems. And your knowledge
base must extend beyond engineering, because developing appropriate system
solutions to society' s problems often requires cross-disciplinary technical knowl-
edge, business expertise, and political and social awareness. The higher you go,
the broader the knowledge base required. Knowledge you gain today may not be
relevant to your current job, but it can prepare you for more senior positions in
the future.
.
Consider lifelong learning as a professional obligation.
Summary of Lessons Learned
· So there you have it, 35 years of experience delivered to you in slightly
more than 35 minutes. I hope you will think about these lessons and incorporate
them into your working environment. Also, I encourage you to develop your
own lessons as you progress through your careers.
· I conclude with a video that demonstrates how your engineering talents
and enthusiasm for your job can benefit both you personally and society as a
whole.
OCR for page 140
140
FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
Summary of "School 2" Video
Demonstrative little Bobby proudly tells his class that someday he wants to be an
engineer. When asked why by his teacher, Bobby excitedly paints a picture of
the futuristic and humanistic high-tech world he will help create with "power
plants, robots that can think, and leaning trains" that usher people here and
there quickly and efficiently. Grabbing the class's imagination with his growing
enthusiasm, Bobby reveals that he will create "advanced technologies that will
reduce pollution and save the world!" The class erupts in cheers.
.
When I first saw this video it struck me as capturing why many of us
became engineers. Personally, I'm excited about going to work every day just
like this young man.
· The video is actually a commercial by the ABB Group of Companies, but
I think you'll agree it makes a very positive statement to the general public about
the excitement of engineering and the contributions we make to society.
· Engineering has brought outstanding benefits to our society in the last
century (as illustrated in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) publica-
tion, The Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century).
· In your discussions tomorrow, I'd like you to ask yourself two questions.
What can we do to improve the public's perception of engineering? What can
we do to enhance the technical literacy of the general population?
Representative terms from entire chapter:
mission success
