An Enabling Foundation for NASA's Earth and Space Science Missions (2010) / Chapter Skim
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4 Maximizing Program Effectiveness Through Strategic Management
4 Maximizing Program Effectiveness Through Strategic Management
Pages 39-46
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From page 39... ...
Each manager has a plan, but these plans are neither clear to outside researchers and policy makers nor openly articulated and advocated by SMD's senior management. Open, explicit articulation of mission-enabling priorities will lead to a more relevant SMD program that can also be more readily understood, adjusted in response to community input or new technical developments, and defended.
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From page 40... ...
HIGH-RISK/HIGH-PAYOFF RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT The committee is convinced that, while most of the SMD mission-enabling research budget should be clearly directed at supporting specific goals of the various science divisions, NASA can benefit from separately funded and protected mission-enabling activities that pursue high-risk/high-payoff advanced technologies or other research activities that could produce game-changing results. This approach is consistent with the majority of successful R&D enterprises where some defensible fraction of resources is allocated to research activities for which there is not an immediate predictable benefit, but which can potentially be the basis for important solutions to future problems or which open up future opportunities.
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From page 41... ...
The assigned personnel are also uniquely qualified to understand the nuances of manag ing a portfolio of diverse, high-risk projects, which often do not lend themselves to precise definition or traditional project management methods. A second opportunity for benchmarking comes from using the National Academies' report Rising Above the Gathering Storm.2 Major ideas encompassed in the report's recommendations include the following: • Approximately eight percent of a government entity's S&T budget should be allocated to high-risk, highpayoff research.
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From page 42... ...
As noted above, some high-risk/high-payoff research is inherently cross-disciplinary or will include technology developments that have the potential to benefit more than one SMD science division. An important consideration is whether critical mass on such research investments can be achieved with relatively limited funding in each discipline as opposed to an aggregated sum serving all disciplines under dedicated management through the SMD chief scientist or some other office.
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From page 43... ...
5 The NRC report Steps to Facilitate Principal-Investigator-Led Earth Science Missions (The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2004) concluded that "The Earth science community, particularly the university-based community, has historically produced only a small number of scientists with the in-depth space engineering and technical management experience that is required to lead a project in a PI mode of operation" (p.
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From page 44... ...
, • Programs specifically aimed at training and retention of early-career people internships at NASA centers, graduate fellowships, early-career awards, Jet Propulsion Laboratory strategic partnerships, and support of the suborbital program, • Strategies to enhance workforce diversity, • Retraining programs, • Selection criteria for proposals in some programs that could formally include workforce considerations (e.g., training of students) , and • Encouraging development of critical-mass research groups in NASA centers or universities and other research centersin many cases, these groups will have unique capabilities (building spacecraft instrumentation,
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From page 45... ...
. Incentives could include special programs or funding vehicles for research groups (e.g., block grants)
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