Continuous Improvement of NASA's Innovation Ecosystem Proceedings of a Workshop (2019) / Chapter Skim
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6 The Path Forward
6 The Path Forward
Pages 62-66
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From page 62... ...
There's a surplus of ideas." So it is important to clear out the bad rojects p so better ones can take their place. A participant noted that the difficulty in killing bad projects makes it particularly important to have a pipeline of good ideas waiting in the wings. "Generating enough back pressure in the system so that it makes those decisions easier is absolutely critical." If there is a steady stream of "great ideas that make the team salivate that they want to work on the next thing," then that makes it much easier to give up that "pet project or the sacred project for the organization." 62
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From page 63... ...
"I don't think we have wide acknowledgment of that yet," he said, "but we've at least opened up that conversation and can start making it more explicit." As a historical note, Teresa Kline, a senior technical project manager at NASA, told a story about the origins of "failure is not an option." She had the opportunity a few years ago to sit down with Gene Kranz, who is widely credited with originating the line, but he told her that he had never actually said it. His character in the movie Apollo 13, who is played by Ed Harris, did say "failure is not an option" in one of the most dramatic scenes in the movie, but those were the words of the screenwriters.
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From page 64... ...
The leadership actually does a lot of formal training in things like program management, mentoring, and developing talent, he said, but it does relatively little in areas like design thinking and strategic planning, which he believes are things they could talk about. He also suggested that perhaps this could become part of a formal training module that leaders at NASA receive.
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From page 65... ...
"A lot of discussion panels talked about providing innovators with tools, whether it's through innovation awards or providing the right kinds of challenging hands-on learning projects for early-career folks," he said. "I think we can do better, not just at consolidating the efforts we have in that arena, maybe providing a little more funding for that, but also in providing more recognition for innovation and rewarding that." A couple of years back, he said, there was an agency innovation award, and it was a big success.
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