A KM Story: Robust Information Re-Use Launches Mission Success

A KM Story:Robust Information Re-Use Launches Mission Success KM World 2009 San Jose, CA November 18, 2009 Jayne Dutra jayne.dutra@verizon.net

Meet Joe, the Cognizant Engineer Goal: Lead a flight project team that will design a robust propulsion system for the Mars Return Mission. Task: To work with his team to design a propulsion system that will successfully fly a mission to Mars. Background: Joe was mainly schooled the old fashioned way, doing drawings with paper and pencil, but has been using electronic CAD programs and engineering systems software for the last 9 years. • Joe has been an engineer at NASA for 20 years • His last two missions were for Earth-orbiting satellites • He has just been assigned a mission to Mars • He worked on a Mars mission 6 years ago and wants to re-use a design from this past job

Joe Begins Work I can’t wait to start on a planetary mission, and Mars too, my old friend! I wonder if I can find any materials from the Mars Teleorbiter mission I worked on six years ago. While my team begins their design studies, I’ll do some research. No use repeating designs that didn’t work the first time! Joe needs to look up materials from work he has done in the past in order to jump start his team’s design studies.

Looking for Information from Past Missions I remember having some issues on the last propulsion system we designed, but I can’t quite recall the details. I think we were still using the old Failure Reporting system back then. I’ll check there first. Problem Reporting System Joe decides to check the Problem Failure Reporting application, a legacy system.

Unreliable Search Terms Mmm.... what did we call that last mission? It had several acronyms, MTO, MO, but maybe there others .... Gee, only 5 failure reports turned up from my search. I know there were more than that. Where else could they be? Problem Reporting System Joe tries to remember the acronyms that were used on the past mission for his search. He has no way of knowing if he tested them all. He is disappointed with the results. He decides to try the electronic library system.

Searching for Archived Materials Oh no! The library I need has disappeared! I guess all that material is gone. I know I did a Worst Case Radiation Analysis that would be really helpful for the team. I bet they printed it out and stored it in a warehouse somewhere. I wonder who I would contact to find that stuff ?? Joe’s project library has been archived and was stored somewhere physically off lab. He cannot access it electronically. He goes to the Engineering Data system next.

Permission Barriers to Information Retrieval Rats! My access permissions for that mission have expired so I can’t look at the Engineering Change Requests even though I wrote them! I also wanted to look at some of the CAD drawings and schematics. Mmm... who was the CM on that project? Maybe he still has permissions... Joe cannot access relevant content because his access permissions have expired. He decides to try calling some colleagues.

Accessing the Social Network Hi Bill, do you remember the Mars Teleorbiter mission we worked on together 6 years ago? Any idea where the Test Failure Reports might be? . Gosh, Joe, I’m really not sure. Maybe when I get a break, I’ll try to figure it out. Joes speaks to his friend, Bill, who was the configuration management engineer on the previous Mars mission, but he is too busy to be of much help.

Exploring the Paper Trail Maybe I have something in my old Mars Teleorbiter mission binder that describes the problems we had last time and how we solved them. Oh darn, I remember now that our Safety Inspector made me ship all that material to the warehouse since it was considered a fire hazard.

Media Issues Impact Retrieval Electronic Document Information Management System Joes calls the Electronic Document Information Management System to see if they have anything relating to the Mars mission. Hello, Vellum Files? I am looking for the Final Build Data Package for the 2002 Mars Teleorbiter mission. Do you have it in your archives? Oh, it’s on microfiche? Could you scan the documents and send them to me in hard copy?

Partial Information is Misleading Mmmm..... I finally got the scanned documents, but I’ve lost two weeks and these reports are really hard to read since the scanning process didn’t work very well. I guess the first design was okay or I would find some reference to it. Joes receives scanned copies of the materials from the Electronic Document Information Management System, but they are difficult to read. He decides to include the original design as an option in his trade studies since he cannot find any reason not to re-use it.

The Outcome Joe decides to pursue his original design from the first Mars mission as one of the options to be developed by his team for the trade study period early in the mission’s life cycle, even though he cannot locate information objects from reviews or see all of the engineering quality control documents. As a result, Joe’s team spends a considerable amount of time and money before they realize that this approach is a blind alley with serious flaws.

A Different Scenario Let’s see what happens to Joe if he had had a robust, consistent KM information framework in place. Will there be a different outcome?

Joe Begins Work I can’t wait to start on a planetary mission, and Mars too, my old friend! I wonder if I can find any materials from the Mars Teleorbiter mission I worked on six years ago. While my team begins their design studies, I’ll do some research. No use repeating designs that didn’t work the first time! Joe needs to look up materials from work he has done in the past in order to jump start his team’s design studies.

Researching Past Missions Project Lift Off I remember having some issues on the last design we did for Mars, but I can’t quite recall the details. I’ll go to the project knowledge base to look for information about the first mission. I’ll look under Missions first. Joe goes to the Project Knowledge Base.

Looking for Archived Information Project Lift Off Mmm... what did we actually call that mission? Oh, here it is: Mars Teleorbiter. I want to look at the Quality Control Records to see if there is anything I should know before I start the trade studies. Joe finds his mission and looks for quality control records.

Tracking Terms and Systems Wow! I see results from the Failure Reporting System, the old PDM System and the Electronic Library. I didn’t realize the docs were scattered all over. But I sure am glad that someone archived the info and saved it. I also see returns tagged with MT and MTO. But the search found them all anyway. Lucky for me! Project Lift Off Mission acronyms and variant terms are stored in the taxonomy that underlies the search. The search catalog includes items from all project systems and archives.

Tracking Terms and Systems Oh, thank goodness, if I check under Content Type, I see the analyses we wrote last time. . . I can even cross reference the analyses by Subsystem and Project. They turned right up! I can’t believe how easily I found all this historical material. Project Liftoff Knowledge categories can be used together to narrow a search quickly depending on what details the user may have.

Using Context to Create Associations Wow, the objects are tagged by Mission Phase. I took a real beating at the Phase C review. I’ll bet there are Action Items in the Phase C Review Package. Wow, this is the presentation I gave 6 years ago. Look at all those RFA’s! That sponsor really zero’ed in on what was wrong with our design! Project Liftoff Joe’s memory is triggered by the search results. He knows that if he can find the RFA’s from the CDR, he can see why the review board was so critical of the design that was submitted and how his team fixed the problems.

Breadcrumb Trail to Knowledge Discovery Okay, here it is! I finally found what I need. These ECR closures describe exactly what we did to change the system. Turns out the sponsor was right. I was upset at the time, but it sure made sense to rethink the design. I wonder if anyone else tried this? Maybe they made modifications that would enhance the system even more. Project Liftoff The system finds information that helps Joe identify solutions. Now, he’s wondering if any other Cog E tried their ideas about propulsion.

Social Networking – SME Discovery I think I’ll look under Subject and see what documents are in the system. Now let’s add on the Organization filter so I can look by section. Hey, here are 7 documents written by Steve down the hall. Think I’ll visit Steve and see how his team did with this approach. Maybe they thought of something we missed. Project Liftoff The system helps Joe find peers who have done similar work. Now he can speak to them in real time and get the benefit of their experience.

Collaborating With the Team I’ll also post these documents to my team’s portal so we can all share the content. I wonder if any of the flight spare parts are around for re-use... Is the Flight Hardware Store in this system? Joe’s team will benefit from seeing the review and analysis from the first mission’s CDR. The system provides an RSS feed to automatically post the documents.

Meanwhile.... • Meet Sophie • Sophie is a younger member of Joe’s team. • This is her first big chance to be on a flight project team. I’m am so excited about this project! I know Joe said that he would do some research, but while I’m waiting, why don’t I see what I can find out on my own? Sophie goes to the Knowledge Base System.

Providing Intuitive Navigation for Different POVs Project Liftoff I’ll look under Competency first. Great! I see results under the terms Power Systems, Propulsion and Mechanical Systems. I can also cross reference System/Subsystem. Wow, here are review packages for all the Mars missions, and here’s Joe’s last Critical Design review. The taxonomy provides terms to assist Sophie in finding her way to the same information Joe found, but through a different route. Since she does not have the personal knowledge Joe does, this is a valuable aspect of the system.

Knowledge Discovery is Powerful! Project Liftoff Uh oh, I see by the review materials that Joe’s design for the previous mission was a bust. But wait a minute, here are the testing results from the QA phase of the mission. With a few changes, Joe’s team was able to make the first design work out. Wait til Joe sees this! Sophie finds information that helps the current team make design decisions to enable a more robust propulsion system.

Retrieving Information for Effective Re-use Hey, Joe, look at these documents and test results from your other Mars mission. We can use these to springboard our trade studies. Not only that, Sophie, but I also found out that Steve used a similar power system on the Mars Planet Orbiter mission, and his team modified our design to make it even more efficient! With this new information, we’ll have some good alternatives to show at the Preliminary Design Review. We better get busy!

What Was Different? KM Infrastructure components: • An archive for documents and information objects • A common corporate vocabulary (taxonomy) and metadata schema • A search tool that actively uses the taxonomy • Indexed content • A collaborative team environment that can handle agents and syndication • Knowledge navigation that encompassed the whole domain space • The ability for the user to browse for information without knowing an exact keyword

What Else Was Different? KM leveraged: • A knowledge vocabulary that drew heavily on the users’ processes and experience • Items from multiple repositories unified by language that the engineers found intuitive with variant terms mapped • A knowledge vocabulary that embedded the corporate memory over time in IT tools A Consistent KM Information Architecture gets the job done!

Thanks For Your Time! • Jayne Dutra • jayne.dutra@verizon.net

A KM Story: Robust Information Re-Use Launches Mission Success