1. Retaining Critical Skills & Knowledge at the end of a Project Life Cycle
James G. LaRocque
SQ&MA Director
Logistics & Material
United Space Alliance
2/19/08
Copyright © 2008 by United Space Alliance, LLC. These materials are sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Contract NAS and Contract NNJ06VA01C. The U.S. Government retains a paid-up, nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in such materials to reproduce, prepare, derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the U.S. Government. All other rights are reserved by the copyright owner.

2. End of a Project Life Cycle
The Space Shuttle Project is currently scheduled to end in 2010, which presents challenges in the project life cycle

3. End of a Project Life Cycle - Strategy
Benchmarked companies to determine what can be done to address out End of Project issues:
Retention
Knowledge Capture

4. Retention Strategy New Business Understand why people stay and leave
Provide jobs for future
Understand why people stay and leave
Honest and open communication
Survey employees about specific job enhancements to provide the challenges and recognition they value most in the workplace
Incentives
Offer incentives for critical skill employees to stay to the end of the project

5. New Business Goal: Provide Jobs for the Future Constellation Projects
USA is partnered with other contractors
Other business opportunities

6. Understand Motivations
Goal: Understand why people stay/leave
Complete surveys to understand reasons people give for leaving
Conduct interviews to better understand what is truly important to our personnel
Have frequent and frank communications
Find the right mix - some personnel prefer to be challenged while other employees value security most
Stress specific job enhancements to address what management can do to provide the challenges and recognition employees value most in the workplace

7. Offer Incentives Goal: Offer Incentives
Provide a mix of praise and pay
Strive to provide the needed growth challenges internally
Provide an incentive package for critical skill employees
Offer a competitive severance plan to provide employees with security

8. Knowledge Capture Strategy
Goal: Retain and leverage knowledge to maintain sufficient technical depth to safely execute the remaining shuttle missions
Everyone “does” knowledge management, but they may not think about it in those terms
Knowledge Capture
Know who has what competency
Competency Management System
Ensure knowledge is being retained
Knowledge Management Databases

9. Knowledge Cycle Bodies of Knowledge
Ground Systems
Flight Systems
Functional Areas
Core Competences
Key Capabilities
Training/Certification, Skills, Processes & Products
Formal Training – Planning Tracking & Authorization
Mentoring & Skills Development
Informal Training
Skills Needed & Identified
Employ, Experience, Research & Develop
Gather Data & Information
Research Extraction
Analysis & “Lessons Learned”
Peer Reviews
Panel Reviews
Knowledge Transfer, Storage & Retrieval
Capture Methods & Tools
Search Technologies & Tools
Source Identification (Guru)
Storage Practices & Topologies

10. Competency Management System
Competency Management System (CMS)
Allows management to identify and assess individual competencies to continue safe operations, increase opportunities and ensure long-term viability of the company

11. Knowledge Management Database
In Engineer’s Files
In storage
In Ops Area Bookcases
Analyses
Calcs
Studies
Problems & Solutions
Company Knowledge
“Brain Books”
Data Reviews
Engineering Rationale
“In the Truck”
In Engineers’ computers (+ floppies in desk drawer) ?
“Lost, stolen, or strayed”
Tacit Knowledge
Gone

12. Knowledge Management Database
Capture knowledge and make it available to create, share, and act upon to:
Ensure Shuttle project flight safety and manifest supportability throughout the remaining life of the project
Provide pertinent knowledge for future projects
Reduce duplication of efforts due to capturing historical data from lessons learned / best practices
Reduce research time and effort (one-stop-shopping)
Access to previous experience, including best practices and lessons learned

13. Knowledge Management Database
Knowledge Management Library
Search it!
Taxonomy & Metadata Management
Scanned Content
Conceptual Classification
KM Librarian
Find it!
Validate Render Version Profile Assist
Re-Use it!
TIFF
HTML
Portal Staging
.rtf
COTS
COTS
.doc
Unstructured Content
Intelligent Content
XML
Trending Analysis
.xls
Company Taxonomy
Engineering - Orbiter - SRB SQ&MA - IFAs - Root Cause - C/RA
.pdf
Automated indexing
.ppt
Information Extraction
Personalize it!
Digital Media
.txt
Indexing & Categorization
Automate indexing & categorization enable accurate search, retrieval, and re-use of content across enterprise

14. Knowledge Management Database
Includes:
Analyses
Calculations
White papers
Assumptions
Detailed rationale
Discussions
Presentations
Brain books
Lessons learned,
Design approaches
Questionnaires
Interviews

15. Where is USA going from here?
Providing better search capabilities across informal and formal archives
Formalizing capture of information from potential retirees when identified
Improving the organization of the data
Exploring how to leverage the data
Shortening learning curves for replacement personnel by transferring knowledge from predecessors to new employees
Providing library of real-world “Design for Operations” information for use in Constellation