Rethinking Engineering Culture :: Data, Openness, Social

Much of the work we do at NASA is truly world-class and routinely we push the capabilities of science and engineering by leading the way. Lately, I’ve thought a lot about how we can push the envelope of our engineering work to improve how we build spacecraft at NASA Goddard, where I work.

But I find that often we are like the mad scientist who invents new technology that is going to change our lives, but can’t seem to find his wallet. It seems that we often cannot do some very practical, day-to-day activities to keep our “capability engine” well tuned, poised, and ready to strike at solving the next big problem.

I think there are tremendous opportunities for us at Goddard and more broadly across NASA to improve our process of the way we do engineering and to introduce some new tools that will substantially allow us to stop re-inventing the wheel and focus more on solving the titan challenges we face everyday.

There are three areas which I believe can tremendously help. They are the title of this article. I will dive into each of them below.

This post is cross posted from jonverve.posterous.com. Leave a comment here or on the original post.

1) respect for data

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I find that we are kings of silos. We have a separate, monolithic IT system for everything we do. This is not a unique approach — both industry and government weigh the options for tools to do our work, and often come to very different conclusions, depending on the schedule, manpower, and budget factors at play. But where I feel we fall short is that we do not think of our systems from a truely life-cycle perspective. What I mean is that we look at solving the engineering problem, but do not look at the larger implications of how we can keep our “capability engine” well tuned. We seem to see the data and information we work in on a daily basis no differently than a disposable ketchup wrapper — we feel it is simply for our pragmatic use to accomplish the engineering task for the day, but we forget that it has value in the knowledge in the larger organization. What if we were to actually treat the data and information more like an heirloom which we treated with care and made sure to give it a good home which others could benefit from down the road? I think this could have tremendous implications. I know this description is quite vague and is not any call for a particular way of doing things, but I do not believe I know enough to specify a call. I simply believe that that if we respected our data and information, and ultimately knowledge, that we would have a more long-term and wholistic view of the data and information we product as an effect of our day-to-day work as engineers, instead of treating it like dust under our feet.

2) culture of openness

“It’s very political” is a phrase I hear quite often at Goddard to describe when some process has slowed down to make its progress indiscernible. Unfortunately, I believe some get so caught up in the unavoidable politics, that they use that as an excuse to clamp down on advertising the good work they are doing. Perhaps they fear getting their funding taken away, or perhaps they feel they make be “discovered” by headquarters, or perhaps what they are doing may become institutionalized, potentially killing it. Whatever the reason, I believe some people have learned that the best way to operate is “under the radar.” What I believe this causes is a side-effect of paranoia, which gets in the way of our innocent nature of simply sharing by default. Certainly on a one or two person basis, most engineers at Goddard will give you a full run down of a situation. But in front of a group, their story slowly changes. I believe this politics is not unique to the government, but exists in any organization which comprises over 5 people. And I do not think we should try to eliminate it, its innate to the way any organization makes decisions when it has to weigh many factors.

But, I believe there is great potential to share information as I have laid out in the “Respect for Data” section previously. But if people have learned to fight their innate nature for openness, I believe that potential will never be realized. I think the solution is to short circuit the politics by incentivizing openness for our engineers at Goddard. How do we make openness so attractive that the alternative is outweighed 3-to-1? I do not have an answer, but I have a feeling that this process comes slowly with small wins.

3) social software

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The web has evolved tremendously in the last few years, more than anyone could have predicted — even those who followed the tremendous steps forward of the early web. What the web allows is a democratization of information, whether it be personal or business. Facebook, twitter, and other sites have raised the level at which we interact with each other on the web. I say “with each other” instead of “with a computer” because the fundamental shift in the last decade on the web is that it does not just enhance an old activity, it transforms the old mechanistic activity to a deeper personal connection with others. What this allows is a interaction with others that mirrors more the “in-person” interaction than previously possible. So instead of just sharing words over email, I can tie into imagery, and a fully threaded conversation with identity which now allows me to track the progress of a discussion or look back at pictures of friends from many years ago, as it is all now cataloged on the web. And of course these are very simple examples of very rich interactions that these technologies enable every day by thousands of organizations.

You may ask what this has to do with engineering process and work? Everything. I believe the social web has tremendous possibility to provide the incentive I mention above for openness. If you give people the mechanism to democratize an idea and level the playing field, I believe then a culture of openness can flourish, because our engineers will realize that as they give one piece of their valued engineering data, they get back many fold. Imagine for a moment, if every engineer at Goddard posted the top 5 equations, tools, or principles that guide the way they do their work. As unbelievable as this may be for ever happening, imagine if it did. Wouldn’t that be a huge resource for everyone else for insight into the way others did their work? I’m not trying to say that the complex engineering we do can be reduced down to a formula, but which I believe this type of thing would do is give everyone insight into each others’ work and jump start an openness revolution.

Now finally, imagine if we were to take the engineering processes that we perform to execute our design challenges and adapt them for the social web. Now imagine a system which at least partially self-documents in that the record of the WHY of our work and not just the WHAT is fully documented in threaded conversation. Now with some simple framework, we could start to categorize and organize this information and we would be able to start to grasp the emerging concepts of the next generation of engineering process, which does not exist in any textbook yet. (By WHY I mean, the reasoning behind a technical decision, and by WHAT I mean the technical decision itself. The WHY is often something that is very difficult to pick up from existing documentation, but is often the most important question, because that is what involves our engineering problem solving.)

what I looking for from you

I am writing these ideas down to try to get feedback from others who have one foot in engineering within the space community and the other within seeing the potential at the intersection of technology and culture. Please comment below. Forward this post to friends and colleagues you may think would be interested. My ultimate aim is to develop the “game changing” incentive for our engineers to open up about their innovative work and ideas and to consider adopting the use of a new tools which may transform the way we do our business of scientific discovery.

what am I up to?

I am an Information Architect and Software Engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. I work on engineering frameworks and am trying to develop new processes for our engineers to accomplish their work, innovate, and collaborate. You can read more information and see some of my talks here: http://opennasatools.pbworks.com/AETD-Wiki Much of the thought I have shared here is from my experience in this role.

related past openNASA posts

4 Responses to “Rethinking Engineering Culture :: Data, Openness, Social”

  1. kevinfisher  on March 14th, 2011

    Great thoughts, Jon! I think the hardest part of this is “changing the tires on the bus while it’s moving”. Projects are designed and optimized for the current environment, where none of the three improvements you describe exist. They plan to manage their data silos (and leverage nobody else’s), operate adeptly in the current “political environment”, and use the tools they know and have in-hand to get the job done. How do we introduce these new concepts without major disruption? (…or, with carefully designed major disruption, if that’s what’s needed.)

  2. jonverve  on March 15th, 2011

    Cross posted comments from jonverve.posterous.com

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    Jen Scheer responded
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    I especially see a need for social software. As an example as to how much this is needed, now that I am no longer working for a NASA contractor, I am still getting almost daily requests for information- many from people inside NASA looking for a contact person at another center. Due to my wide Twitter network, I usually know where to send them, and everyone finds the info they need and is happy. But stop for a moment to think about how absurd it is for NASA insiders to be contacting a former shuttle technician (read: peon) in order to get the information they need within NASA? Is this truly the best way to operate? If so, then NASA, please start paying me a salary!

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    3 days ago tlsenor responded
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    Not being an engineer, I can’t speak to the specifics of the technical challenges you’re addressing here, but what I can say is that the framework you lay out here is spot on for improving the way any “capability engine” functions. Excellent phrase by the way.

    We see a lot of the same problems in the intelligence community, particularly with silos and the one-time use of data. Information seems to be stored only on a project-by-project basis and then is forgotten. It handcuffs us, to put it lightly.

    You make an overall excellent point for how to improve your process, and build on existing knowledge to continue to solve newer, bigger problems. You’re right about openness and social software being key as well. Innovation is rarely created in a vaccuum, and today’s social media networks are the equivalent of the coffeehouses that spurred the growth of the Enlightenment in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Our generation understands this, but the trick is getting those who don’t readily do so to sign on.

    So yeah, the points you make here are spot on, and if universally adopted would definitely be game-changing. It’s easy to see how these three tenets are so very much connected with each other as well. Solid argument.

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    3 days ago jeffpiep responded
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    One problem is the lack of means to share information, which is what I think you were getting at by discussing silos. Silos on the positive side keep us from information overload. However, they do hamper information sharing. For example, I recently documented an analysis I did for my flight project and uploaded the memo and spreadsheet to the project library. If a co-worker on another project wants to see it, either she needs to get a UID for my project or I need to email it. I could go post it on my wiki page, but now it resides in two places, which creates a version control nightmare.

    I don’t see the a lack of openness within my organization. This difference points to the different cultures within the tribal enclaves of the super-culture. \

    Social media software presents an interesting dilemma. On one hand, email is almost a broken means of communication. The advantage is you can have a “private” conversation to keep the SNR high and you can push information to grab someone’s attention. On the other hand, much of the real email I do could and perhaps should be handled with a social media software like a facebook. The challenge is keeping a high SNR and attracting sufficient and appropriate attention. Here’s the challenge: high SNR requires a clear channel. The brute force way to create a clear channel is to use an information system silo. (Now we’re back to the beginning of the post.)

    There is a need to reduce the quantity of IT systems one uses to simplify workflow and facilitate sharing while maintaining proper control, attention, and quality of information.

  3. goddardemployee  on March 15th, 2011

    I commend your passion about the state of our information storage and I’d like to encourage you to keep flushing out your ideas and implement them as you have began successfully with the Goddard wiki. Your ideas are sound and achievable with some work…

    Data: In my 7 years @ NASA, I’ve seen that we treat data as a Nalgene water bottle. It’s a family member that goes everywhere with us (thanks to email storage), but if it falls off during a hike or gets broken, it’s probably served its purpose by then and we move on without it. Sure, it’s not an heirloom, but it’s better than the disposable ketchup wrapper, and we keep getting better …slowly as we ought! Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? Now what’s in it for us (non-passionate ones) to treat data as an heirloom? Easiest solution perhaps is to sell it to the leaders at the top. If they truly buy it and are passionate about it, it’ll snowball down to the rest of us either through incentives or mandatory action. Case closed. Grassroots requires a lot of time, effort, determination, and very tough skin, but is doable. An idea: developing an intelligent software app that can sort through our emails and transfer/archive and organize contents on the internal wiki by projects, so we don’t have to read through our email to remember the WHY since the wiki will already have it. Discussing it on a platform that most of your intended audience* do not read unless you email them about it :-) seems to be a difficult way to go about it as well, but perhaps I need a crisp understanding of how this blogging works.

    Openness: You are correct, openness seems guaranteed once we begin treating Data as an heirloom. But we’ll pass it down only to family members! Politics is here to stay, so working within its perimeters or around it (without catastrophe damage) is key. I can’t fathom any NASA leader that will be against internal openness of technical work. But putting it on Twitter or Facebook, etc. for say unfriendly yet competitive countries to access is frankly downright irresponsible.

    Social Software: I sure hope you mean internal social software. If yes, my comments above suffice. If not, read on: One does not need to have a real conversation with the successful entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley who use Facebook and Twitter successfully to see that it’s only a tool that aids their business. Would Tim Ferriss still be blogging if it didn’t help him sell books or test his “research”? There are many ways those tools aid NASA: particularly in the areas of public outreach and education. But you’d have to get mandatory action from those above me to get me to put up flight project work on the web! If you see no harm with it, perhaps we have a tete-a-tete and I’ll share my concerns with you and you can disprove them?

    No one’s against global interconnectedness, but it usefulness for any specific organization must be the selling point. Visiting Google in Mountain View, CA and trying to sell their culture to an agency within the US government is quite like applying the principles of 19th Century Impressionism to Modern Art. Unfortunately, I find a lot of NASA “Gen Y initiative” enablers doing that, when they frankly ought to be working for Google if they like their culture so much.

    *Now back to your intended audience? Who are they? Shouldn’t they be people at Goddard? Wouldn’t having a presentation at a Colloquium get you more of the feedback you need? Do most of the engineers who do the work @ Goddard read this? When you’re really to start the engine, I’m sure you’ll give a talk here at Goddard. We may not agree with everything you say, but you’ll get thought-provoking feedback and encouragement (hopefully in the right direction)! Keep it up, Verve!

    Now just incase your “Gen Y” audience is curious, I’m not one of the babyboomers. I’m one of those “Gen Yers” (born 11/1983). No one can see pictures of me from many years ago without visiting my house or personally requesting it. I don’t use Facebook and Twitter; I value being a private citizen and have nothing to advertise/sell using those platforms.