Eric Mack On-Line

[Attendees, if you have information to add or corrections, please post a comment or send me an email.]
Dr. Marcia Gibson, NIA, and Dr. Bob Baxter, CIBER, an adult education and learning expert and a historian are presenting.



Here to discuss NASA Engineering Safety Center (NESC).  NESC stood up after last shuttle disaster and pulled in key experts from 15 disciplines of NASA to work together to determine what they could learn from their mistakes.

NESC Academy was put together to capture knowledge from the top people in each area of discipline. Charter is to take that information and share it with the younger NASA engineers and scientists. target population is folks who have been at NASA from 1-10 years. Currently have 22 disciplines represented.  www.nescacademy.org.

Will share lessons learned in KM at NASA.  A successful KM approach

How do they know their KM program is successful?

They know their program is successful because they collect feedback at all steps of the process:
Happiness Evaluation
Learning Evaluations (tests)
Six week follow-up evaluation to see if information gained is
Annual objective evaluation (by a third party)

Two Kinds of lessons learned
-Lessons learned by technical staff to improve KM
- Identifying and sharing lessons learned by technical fellows (TF)

If I understand correctly, the knowledge captured is converted to courses (live and on-line using Camtasia) to transfer knowledge to the students.

CULTURAL ISSUES:
Scientists and engineers are two different groups. [Pocket protectors are a good clue; just kidding,]
But they do learn differently and hold different kinds of information.
TF and TDTs often underestimate their own talent.
Tacit knowledge is difficult to capture. "We know more than we can tell."
The challenge is how to extract tacit knowledge from the people who know when they may not know what they know.
NESC team is interviewing people, some of whom have works on programs dating back to the Apollo and Gemini missions. [I grew up watching those on my black and white TV! I wish I could do those interviews!]
They use audio and video to capture stories from experts.

Yes, Astronauts go potty in space.
Shared example of valuable lessons learned by NASA on how Astronauts go potty in space. Astronauts were reluctant to share details  - knowledge - about these topics in large audiences. had to come up with new ways to share and collect information to get he valuable knowledge. (Sorry folks, my children read my blog, so no gross details here. You'll have to visit the NASA web site for details.) Fascinating, actually.

Each technical fellow presents a unique set of challenges. This requires that hey employ flexibility & scheduling adjustments. They must negotiate different solutions for availability, number of staff to be interviewed, precourse materials, etc..

NECS addresses the cultural issues to enable success at NASA. This requires a level of trust as some are reluctant to share the truth, including negative feedback of their experiences at NASA. Historians need to establish a culture of trust and must be flexible in knowledge capture. e.g "you may not want to say that in this environment."

CAPTURE TECHNIQUES
Interviews with storytellers. A SME is recruited to assist with interviews and to interpret the answers given. SMEs know to ask the hard questions to expose the tacit information that has not been captured before.

KNOWLEDGE CAPTURE PROCESS
An interview may be one on one with a video team (optional), an instructional designer, a SME, and often a phone link to an off-site team to capture.  They encourage capture teams to go on-site and capture knowledge where the events being discussed occurred.

(slide went by too fast, sorry. I'll see if Jeanne will get me slides)

they want to see artifacts, parts, paters, even the mess of the office - these communicate much about the knowledge and experience they are capturing.

KNOWLEDGE EXTRACTION CHALLENGES
Limited availability
Value of stories (they don't understand)
Nonacademic Model
Capture of tacit knowledge
Role of videotaping

KNOWLEDGE CAPTURE SOURCES
Timing is important
- Retiring workforce
- Maximum window for interviews is 2 years - while they are a technical fellow

Lessons learned from knowledge capture process
- Videotape gets TFs & DTDs attentions
- Questions to TF beforehand
- Explain tacit vs. explicit knowledge
- Schedule TFs time in advance
- Copies of documents, prototypes, models,
- Identify all ITAR Content

After-action review examples:
- Precourses
- Has a 3d animation team to help storytellers show what they are describing...
- Identify implications for future missions

SPIRAL FRAMEWORK

See slide: Nonaka Model for KM
They use the web as a way to reach and interact with their audience.
Frequent site refreshes are important to keep folks coming back.
Courses are free for NASA & Contractors

EXTERNALIZING KNOWLEDGE
- Classroom Courses
- On-line courses
- Forums
- Feedback loops & discussions

NASA attendees: feel free to post corrections/feedback.