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Enabling Innovation and Collaboration Across Geography and Culture: A Case Study of NASA's Systems Engineering Community of PracticeIn 2004, NASA faced major knowledge sharing challenges due to geographically isolated field centers that inhibited personnel from sharing experiences and ideas. Mission failures and new directions for the agency demanded better collaborative tools. In addition, with the push to send astronauts back to the moon and to Mars, NASA recognized that systems engineering would have to improve across the agency. Of the ten field centers, seven had not built a spacecraft in over 30 years, and had lost systems engineering expertise. The Systems Engineering Community of Practice came together to capture the knowledge of its members using the suite of collaborative tools provided by the NASA Engineering Network (NEN.) The NEN provided a secure collaboration space for over 60 practitioners across the agency to assemble and review a NASA systems engineering handbook. Once the handbook was complete, they used the open community area to disseminate it. This case study explores both the technology and the social networking that made the community possible, describes technological approaches that facilitated rapid setup and low maintenance, provides best practices that other organizations could adopt, and discusses the vision for how this community will continue to collaborate across the field centers to benefit the agency as it continues exploring the solar system.
Document ID
20150014734
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Topousis, Daria E.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Murphy, Keri
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Robinson, Greg
(NASA Headquarters Washington, DC United States)
Date Acquired
August 3, 2015
Publication Date
September 29, 2008
Subject Category
Systems Analysis And Operations Research
Engineering (General)
Report/Patent Number
IAC-08-D1.1.01
Meeting Information
Meeting: International Astronautical Congress
Location: Glasgow
Country: United Kingdom
Start Date: September 29, 2008
End Date: October 3, 2008
Sponsors: International Astronautical Federation, British Interplanetary Society
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
NEN
NASA engineering network
knowledge management

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