Making The Hard Decisions On A Project–Lessons From NASA

Image by nasa hq photo via Flickr

A Right Turn Instead Of A Left Turn

Some time ago, Karen and I put our names in to attend the #NASATweetup scheduled for the last launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134).  Karen was chosen and went down last week and had a fabulous experience, but with less than 3 hours to go until the launch it got scrubbed.  Throughout that morning they had already worked on a problem with a regulator and had made up for lost time caused by a storm the previous day and it all looked good for a launch.  I was watching the tweets and through NASA TV saw the astronauts in the Astro Van heading to the launch pad when they turned right to go back instead of left and we found out the launch was scrubbed.  As of right now, a new launch date has not been set as they work on the problem and determine when the next eligible target launch date can be.

But We’re Going To Disappoint All These People

The launch delay got me thinking about how decisions like that get made especially so close to the deadline and how we could apply this thinking to our own projects.  Think about it, the President was on his way, there were numerous dignitaries, 150 #NASATweetup attendees, and an estimated 700,000 others there to watch this historic launch of the last shuttle flight of Endeavour.  Can you imagine having to be the one that has to say “not today”?  Have you ever been on a project when the executives are there saying “Let’s just go ahead and implement it and we’ll fix it later”?

Your Decision Making Process Is Key And Must Be In Writing

While most of us don’t deal with projects with the same risk factors as NASA does we still have to deal with problems and risk, but how we deal with it is key.  As Karen detailed in her post #NASATweetup – It’s a GO! Readiness Reviews and Your Projects this all works when you have everything documented beforehand and you have a formal process for this.  In essence, you have algorithms and decision trees that you follow that make sure that you make the right choice and don’t let human emotion and behaviour get in the way.  Don’t get me wrong, this was not an immediate decision and I’m sure it was not an easy decision.  But if you have all of your options and decision trees, policies and procedures mapped out ahead of time then the decision is based on those written policies and not subject to human emotion.

In the announcement of the delay Shuttle Launch Director, Mike Leinbach, stated:

Today, the orbiter is not ready to fly…we will not fly before we’re ready.

This was not a decision taken lightly, but after thoroughly  evaluating the problem and determining if it could be fixed prior to launch or if it was more serious.  But with such a short time to launch they had to make a firm decision, so they did.  In my mind, this takes a lot of integrity and strength to be able to stand up and say that they can’t launch.

WWND

So the next time you have a problem on one of your projects think about this: WWND – What Would NASA Do?  Better yet, when you start a project, write down all the possible scenarios, risks and decisions and a have a formal process so you can follow it when you need to.

Images from Maps: Kennedy Space Center #NASATweetup

One of the more fun types of data is image data, both meta data and actual images.  So I turned to Google Maps and Bing Maps to see what various sites at the Kennedy Space Center looked like. Here’s a launch pad from Google Maps.  You can see the boosters there.

Then there’s this image of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).  At first I was confused why part of this area was blackened out, until I realized the dark area is the shadow from the VAB.

You would probably recognize this building better from these NASA Photos:

And Bing’s Birdseye view of the launch pad, VAB, and viewing area:

The first visualization I saw  of the VAB area caused my brain to jump to: "wow, they’ve blacked out some of the Space Center" when all that was going on was a perfectly natural occurrence of sunlight and shadow.  I find it interesting that that different views of the same locations (via two different data services, Google and Bing) gives me a different understanding of the same places.  There seems to be a lesson there in displaying the same data in many different ways.

So Excited to be part of #NASATweetup – Space Shuttle Endeavour Launch

Just in case you don’t follow me on Twitter, I received great news last week that I have been selected to attend the most amazing event, the NASA Tweetup, an invitation-only in-person meeting of space aficionados on Twitter.  The meeting takes place in the same area where traditional media hangs out.  There will be about 150 of us space geeks converging in Florida to watch one of the last shuttle launches.  This is officially the last funded launch, but NASA has stated that they will have one more launch to do some maintenance work on the Space Station.

Someone from a former NASA Tweetup crowd made the following image to show just why this meetup is special:

The Tweetup is planned for 2 days, although it is all based on the when the Shuttle Endeavour will actually launch (currently scheduled for 19 April 2011).  During those two days there will be socializing, chatting, special speakers, interviews, a ton of picture taking, more socializing…and watching the launch.  I hope.  It’s nice that I can stay the whole week if I have to.  Some other launches have been delayed — one for over 4 months. 

In preparation for this once-in-a-lifetime event for me, I’ve been trying to study up on the Shuttle program.  Early in my career I worked at Space Division in Los Angeles and in Washington, DC. The projects I worked on involved space initiatives, including shuttle missions.  I remember heading down to the officers club every time there was a launch or landing.  It was so exciting being in that environment, where people work working on efforts that truly expanded our knowledge of the universe.

I was also lucky in that I had a meeting in Washington, DC this past Monday, so I was able to spend a couple of hours at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. In a following post, I’ll share some of the photos I captured there.  I also watched Hubble 3D, an IMAX film about repairs made to the Hubble telescope during a previous mission.  What was interesting was that Astronaut Drew Feustel, who appeared in the film, will also be a crew member of STS-134, the Shuttle mission for this NASA Tweetup.  Drew is also a Boilermaker, attending Purdue about the same time I did.

As some other Tweetup attendees have said, I feel as if I have won a golden ticket to a most amazing experience.  I will be writing about this event over the next couple of weeks, but I promise to tie it all back to data and information.  Think of it as a DataChick view of space data.

Karen’s Typical Day

I used this slide in my recent Webinar sponsored by Embarcadero Technologies.  It’s a collage of photos to represent how it seems I spend my time.

I’d love to see your typical day as you would represent it.  It doesn’t have to be a collage or even have photos.  Just blog your typical day in something other than paragraphs and link to the photo above or leave a link in the comments if you don’t see a track back in the comments automatically.  Include the hashtag #typicalday in the title.

Don’t blog?  This would be a great way to get started. 

I’ll write up a summary blog post of all the submissions, along with my usual witty observations.

Go! Show us what your days are like (or at least what they feel like).

Field Testing Agloves in The Big Apple

This past weekend I had a great opportunity to use my new Agloves in the field, as I was speaking at SQL Saturday #59 in New York City.  I love visiting New York, but it always seems that we visit during a cold spell.  The first time Rob and I visited together the wind chill was about –15 and the cold wind tunnel effect of all those tall buildings made it feel as if the weather was going to suck the life right out of us.

My initial review talks about the quality and content of these gloves, but I hadn’t had a chance to use them in the field prior to this week. 

What I remember most about our previous trips to New York is trying to take photos in that bone chilling weather, but having to:

1. remove my gloves
2. swap my gloves for my phone in my purse
3. wait for my phone to start up
4. enter my phone password
5. open the camera app
6. wait for the camera to focus
7. help the camera focus and choose the right lighting by clicking on the screen
8. click on the screen button to take the picture

…and trying to do all that with creeping numbness in my fingers which just made all that take longer.

While it wasn’t quite that cold in NYC for this trip (it was around 38-40 degrees at the coldest), it was still chilly enough that I was happy to have my Agloves and to be able to use my iPhone and iPad without ever having to remove my gloves.

You can see from the pictures above that while we were visiting Rockefeller Center I could take my time to compose a photo.  The lighting was tricky there because it was cloudy and the statue of Prometheus was behind scaffolding, so I had to keep setting the lighting and focus properly.  Being able to keep my gloves on also meant that I was able to take many more photos than I did the last time.

As the day went on, we walked to most of the regular tourist stops in Manhattan.  It was starting to get dark and much cooler by the time we got to Macy’s in Herald Square.  More tricky lighting in that the Macy’s windows displays had projection, glass reflections, dimmed lighting and animation.

Here I’m taking a photo of one of vignettes of the “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” story.  Again, I had time to work on the composition, lighting and focus.

One of the other benefits that I hadn’t considered when I first purchased these gloves was that I didn’t have to know if the device I was using used the type of technology that required a capacitive touch technology to work.  Not all touch screens require this, so regular gloves could work…or they might not….  But I didn’t have to know, I could could keep my gloves on either way.

I didn’t realize how many touch screen devices that weren’t mine I used on a typical trip, but here are some of them:

An ATM machine

  A vending machine

A vending machine in the subway.

I’m betting that most of these last devices, including the ones in the taxis, were not capacitive.  I loved the fact, though, that I didn’t have to know either way; I could leave my gloves on and interact with all these machines without getting cold.  I have to admit, too, that my inner germaphobe loved that I wasn’t using my bare hands to touch these screens.  This was a special bonus.

I’ll be posting some of the pictures we took in New York while we were there so that you can see the results of our having time to compose better photos.

I also checked, just for fun, and the gloves do work on the Xbox 360 controls (on button, DVD eject button) which won’t work with regular gloves.  Not sure if I’m ever going to wear them while playing, but I just had to know.

Finally, while the temperature did not dip down below freezing, I found the Agloves to be warm, unlike acrylic gloves, and breathable.  They aren’t overly thick, so I was able to tweet and send mail during our walk through NYC, all while keeping warm.

Overall I’d say our field test was a success.

From previous tweets, it sounds like Agloves is going to run a Black Friday special of some sort.  You can follow them or search for their Twitter ID to find out what specials they have in mind.

How To Have Fun In Seattle Without Even Attending SQLPASS

We did our normal thing of shopping and spending some time in Fry’s and I did get a chance to see some things in Seattle, but we spent a lot of time meeting up with people.  It was nice to catch up with old friends, meet people in person that we talk to via Twitter and meet others we hadn’t ever talked to before.  I have to say that the SQL community is a great bunch of people and we had a lot of fun.

While Karen can tell you all about the Summit and how much she enjoyed speaking at and attending it, I can say that Seattle is an amazing city with many things to see and do.  A few highlights for me were Pike’s Place Market, the Seattle Public Library, the Science Fiction Museum and Gas Works Park.  The transit system is easy to use and will get you around the city with ease.  In fact, the buses are free in the downtown core.  And we both loved the food in Seattle.  It is so vegan and veggie friendly that it’s hard not to get a decent meal there.

On the negative side, it rains A LOT in Seattle.  We did see the sun for a couple of days, but there were rainy days to put up with.  And I wish that the PASS Summit would set up some kind of program for spouses or guests of attendees.  We’ve attended a lot of other conferences and most of them have this type of program to allow travel partners to attend the social events and exhibits at the conference.  We know that the Summit did offer a pass for the exhibits only, but at $300 it’s price prohibitive for most.  For travel partners and spouses it would be better at $50 or $75.

And now that we’re back from Seattle we still haven’t had much time to relax.  We attended a SharePoint Saturday event the day after getting home and we’re attending a SQL Saturday event this weekend in NYC. Maybe I’ll get some time to relax in 2011.