Engineering topics

Collins, Michelle

Publications and source records attributed to Collins, Michelle.

3 records

NASA NTRS2002

ASK Magazine

What makes a successful team? In this issue our contributors look closely at the subject and come up with several answers. Working on team chemistry is the "Activation Energy" Dr. Owen Gadeken's story is about. Scott Cameron thinks it's getting to know people one to one. Tony Maturo says it's getting the most out of your support staff. Dr. Michael Hecht finds the best people he can and build the team around their talents. Teamwork is a theme we explore often in Academy Sharing Knowledge (ASK), but never so directly as in this issue. You'll not only find formulas for building successful teams, you'll see examples of ones in action, strategies for how project managers can motivate their teams, and expert advice on how to choose who to work with and who not to work with. It seems like all the stories make one common point: everyone on a team counts. Few project managers can pull off a project alone, and when the whole team is performing to everyone's potential, the chances of pulling off a successful project goes up exponentially. If that doesn't seem like enough by itself, listen to this... Discerning fans of ASK will note the last two issues our Special Feature was "There are no Mistakes, Only Lessons." We have not abandoned this feature, but for now we want to broaden our repertoire. In this issue we add a new Special Feature, "My Metaphor," starting with Paul Espinosa's article "My Big Wall" about his rock climbing adventures on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. If you think getting to Mars is work, read what it's like to scale a 3,000-foot rock face. This issue we're also welcoming two new members to our Review Board, Hugh Woodward and Jody Kusek. Hugh and Jody are our first reviewers from outside NASA, and we are delighted to have them on our team. Read their bios on the ASK Review Board page and see why we feel privileged to have them on our team.

Post, Todd↗

NASA NTRS2002

Check Out These Books

The book entitled "Fusion Leadership: Unlocking the Subtle Forces that Change People and Organizations Richard L. Daft and Robert H. Lengel (1998) Berett-Koehler Publishers, Inc." was Reviewed by Dr. Michelle Collins, NASA Headquarters. If you've already read books on leadership and organizational change by authors such as Moshe Rubinstein and Iris Firstenberg, Peter Senge, Tom Peters, and Steven Covey, and you were thinking of rereading them, you don't have to do that now. Just read this book instead. It's a fusion of many of their same concepts presented from a different view. The book does not explore any particular subject in depth. Rather the authors "skim" many subjects and concepts, interlacing them to develop the concept of "Fusion Leadership". The fundamental concept of treating people as people rather than machines is the main theme. "Fusion Leadership" is the process of fusing people together by nurturing six "subtle" forces: mindfulness, courage, vision, heart, communication, and integrity. To do so, hierarchy is diminished and responsibility both for oneself as well as for the team is emphasized. There are a number of organizations and managers that will find such a change threatening. The concepts behind such a management style are straightforward and the benefits are intuitive once you've reflected on them; however, the obvious benefits of the behavioral change proposed in Fusion Leadership can be completely lost in a fear-based system. The concept of caring about people in one's organization was the common thread in Chris Turner's book All Hat, No Cattle (see book review, ASK 5). Much is being written about the re-humanizing of the workplace, but the basis of it is so common sense that one wonders what's taking so long for the workplace to change? Whether you're in a position to change your organization or simply your project team, you'll find the concepts in fusion leadership equally applicable.

Collins, Michelle↗

NASA NTRS2001

ASK Magazine

Not everyone looks forward to reviews. Dog and pony shows I've heard them called. Exercises in putting together Power Point charts. Other less tasteful descriptions abound, but I won't bother to summarize these. This is a tasteful magazine after all. In this issue, we've assembled a number of articles on the subject of reviews, particularly as they occur in the NASA project world (although we cover the subject from other perspectives too). Veteran NASA Project Manager Marty Davis, in his article Tangled Up in Reviews, writes, "Many people regard reviews as something onerous, but if we can tailor them so that they're not as bad as they have to be, it can be a great benefit to a project manager." Great benefits to the project manager is what you'll find in Marty's story as he describes not only tailoring a single review but the entire lifecycle of reviews in his project. In Jo Gunderson's story, Calling Down the Fire on Yourself, she describes a young NASA Project Manager who does just that because, as he tells her, I needed to know if there was anything that I had overlooked." How he brings fire down on himself at his project review will inspire other young Project Managers, seasoned managers, and anyone else who reads this powerful story. Leave Your Ego at the Door, by Jenny Baer-Reidhart and Ray Morgan, uses reviews to highlight the creative collaboration that existed between NASA and one of its industry partners. The protagonist of this story is a company who took advantage of NASAs expert advice during reviews and accomplished amazing feats as a result. The story also examines how disasters might well have been avoided by two other NASA partners had they been as open-minded as the first company during their reviews. In Roy Malone's story, Standing Offer, a NASA Project Manager describes how he used a crack review team to help him pass a critical certification inspection while he was a Combat Systems Officer in the Navy. Malone invited the reviewers to come back several times so that they would be able to focus in detail on the many areas of the program that would be scrutinized during the certification inspection. These are just a sampling of some of the articles you'll find in this issue of ASK. We believe this issue offers ample evidence that talented Project Managers know how to use reviews to the great benefit of their projects. A talented Project Manager will typically figure out a way to turn any onerous task into a useful learning exercise. These Project Managers demonstrate that the real value of reviews is that they provide a chance to learn something. No dog and pony shows here.

Laufer, Alexander↗