Carefully designing a customer-facing management organization can build strong working relationships that help complex missions and programs succeed.
NASA’s John Hamley and Vince Bilardo have held a variety of program management positions during their careers. During a conversation with former NASA Chief Knowledge Officer Ed Hoffman, Hamley and Bilardo discussed the challenges of managing a complex project and shared lessons learned and their thoughts on collaboration between centers. The video clip from the 2013 conversation highlights solutions for complex multi-partner and multi-customer programs.
Video key learning points:
- 1.
Find common ground on how projects are managed when two government agencies are working as partners.
- 2.
A complex program where two federal agencies are collaborating on a program should be treated as a partnership and not a customer-supplier relationship. Agencies are independent and accustomed to making their own decisions.
- 3.
When working on a large complex program within an agency with multiple customers, developing an understanding of each customer’s requirements is vital to success.
- 4.
Establishing good communication between your projects/programs and customers is important for good working relationships. It is helpful to develop a management organization structure that is customer-facing to allow program and project managers to clearly communicate to each customer in a complex program.
Related Resources
NASA APPEL Course: Leading Complex Projects (APPEL-LCP)
Managing NASA’s Complex Space Flight Programs: The Apollo Experience
ASK Magazine Article: Mars Science Lab: The Challenge of Complexity
Masters with Masters 19 Full Video: John Hamley and Vince Bilardo
Masters with Masters Video Playlist
