The Smart Mission: NASAâ s Lessons for Managing Knowledge, People, and Projects

Hoffman, Edward J.,Kohut, Matthew,Prusak, Laurence

ISBN 10: 0262046881 / ISBN 13: 9780262046886

Published by The MIT Press, 2022

Seller Inventory # IN-446678

Synopsis:

Why human skills and expertise, not technical tools, are what make projects succeed. <p/>The project is the basic unit of work in many industries. Software applications, antiviral vaccines, launch-ready spacecraft: all were produced by a team and managed as a project. Project management emphasizes control, processes, and tools--but, according to The Smart Mission, that is not the right way to run a project. Human skills and expertise, not technical tools, are what make projects successful. Projects run on knowledge. This paradigm-shifting book--by three project management experts, all of whom have decades of experience at NASA and elsewhere--challenges the conventional wisdom on project management, focusing on the human dimension: learning, collaboration, teaming, communication, and culture. <p/>The authors emphasize three themes: projects are fundamentally about how teams work and learn together to get things done; the local level--not an organization's upper levels--is where the action happens; and projects don't operate in a vacuum but exist within organizations that are responsible to stakeholders. Drawing on examples and case studies from NASA and other organizations, the authors identify three project models--micro, macro, and global--and their different knowledge needs. Successful organizations have a knowledge-based culture. Successful project management guides the interplay of knowledge, projects, and people.

About the Author: Edward J. Hoffman, currently CEO of Knowledge Strategies, LLC, and Senior Lecturer at Columbia University, was NASA's first Chief Knowledge Officer and founder of the NASA Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL). Following the Columbia shuttle failure, he led the team that designed the Strategic Management and Governance Handbook. He is the coauthor of Shared Voyage: Learning and Unlearning from Remarkable Projects.<br/> <br/>Matthew Kohut, former major communication advisor to NASA, is coauthor of Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential, named one of Amazon's Best Business Books of 2013.<br/> <br/>Laurence Prusak, former strategy consultant to Hoffman at NASA, is Senior Lecturer in the Information and Knowledge Strategy graduate program at Columbia University and the coauthor of Working Knowledge, a widely cited text about how knowledge works in organizations, and other books.<br/>

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Smart Mission: NASAâ s Lessons for ...
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2022
Binding: hardcover
Condition: New