Faster, Better, Cheaper: Pick Any Two?
Mars, the Death Planet for spacecraft, might not have been the right venue for NASA's then-new "Faster, Better, Cheaper" mission-planning process. Unfortunately, that's how things worked out and, as with all new management techniques, FBC had some startup problems.
The Mars Program Independent Assessment Team (MPIAT) Report pointed out that overall project management decisions caused the cascading series of failed verifications and tests. One slide of their report showed the MCO and MPL project constraints: Schedule, cost, science requirements, and launch vehicle were established constraints and margins were inadequate. The only remaining variable was risk.
In this context, "Faster" means flying more missions, getting rid of "non-value-added" work, and reducing the cycle time by working smarter rather than harder. "Cheaper" has the obvious meaning: spending less to get the same result. The MCO and MPL missions together cost less than the previous (successful) Mars Pathfinder mission.
The term "Better" has an amorphous definition, which I believe is the fundamental problem. In general, management gets what it measures and, if something cannot be measured, management simply won't insist on getting it.
You can easily demonstrate that you're doing things faster, that you've eliminated "non-value-added" operations, and that you're spending less money than ever before. You cannot show that those decisions are better (or worse), because the only result that really matters is whether the mission actually returns science data. Regrettably, you can measure that aspect of "better" after the fact and, in space, there are no do-overs.
The MPIAT summarized the MCO/MPL mission problems: Inadequate project staffing and application of institutional capability by JPL contributed to reduced mission assurance. Pressure from an already aggressive schedule was increased by [Lockheed Martin Astronautics] not meeting staffing objectives early in the project. This schedule pressure led to inadequate analysis and testing. ...Another important factor was that the operations team was managing four spacecraft (MGS, MCO, MPL, and Stardust) simultaneously with limited resources.
When management reduces headcount without a compensating reduction in work, the remaining staff must work harder: LMA used excessive overtime in order to complete the work on schedule and within the available workforce. Records show that much of the development staff worked 60 hours per week, and a few worked 80 hours per week, for extended periods of time. In short, there was insufficient time and workforce available to provide the levels of checks and balances normally found in JPL projects.
The Genesis project operated under similar constraints and had similar problems: Low schedule and dollar reserves leading to significant adverse pressure on decision making.
In particular, Genesis Management and Systems Engineering and the Genesis Red Team made a number of errors because of their belief that the G-switch sensor circuitry was a heritage design. Further, the prevalent view that heritage designs required less scrutiny and were inherently more reliable than new designs led to the mishap.
The reviews that should have found the flipped switches were shortchanged due to schedule and staffing pressure: It is the Board[']s position that technical reviews have become too superficial and perfunctory.
