The table below doesn't claim to be a thorough comparison of USAID and NASA. It's a quick glimpse at key characteristics that impact current knowledge management challenges, inspired by the SID - Future of AID session earlier this week and about 10 years of practical experience in both of these worlds.
This deserves much more reflection and more than a blog post and table. It could be a full book, but I can't answer the "SO WHAT?" question. I keep coming up with new mini-insights that need to be connected somehow to build the bigger puzzle. All I'm really saying is that the two agencies are not that different and key knowledge management challenges are common across industries even if NASA is perceived as being well ahead of USAID from a Knowledge Management perspective.
US Government Agency / Industry
|
USAID / International Development
|
NASA / Aerospace
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Goal
|
Global Economic Development, Poverty Reduction
|
Science & Exploration
|
Programs and Activities implemented to achieve the goal
|
Broad commitment to SDGs, Country strategies, sector-specific programs, individual projects
|
High-level strategies in each key space science domains (astrophysics,
heliophysics, earth science, etc..); programs and individual missions
|
Implementation Models
|
Public private partnerships; contracts and grants with implementing
non-profits and for-profit private sector organizations
International collaboration: working within the United Nations system
|
Increased emphasis on private sector involvement; continued
partnerships with industry as contractors and academia as partners/contractors;
partnerships with other countries’ space programs
International collaboration: Space Station
|
Changes in the industry
|
New entrants:
·
Countries like China and India, operating
under different models, different rules.
·
Private sector investors
·
Large individual donors and corporate donors
|
New entrants:
·
Countries with new space ambitions
·
Private sector taking over roles previously
owned by government (transport to Space Station, launch services, etc…)
|
Challenges
|
Rapidly changing global
economic and political environment; need to explore new implementation
models. NEED TO ADAPT FASTER,
THEREFORE LEARN FASTER.
|
Rapidly changing technological innovation and implementation models.
NEED TO ADAPT FAST, THEREFORE LEARN FASTER.
|
Key differences
|
Measuring success (‘IMPACT’) is a perennial challenge. Scaling and replicability become difficult
because there isn’t enough attention paid to “HOW” the activity was made to
be successful. Little emphasis on
understanding the complex set of factors leading to success. (See previous post)
Very little rigor in program and project implementation. (subjective
judgment here, based on personal experience/perception)
What’s needed: Adaptive management, CRITICAL THINKING
|
Measuring success has never been an issue. Success and failure are very clear and
visible. Identifying technical
failures is a challenge when it happens on orbit, but the biggest challenge
is identifying AND CORRECTING organizational failures.
High degree of rigor in project management (increasing rigor on cost
and schedule dimensions), sometimes to the point of being a serious burden
and impeding innovation.
What’s needed: Tailored application of project management “requirements”,
CRITICAL THINKING
|
Knowledge Management Challenges
|
·
High turnover, shuffling around the same top
contractors, same group of consultants (small world)
·
High barriers to entry (perhaps that’s
changing with the emergence of new actors)
·
Generalists vs. specialists and the need for a
holistic approach to problem solving, multi-disciplinary approach.
·
North-South discourse/issue, reinforcing
impact of information technology
·
Absorptive capacity, perceived weakness of
local knowledge capture/knowledge transfer.
Confusion around M&E, Knowledge Management and communications/PR resulting from the incentives structure (see previous blog post).
DIFFICULTY IDENTIFYING REAL LESSONS, SPECIFYING “SUCCESS FACTORS”,
INCLUDING CONTEXTUAL FACTORS. NEED TO
LEARN TO ADAPT AND INNOVATE. Learning
from flawed data on impact studies is… flawed. Need to come up with something much more
forward looking, agile and adaptive.
|
·
Retiring, aging workforce with critical
experience-based knowledge is leaving
·
New entrants/partners are not using
tested/proven approaches, steep learning curve, yet that’s how they can take
risks and innovate
·
Need for insights from other fields, increased
openness to insights from non-technical fields
·
Perennial challenge of cross-project knowledge
transfer (“we are unique” mentality) and knowledge exchange across
organizational boundaries.
FINDING THE BALANCE BETWEEN LESSONS LEARNED (OLD KNOWLEDGE) AND LEARNING
TO ADAPT AND INNOVATE (NEW KNOWLEDGE).
|
This was a case where an insight map didn't seem to fit the purpose, yet I bet it would help me to connect the dots a little better.
I had previously written about the two organizations: Foreign Assistance Revitilization and Accountability Act of 2009, August 11, 2009. A great deal of USAID's current focus on Monitoring, Evaluation, Knowledge Management and the CLA (Collaborating, Learning and Adapting) model emerged out of that 2009 legislation.
See also "Defining Success and Failure: Managing Risk", July 29, 2009.
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12/17/2016 - Addendum - There are many interesting and related insights in Matthew Syed's Black Box Thinking, which investigates how certain industries are much better (more thorough) at learning from their mistakes than others.
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12/17/2016 - Addendum - There are many interesting and related insights in Matthew Syed's Black Box Thinking, which investigates how certain industries are much better (more thorough) at learning from their mistakes than others.
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