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Space Science

Looking Inside A Changing JPL 23

Anonymous Coward writes "Space.com is running a series called Inside JPL. The first part is called 'Dark times: hope on the heels of failure.' It's an interesting read discussing a little history, and management changes underway to make JPL more efficient. Some of the changes include throwing out the rules." The history is certainly interesting and well worth reading, but the parts about changing management are a bit rah-rah and cliche-ridden for me.
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Looking Inside A Changing JPL

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20, 2001 @12:34AM (#73237)
    1) Since when did anybody wear security badges at JPL? When I had to visit there, as a foreign national, I was required to wear a badge marked "ESCORTED" which meant I should have been herded everywhere by a JPL employee. Part-way throught the morning, the pin on my badge broke and, unknown to me, it fell off. However, I now found that I could go wherever I liked, because without the badge, everybody thougt I was an employee! The only time I visited and found people wearing badges was when Al Gore came to give a speech. Obviously the sight of armed snipers on every rooftop is a good incentive to encourage observance of the rules :)

    2) I had to set up software on some workstations there. It turned out that there was NO support for these computers. The scientists had to try setup and install everything themselves, and many had very low levels of competence when it came to working that deeply with computers. The workstations weren't even networked properly. We wasted many hours trying to solve problems whihc could have been easily fixed by having a qualified perosn set the system up in the first place.

    3) I also found that the people running many of the science projects had very little understanding of software development, but were put in charge of such projects. I constantly fell foul of people who thought that because software A could do something, it would easy to shoehorn such functionality into software B which was designed for an entirely different purpose. The scientists should be in charge of the science, the engineers in charge of the engineering and the programmers in charge of the programming.

  • by s390 ( 33540 ) on Thursday July 19, 2001 @11:57PM (#73238) Homepage
    I know. I worked there as an IT consultant right about the time the Mars Rover made them look good - for a couple of brief months.

    But the management incompetence I witnessed at JPL was truly monumental. They are a poster child for how not to manage IT. No one is really responsible for anything (at least, not in their IT support division). It's all management by committee, leavened with lots of capriciousness and internal politics. Their IT "support" staff is doing well to show up for work at all, much less for meetings - they simply overschedule meetings and only go to the ones with the most powerful chairperson. It is a nightmare trying to get anything done at JPL because everyone has their own Machiavellian loyalties and agendas, and these are all hidden. What does is say that JPL actually flew _two_ payloads right into the ground on Mars - at $millions of _your_ taxpayor dollars apiece? JPL is too bloated.

    NASA should just fire everyone in "management" at JPL, void all their IT support contracts, then start over hiring "the best and the brightest" again, and rebid the IT support to firms who care. If NASA needs to save money, they should strip down JPL, seriously.
  • When I was at Caltech Prefrosh, we took a tour of JPL and I noticed that in the main control room they had two "official JPL time" clocks - really big digital displays that hang over the workstations - that were off by one second.
    Umm. Duh! One was Earth/celestial time, the other was atomic time, which can be up to a second off.

    That's the reasons we have leap seconds every once in a while. To bring them into sync.

  • "Hmm first line managers maybe, but ultimately managers have to manage areas they have limited understanding of. The higher up you go the less you need to know of the technical details. If this wasn't the case - you'd never be able to have very large organisations - no-one can understand all the different disciplines to that level of detail."

    In principle this is true, but there's an important qualifier. Managers have to know something about _something_ -- e.g. someone managing a project comprising scientists, engineers, and programmers need not be a scientist and an engineer and a programmer all at once (a hell of a combination) but should be, at the very least, a scientist or a manager or a programmer by training, and have done such a job once upon a time. As opposed to a trained "manager" with a business school degree and a resume full of jargon who knows jack shit about science or engineering or programming or, for that matter, just about anytbing in the real world at all.
  • Nice to hear that they're getting back to what it's all about over at JPL. Granted, you shouldn't be carrying rockets in your aeroplane luggage, but I think that a lot of companies go through the making-up-rules-as-we-go-along process and end up with a mountain of red tape and middle-management to plough through to get anything done (I know this has been true everywhere I've worked).

    Let's face it - everyone would like to get on with their job, so why make it so difficult to proceed? I hope Naderi goes on a business lecture tour to spread the idea around a bit. Note; I'm not saying abolish management altogether (I think most of us need someone to keep us on course), just look for which bits are redundant.

  • Sorry I missed the preview button: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
  • There have been, over the past view years, allegations and rumors along the line of JPL trying to protect its funding and protect its turf.

    These typically come from the fringe groups [enterprisemission.com], and so most folks tend to dismiss them out of hand. Examples of this include the Mars Photos, where many have seen examples of people playing fast and loose loose with the results. The primary allegation is that JPL is heavy into the robot missions, and so is heavily biased against actually finding life someplace else, because that would pull funding from JPL into other NON-JPL projects.

    Certainly, there are probably different political power centers inside NASA and JPL, etc. I can also see that some folks would have a vigorous reaction against releasing anything that could give the fringe groups more ammunition.

    I am personally dismayed by fringe group presentations on TV [www.pax.tv] where the first half almost seems like reasonable possibility, and the second half is someone doing a biblical interprataion of the material. Talk about a taking a large grain salt! And yet, I suppose that somebody sees these shows and takes them seriously. I am reminded that a large chunk of the population is "below average" intelligence, although alot of this depends on educations as well.

    All in All, I suspect that with all of the changes at JPL, there has been infighting over the agenda, pig headedness, and simple sillyness that merely gives ammunition to their critics.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • True enough

    Which shows you the logic of the allegations on the net. [shrug]

    The lines of logic in the allegations get rather twisted after a while. Certainly the probable infighting doesn't help. People start to read between the line a little too much, and sometimes see things that are not there, or are different than imagined.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • I used to work for an electricity company in the UK. The IT deparment was ~150 people - I led a team of 6 DBAs
  • One of the best managers I ever had had no IT background at all.

    She did have a technical background - as an accountant - but she was managing an IT department.

    I think it worked for her for three reasons -

    1) She didn't pretend to know stuff she didn't - it's amazing how well people respond if you treat them honestly. Sure some people have hidden agendas and would try to exploit her lack of knowledge - but on the whole trust inspires trust. For the rest - see point 3)

    2) She was willing and able to learn. She learnt enough technical detail to carry on meaningful conversations with her staff. She showed them by absorbing and retaining knowledge that she had a brain and was prepared to use it. This earns respect.

    3) She was a good judge of character. She quickly figured out who really knew their stuff and she relied on key people to advise her on technical matters.

    But maybe she was the exception rather than the rule.
  • by RatFink100 ( 189508 ) on Friday July 20, 2001 @01:59AM (#73248)

    The scientists should be in charge of the science, the engineers in charge of the engineering and the programmers in charge of the programming

    Hmm first line managers maybe, but ultimately managers have to manage areas they have limited understanding of. The higher up you go the less you need to know of the technical details. If this wasn't the case - you'd never be able to have very large organisations - no-one can understand all the different disciplines to that level of detail.

    Programmers don't always make good managers. The skills involved are very different. On the other hand you have to have the respect of your staff and the less technical managers tend to lose that. But the key is don't pretend to know more than you do - "Well Bob, I don't claim to understand how software B works but I need something that can do function Z - how do we best acheive that?" rather than "Bob, change software B, add function Z and have it done by lunchtime"

    I left my last job after trying my hand at being a Team Leader - first small step on the management ladder. It was the only way to progress in that organisation. I tried it for 18months and whilst I think I was competent enough I wasn't great at it. I might have been better if I hadn't been the techie I am - because I needed to spend more time managing and less time in actual technical work. But I was doing that because - a) I didn't want to give up my technical skills completely, b) I didn't enjoy managing as much. It was when I figured this out that I realised that management wasn't for me - at least right now.

  • by WhyPanic ( 191016 ) on Thursday July 19, 2001 @11:11PM (#73249) Homepage
    JPL, thats the Jesus Public License right?
  • by ChuckDivine ( 221595 ) <charles.j.divine@gmail.com> on Friday July 20, 2001 @04:30AM (#73250) Homepage

    It's not just JPL. I used to work at Goddard and have friends scattered around other NASA centers and aerospace companies as well. Or should I say I have friends who used to work at these places. Most of us have left for pastures that, while they may not be "green" are at least less black.

    Excessive, idiotic rules administered by frightened, incompetent control freaks are ruining space industry in this country. I suspect Goldin has actually made things worse. Why? Instead of freeing people up to do innovative things (the only real way to make things "faster, better, cheaper"), low and midlevel management simply flogged people to spend more time at work and obey management. In short, they pursued a typical crusade against "waste".

    A tragically funny story from Goddard might amuse /.ers. Some Goddard scientists began helping school teachers plan and carry out science lessons by participating in k-12 education newsgroups. Did management praise these people for their initiative? No. Rather the Net police put a stop to this work. You see, such advice wasn't part of the scientists' jobs. They were using their government accounts for "personal" reasons. Hmm. Talk about "get assault rifle, insert clip, point at foot and pull trigger until clip is empty."

    AARRGH!!!!

  • by alist ( 241245 ) on Friday July 20, 2001 @12:44AM (#73251)

    When I was at Caltech Prefrosh, we took a tour of JPL and I noticed that in the main control room they had two "official JPL time" clocks - really big digital displays that hang over the workstations - that were off by one second.

    Also, the lady at the reception desk in their space exploration museum had her passwords on a Post-it note on her monitor. And that was just the tour...
  • Yes, you should get the special rocket carrying permit that allows you to carry rockets on the aeroplane, this is done by strapping the rockets to the outside of plane at the sides with rockets pointing in opposite directions to each other on each side. This way if the rockets do go off - all that will happen is the plane will spin harmlessly in circles
  • If the management really screwed with JPL too much. This is a top notch lab, including a whole lot of ideas/innovations transfered over to NASA.

    At least they are not shutting it down tomorrow.
  • FWIW, JPL has changed directors since this time. The new director is Charles Elachi, a scientist who was promoted to the position from within the ranks.

    Several of my friends work at JPL at some capacity, and all of them tell me that the tech boom really hurt JPL badly; obviously, the government jobs could not compete salary-wise with dot-coms and tech start-ups.

    Now that the bubble has burst I don't know if there's been a rush back to JPL, but considering that many of the start-ups in the Pasadena area are doing well (this was a cover story in 19 July's print version of the LA times) I'm not sure the incentive's there to rush back.

  • But were those the dark hours for NASA AND JPL? As opposed to NASA OR JPL join? Use some basic logical deduction, and you can see that he probably meant darkest for Nasa and JPL working together... But I might be off, an JPL has blame to take for those two accidents...
  • Actually, it's the Jet Propulsion Lab, I believe.... and since the fall of the Soviet Union, it's scapping for money any way that it can.

    Finally, the Rock has come back to /.
  • Just a thought. Wouldn't half the population be below average?
  • Mind telling where it was you were a Team Leader at?
  • by skyknytnowhere ( 469520 ) on Friday July 20, 2001 @06:33AM (#73259)
    I'm a second generation JPL employee... that is, I'm the son of a JPL employee, also employed at JPL. My dad quit from jpl 10 years ago, when the big managerial shakedowns occurred. He describes it as becoming less about science and exploration of the universe and more about rules. I have to agree with him. But the scientists themselves haven't changed. I have never met so many personally motivated, focused people anywhere else in my life. Some of these guys work long hours (without pay) programming new utilities for their own use. A friend of mine was told not to write a program, which he went ahead and did anyways on his own time. Now its the most used app in my section! And if he had listened to his manager, it never would have happened. So where are the problems at JPL? Wasteful excess staff. We have more managers than we need, by far. Hell, our "ethics" staff is probably spending valuable money making sure we don't bid on ebay using our JPL email addresses. In fact, they might crack down on me for posting on /. Ah well. My point is that JPL has some of the finest, most science oriented personell on earth, and given the funding, they would colonize mars in a decade. But scientists need less rules, not more. We came this far in an organization founded by a pyromaniac satanist(no, really), and I think we should return to that pioneering spirit. Maybe include a budget for chicken sacrifices. skye

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