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From: smfedor@solar.lerc.nasa.gov (Gregory Fedor)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Shuttle Status for 07/25/90 (Forwarded)
Message-ID: <1990Jul27.164339.9284@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>
Date: 27 Jul 90 16:43:39 GMT
References: <54748@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <965@nikhefh.nikhef.nl>
Reply-To: smfedor@solar.lerc.nasa.gov (Gregory Fedor)
Organization: NASA/Lewis Research Center, Cleveland
Lines: 36

In article <965@nikhefh.nikhef.nl> greg@nikhefh.nikhef.nl (Greg Retzlaff) writes:
>In article <54748@ames.arc.nasa.gov> yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>>          and presenting the information to program management.
>
>I think we explicitly see here the NASA problem.  I hope the
>managers are engineers, but suspect they are not.  If they let
>the engineers have a free hand, I suspect the fix would go better.
>Better yet, more engineers and fewer managers
>about 20 years ago and there likely would not be a problem at all.
>-- 
>Greg Retzlaff, NIKHEF-K

Managers traditionally rise from the engineering ranks, but IMHO once becoming
a manager, the experiences of earlier times stagnates and they fall into the
bueracratic trap.  Quite often I hear (and experience first hand) how a 
manager, who was fantastic in his engineer days, holds that over the heads
of the younger engineers such that progress can't be made.

Doing things like they were done 20 years ago sounds good, but in practice
it would be hard.  There were goals and priciples back then that aren't
present today.  There are alot of talented people at NASA that would love
to do all sorts of "neat" things.  Management and politics need to change
first though.

Just my $0.01 cents (ain't worth what it used to be)


--
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Gregory Fedor                 (216) 433-8468  FTS: 297-8468
Sverdrup Technology           smfedor@lerc01.lerc.nasa.gov (128.156.10.14)
NASA Lewis Research Center    Cleveland, Ohio 44135
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