Karen Armstrong’s mastery of organization for Engineering results in a POWER of One award
2014-07-23
Drawing from a background that includes early design studies for the International Space Station, experience with Mission Operations and spacewalk training plus child rearing, Karen Armstrong developed a strategy and took the lead for an Engineering Directorate document consolidation task. The outcome is a significant streamlining that promises to save Johnson Space Center time and money as it tackles the nation's space exploration objectives.
Armstrong, who works part time for Booz Allen Hamilton under NASA’s Engineering Product Integration Contract, was recognized for her contributions in June with the JSC POWER of One award.
The collaborative course set by Armstrong and others working with her kicked off a three-year task with the goal of eliminating International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-controlled documents with overlapping content that govern the Engineering Directorate's activities. In addition, new documentation guidelines have been established.
“If we have a leaner, more user friendly, more intuitive set of documents, it will be much easier for people to find the information they need to produce their products,” Armstrong said. “It means we will spend less time on overhead maintaining documents that have either fallen out of date or that are duplicative. This will affect everything the Engineering Directorate does. In the background, behind all our hardware and software contracts, there is documentation that governs the project. If we can streamline that, we are not spending as much time and effort, which means money.”
The document consolidation and streamlining effort got underway in early 2013, its genesis an Engineering Directorate retreat focused on changes to make the organization more efficient. Among the initiatives that emerged from the retreat was a new “Process, No Process” team, a collection of NASA professionals brought together to look for ways to reduce overhead and eliminate unnecessary processes across the directorate. Soon the Engineering Master List, a collection of almost 600 documents established to meet ISO 9000 quality-assurance standards, became a focus.
Through manual examination of document titles and content, she produced three candidate categories for documents consolidation: excellent, moderate and modest. Next, she organized the Engineering Master List consolidation document candidates by their pre-existing review dates, based on five-year, three-year and, in some cases, one-year review requirements.
“No one was going to want a big bow wave of work,” Armstrong explained of the need to pace the document consolidation to recognize that significant change takes time. “The (existing) review dates offered a natural opportunity.”
Soon, Engineering Director Lauri Hansen assessed and signed off on the initiative, which cleared the way for directorate leadership and Armstrong to present the consolidation effort to all eight major Engineering organizations for concurrence and action.
“Right now we are in the evaluation phase with all of them,” Armstrong said. “I’m not an expert in those processes—I’m an outsider looking in. What we have proposed to each of the points of contact is: This is what we saw. Do you agree? Is this the right set of documents? Do you see others? They have a chance to modify the list and lay out a schedule for how long it will take to actually get this done.”
Armstrong brings a rich set of experiences to the streamlining.
“I have a strange, rollercoaster career,” Armstrong said.
Fresh out of MIT in 1985 with a degree in aerospace, Armstrong joined the former Rockwell International in Downey, California, where she contributed to early contractor competition in the design of what is now the International Space Station.
She was transferred by Rockwell to JSC three years later as part of a small test bed support contract for the Weightless Environment Test Facility, a forerunner to the much larger Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, where astronauts prepare for spacewalks. In 1989, she joined NASA as a civil servant and was assigned to the Mission Operations Directorate to develop and train flight crews and serve on flight control teams for shuttle-based spacewalks.
“We marveled that we were actually being paid and having so much fun,” Armstrong recalled.
Married to Charlie Armstrong, now a veteran JSC systems engineer assigned to Safety and Mission Assurance support responsibilities, she resigned in 1996 to raise a daughter, Tori, now a senior at Texas A&M University, and Nick, now a high school senior.
She re-entered the aerospace workforce in 2010, rejoining two former Rockwell colleagues at Booz Allen Hamilton.
“It’s a wonderful fit for me,” Armstrong said of the opportunity. “I’m definitely passionate about exploration for us as a species and about education. I’m sure there are some more rocks for me to turn over.”
Armstrong, who works part time for Booz Allen Hamilton under NASA’s Engineering Product Integration Contract, was recognized for her contributions in June with the JSC POWER of One award.
The collaborative course set by Armstrong and others working with her kicked off a three-year task with the goal of eliminating International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-controlled documents with overlapping content that govern the Engineering Directorate's activities. In addition, new documentation guidelines have been established.
“If we have a leaner, more user friendly, more intuitive set of documents, it will be much easier for people to find the information they need to produce their products,” Armstrong said. “It means we will spend less time on overhead maintaining documents that have either fallen out of date or that are duplicative. This will affect everything the Engineering Directorate does. In the background, behind all our hardware and software contracts, there is documentation that governs the project. If we can streamline that, we are not spending as much time and effort, which means money.”
The document consolidation and streamlining effort got underway in early 2013, its genesis an Engineering Directorate retreat focused on changes to make the organization more efficient. Among the initiatives that emerged from the retreat was a new “Process, No Process” team, a collection of NASA professionals brought together to look for ways to reduce overhead and eliminate unnecessary processes across the directorate. Soon the Engineering Master List, a collection of almost 600 documents established to meet ISO 9000 quality-assurance standards, became a focus.
Through manual examination of document titles and content, she produced three candidate categories for documents consolidation: excellent, moderate and modest. Next, she organized the Engineering Master List consolidation document candidates by their pre-existing review dates, based on five-year, three-year and, in some cases, one-year review requirements.
“No one was going to want a big bow wave of work,” Armstrong explained of the need to pace the document consolidation to recognize that significant change takes time. “The (existing) review dates offered a natural opportunity.”
Soon, Engineering Director Lauri Hansen assessed and signed off on the initiative, which cleared the way for directorate leadership and Armstrong to present the consolidation effort to all eight major Engineering organizations for concurrence and action.
“Right now we are in the evaluation phase with all of them,” Armstrong said. “I’m not an expert in those processes—I’m an outsider looking in. What we have proposed to each of the points of contact is: This is what we saw. Do you agree? Is this the right set of documents? Do you see others? They have a chance to modify the list and lay out a schedule for how long it will take to actually get this done.”
Armstrong brings a rich set of experiences to the streamlining.
“I have a strange, rollercoaster career,” Armstrong said.
Fresh out of MIT in 1985 with a degree in aerospace, Armstrong joined the former Rockwell International in Downey, California, where she contributed to early contractor competition in the design of what is now the International Space Station.
She was transferred by Rockwell to JSC three years later as part of a small test bed support contract for the Weightless Environment Test Facility, a forerunner to the much larger Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, where astronauts prepare for spacewalks. In 1989, she joined NASA as a civil servant and was assigned to the Mission Operations Directorate to develop and train flight crews and serve on flight control teams for shuttle-based spacewalks.
“We marveled that we were actually being paid and having so much fun,” Armstrong recalled.
Married to Charlie Armstrong, now a veteran JSC systems engineer assigned to Safety and Mission Assurance support responsibilities, she resigned in 1996 to raise a daughter, Tori, now a senior at Texas A&M University, and Nick, now a high school senior.
She re-entered the aerospace workforce in 2010, rejoining two former Rockwell colleagues at Booz Allen Hamilton.
“It’s a wonderful fit for me,” Armstrong said of the opportunity. “I’m definitely passionate about exploration for us as a species and about education. I’m sure there are some more rocks for me to turn over.”