Case Study 2: The NASA space shuttle - Assignment Example

The aim of using this approach was to shorten the agency’s program development time, increase scientific return and reduce costs of its programs. NASA hoped to achieve increased space explorations and successful returns (Gordon, 2008). The goal of adopting this approach was driven by funding and politics. Politics is a major factor in the management of projects at NASA. Politics have influenced changes in the management styles at the organization. NASA was formed in response to Russia’s space exploration program.

NASA was formed from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The initial programs by NASA focused on human space flights (Anderson, 2002). The agency’s first high profile program was a project that focused on whether humans could live on Mercury. This was followed by Project Gemini, which was based on the successes of Project Mercury. Later NASA expanded its projects to moon explorations (Anderson, 2002). When Daniel Goldin was the administrator of the agency, he challenged his employees to complete projects in a faster, cheaper and better fashion.

This approach to project management was used to move the agency into the 21st century. The agency recognized that in order to remain credible and viable, it must view its operations as a business and treat schedules and costs as crucial aspects of a mission as the performance of the mission. The agency also recognized the need to deliver its missions on time and based on the advertised costs. Project management focused on three essential directives in order to facilitate the faster, better and cheaper concept of project management.

The first directive was to focus on small missions. The second directive was the incorporation of advanced technologies and the third directive was the reduction of NASA’s upper management (McCurdy, 2001). The third directive led to the movement of programs and project’s responsibility to the agency’s headquarters. The fourth