Harvard Business School - Day 22

Monday, 28 Sep 2009
Much of Sunday afternoon was spend preparing for a case study we had today on the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy in early 203.
This was the first time HBS had used this case (they had just finished compiling it). It is presented as an amazing multi-media case whereby you are presented with video tapes, email records, recordings of meetings, news clips etc.
The purpose was to try and tease out the many interwoven issues surrounding the tragedy and attempt to gain an understanding of the events and culture at NASA that contributed to what occurred.
Such is the strength of Harvard Business School that they managed to procure the attendance of two very senior NASA managers. One is the current Chief Knowledge Manager (Ed Rodgers) and the second was Rodney Roche who is the Divisional Chief Engineer - Structural on the shuttle team.
He was one of the individuals within NASA that identified the potential problems associated with the foam damage to Columbia's left wing after lift-off, but at that stage wasn't able to promote the issue onto the agenda of the senior managers responsible for the mission. He spoke genuinely and bravely about many issues including his own personal shame at not having taken steps to push his concerns further. He also spoke of steps taken within NASA since then to rectify the many issues that we're identified in the ensuing investigation post tragedy.
After class I had a game of squash with Peter Weaver the Australian in the adjacent working group. He is a good guy (from Melbourne) and we get on well. We are also both complete bunnies at squash so are pretty even and give each other a good run around.