During the lecture, we reflected on the assigned reading: Fishman, "They
Write the Right Stuff" (1996)
Summary of Paper
- The NASA process stifles creativity but that is the point
- People working at the company have to channel their creativity into changing the process not changing the software
- 12 of 22 members are women
- They work strictly 8-5 unlike coders unlike in companies such as Microsoft where late nights are common
- Its all about the process that allows them to work normal hours, stay on budget and deliver on time
- The product is only as good as the plan for the product - plan the most minute detail before commencing writing the code - their requirements are almost " blueprint like detail
- The best teamwork is rivalry team work
- Have a database on why, how, when etc. code was changed and also a database describing every error dating back 20 years. They’ve accumulated so much data that they’ve been able to create software to predict future errors
- Don’t just fix the mistakes - fix whatever permitted the mistake in the first place
Discussion
- The process at NASA stifles creativity but is there not still a degree of creativity? Is creativity not involved in anything that requires change?
- Creativity just happens differently - locked in early on
- Not a normal industry
- This makes sense in high risk industries e.g. pacemakers, nuclear plants
- Some forced by regulation
- May not work in other industries which need to adapt quickly, need to experiment, fail fast etc
- Engineer who left the org did not enjoy working in the jockey, pizza environment as he had become indoctrinated in this culture
- Quality, Cost, Time, Scope
- Where are we with the variables
- This org is optimizing?
- Quality is fixed
- Cost is a variable
- Scope - Fixed primarily, overall goal stays constant
- Time: Variable if necessary- not a free variable, they don’t want to use it as a variable but if they identify a flaw they will pull release date
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