Case Study: Columbia's Final Mission

Five Panel Questions:

1. If the loss of foam on the shuttle was classified as an "in-flight anomaly" clearly acknowledging that it presented a significant safety hazard, then why did NASA do nothing to correct the problem?
2. How is it possible that the Debris Assessment Team (DAB) was not given a clear objective nor the knowledge of to whom the findings should be reported?
3. Why were the engineers unable to send safety concerns to higher management to see that they get the proper attention?
4. How could the channels of communication be corrected to prevent future accidents?
5. Why wasn't the DAT allowed direct communication to the Mission Management Team (MMT)?
   

Five Insights:

1. Communication is the medium through which every task and activity within an organization is made known, shared, understood, agreed upon, undertaken, presented, analyzed, and clarified.
   
2. Without communication, nothing in an organization could function.
3. Improper or poor communication is similar to having no communication, what needs to be done is impossible to do if not communicated properly and clearly.
4. Almost any problem within an organization could be attributed to the failure of communication.
5. Managers and leaders should be responsible to see that ideas and concerns are communicated clearly and unfiltered to the proper authorities who can initiate action to correct a situation or problem.

Application:

As I was reading this case study I couldn't help but think of the organization of the Idaho National Lab (INL) where I currently work as an intern. The lab has it's own internal organization of managers and leaders. The Lab is funded and managed by the Department of Energy (DOE). The problem is that the lab also receives a lot of outsourced work from other companies such as NASA and other government agencies. Many times it can be confusing trying to figure out who is responsible for what. The INL is very large and has many different departments that work for a number of different companies. Sometimes we are working on a project that will be applied to more than one of those companies and will have to try to appease the demands of both companies on the one project. This can often lead to difficulty in understanding the requirements and specifications of certain projects.