Case Study Questions/Insights

Questions:
1. Why didn't a team collaborate immediately to take advantage of the window of opportunity they had to save the Columbia shuttle? There are several options that could have been at least attempted.
2. Could the Challenger tradgedy been prevented had the review board's objectives been different?
3. Is it difficult for NASA to coordinate and work cohesively as a team with 3 different space stations spread so far apart?
4. Who do you feel is most responsible for the organizational disasters which have occured in these missions?
5. What have you, as an organization, concluded the main problem to be? Trust? Communication? Alignment of authority?
Insights:
1. When you don't try to forsee possible mishaps and have no plan of emergency or backup, you're pretty much walking a tightrope without thinking you might need a harness. I assume this was the case with the Columbia mission. They spent so much time deliberating over a plan that the precious time they had was wasted. Had the plan already been in place, there at least would have been a chance to save them.
2. It pays as a leader to consider the advice of your workers. No one would take the Challenger engineer seriously as he desperately tried to convince his leaders of what he knew. I found myself in a similar situation while working as a consultant for the 2005 Sumter, South Carolina mayoral elections. I was only 20 years old and still in the process of earning my college degree. My other colleges were twice my age with much more education. I diversified the group by having a younger generations perspective within the community and was current in my field of study, however, the problem resulting was that I wasn't taken seriously at times I felt were critical.
3. Much trust within the organization has been lost and I feel the only way to regain that trust is to include everyone, every worker, in establishing a new motto that the agents and employees are valued and will be taken care of.
4. In our class discussion many seemed to agree that the fault didn't lie with one person in the organization, but many. To an extent, I disagree. The leadership alignment is bottlenecked to one or two persons. Those persons should be aware and involved enough be able to be responsible for their organization.
5. It is extremely saddening to see that NASA has not learned its lesson over time because there are many similarities with each disaster.