NASA Earth Science Enterprise
Issues/Challenges:
In recent years, the Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) division of NASA has undergone tremendous restructuring, dividing the department into three main areas: Research, Technology and Applications. Lindberg Group’s challenge was to develop a 10-year strategic vision for ESE that would allow these three sub-branches to operate in unison while simultaneously promoting buy-in from various stakeholder groups, including the Administration, Congress, academia, agencies, and the private sector.
Strategies:
- Solicit input from representatives from the Earth science community to identify perceived problems affecting NASA’s Earth Science Applications division
- Reach out to the following three groups:
- Internal NASA professionals
- External Earth science professionals from the private sector and universities who work or have worked with NASA’s Earth Science Applications Division on a regular basis
- Earth science applications professionals from other Federal agencies
- Incorporate research results into NASA’s Earth Science Applications’ 10-Year Plan
Activities:
- Conduct phone interviews with about 20 NASA Earth Science Applications professionals to ascertain internal perceptions of the division and proposals to be contained in the 10-Year Plan
- Development of a questionnaire from the aforementioned results to be sent to 200 external Earth science professionals via the Internet
- Comparison of the results of the internal reviews to the results of the external questionnaires to determine “gaps” in perceptions of NASA’s Earth science activities
- Development of messaging to help “close” these perception gaps and incorporation of such messaging into a NASA Earth Science Applications presentation on the 10-Year Plan
- Present the presentation to two “feedback groups” made up of Earth science professionals from the private sector and from various Federal agencies, including USDA, DoD, and FEMA
- Ask these groups to provide additional feedback concerning the messaging
- Use of messaging in the development of NASA’s Earth Science Applications 10-Year Plan
Results:
The Lindberg Group’s proposal for the strategic vision was adopted by the Administration and has been presented to thousands of stakeholders since it was finalized, an added bonus being that many of the stakeholders experienced a sense of ownership of NASA’s plan stemming from their actual individual roles in the clarification of the goals and processes of such vision. NASA’s Earth Science Applications 10-Year Plan, formulated in part by information gathered in the various forums, is now being successfully implemented.