On 3 April 2008, I attended Dr. Squyres' keynote at the FOSE Conference in Washington, DC. I originally wanted to go because he was going to be talking about the Mars rovers...Dr. Squyres is the principle investigator for the project, which is still going strong more than 1500 days later (the original "warranty" was for 90 days).

And the presentation didn't disappoint on that aspect. Dr. Squyres described what was going on as he displayed lots of pictures...Mars, its topography, rovers at Cape Canaveral, map of planet alignment, launch and landing, team members. He also showed some videos...what he called "origami in reverse" as Rover unfolded, and another that showed the mobility system that the engineers created to allow the wheels to conform to the topography.

Then he talked about what made the mission work. The number one thing? "An incredibly strong team, absolutely committed to the cause." One thing that helped was having the "coolest project around," which drew a certain category of people.

He then talked about how everyone worked together. Leaders led by example with a light touch. Scientists were led by scientists, engineers by engineers. There weren't a lot of memos, orders, or directives. They created an environment where people could get their jobs done and protected them from day-to-day distractions, and trusted them to do their jobs.

What a concept ;-)

Dr. Squyres said that a crucial piece was knowing exactly what they were trying to do. A statement of mission success was posted for the $800USD million project...it contained seven points and was about a half-page long. (I've looked for it online, but haven't been able to find it.) I was amazed...a government agency that used seven points on one piece of paper as the guidelines for this huge project. Dr. Squyres said that every question that anyone had was analyzed against the statement of success.

Because the project was so big (and the team was so large...over 4000 people), there were lots of decisions. Their process was to bring all stakeholders (all...not just a few, not just the major ones, but all) into a single room and give every person a chance to have their say. Only one person owned the final decision. A consensus made the process easier, but if there was discension, the decision owner made the decision and that was it. No gripes. No should haves, could haves, would haves.

As I left, I kept thinking that Dr. Squyres should be giving sessions on building teams.