1. Project Management Using Modern
Guidance, Navigation and Control
Theory
Presented at PM Challenge 2011
Presenter:
Terry Hill, NASA / JSC
Date: February 09, 2011
The full discussion of this topic can be found
in: IEEE/AIAA paper IEEEAC#1694 2010

2. Overview
 The Laws of Physics
 How they apply to Nature
 How they apply to Machines
 How they apply to Humans & Projects
 Why A Project Manager should care about
GN&C Theory
 How we currently manage projects
 How we currently Navigate, Guide and Control
vehicles
 When the Two Worlds Collide
 How this Was Applied to CxP Space Suit Project
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3. Introduction
The intent is to educate the project manager about
the “laws of physics” of their project and to provide
an intuitive, mathematical explanation as to the
control and behavior of a project; not to teach a
GN&C engineer how to become a project manager.
Additionally, we will address how the fundamental
principals of modern GN&C have been applied to
NASA’s Constellation Space Suit project, and
resulting in the ability to manage the project within
cost, schedule and budget.
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4. What’s Coming Next:
THE LAWS OF PHYSICS
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5. The Laws of Physics
 All objects, physical dynamics, energies, frequencies,
and light in our observable universe all follow
fundamental laws of physics that can be characterized
by equations all the way down to the quantum level.
 Once you have the equations that fully characterize the
physical system, one can predict the outcome of given
input to the system with very high probability and
accuracy.
Force = Mass * Acceleration
Energy = Mass*(Speed of Light)2
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6. It Doesn’t Add Up
 There is the interesting phenomena that takes
place where the understanding of the sum of the
individual interactions between the system
constituents not only is computationally
impossible, but has only a third or fourth order
effect on the system actual behavior as a whole.
 The phenomenon of the dynamic motion of
schools of fish, flocks of birds, colonies of bees
and ants and large herds of land mammals.
1+1+1 = 10?!?
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7.  Why has this not been applied to the dynamics
of a group of people working together, in some
association with one another, to some agreed
ends to their efforts?
 That sounds a lot like a project …
 … and project manager would like to understand
how their project behaves so that they can better
understand how to control it and come to a
successful conclusion.
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8.  Moreover, this also resembles physical systems
which the engineering world has developed
highly sophisticated mathematics and models to
not only understand systems, but control them.
 It is this application of engineering principals to
human systems that will better provide a
physical understanding of how projects respond
to input and how to best control the outcome of
the system.
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9. What’s Coming Next:
WHY A PROJECT MANAGER
SHOULD CARE ABOUT GN&C
THEORY
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10. What is Guidance, Navigation &
Control Theory?!?
 It is the theory that allows us to control most all of the
machines we build that are more complicated than your
wheelbarrow.
 The guiding principles of GN&C apply to complex
vehicles, system of systems or software with time-
varying processes (at times non-linear responses),
multiple data inputs of varying accuracy and a range of
operating points.
Trains, Planes and Rockets!
Oh My!!!
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11. GN&C Theory in 30 Seconds or less
 The fundamental principals of GN&C state that a system is
comprised of these basic core concepts:
 State Vector
 Defines of the aspects of the dynamics of the system that can change, such as position, velocity,
acceleration, coordinate-based attitude, temperature, etc.
 System Behavior
 What changes are possible in the system. If properly done, will aid in accurate system performance
prediction in the future.
 Control System
 Models the system dynamics as a function of the control inputs to system outputs in a statistically
meaningful way.
 Navigation System
 Understands the state of the system: Where am I? How Fast am I going? What is my attitude?
 Guidance System
 Understands where we want to be and understands what we need to do to get back on course.
 Feedback Systems
 Is my system responding as I expected?
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12. Simplified GN&C Block Model of a System
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13. Example of Modeling System
Dynamics
y
c
where: M = Mass of the system
y(t) = is the time varying vertical displacement A mass/spring/damper system drawn in
of the mass Inkscape by Ilmari Karonen.
c= is the dampening (friction) constant
K = is the spring constant
Where
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14. But What about Project Management?!?
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15. What’s Coming Next:
WHEN THE TWO WORLDS
COLLIDE
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16. Project Management Theory To Date
 Much of what has been written about Project
Management in the last thirty years has been mostly on
the evolution of tools, which have proven to aid in the
predictability in the outcome of projects.
 However, little has been done to characterize the
discipline in terms of physical, mathematical models or
characterization.
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17. The Equations of Motion for Your
Project
Team’s Natural Team’s Damping
Harmonic Coefficient
If your system is under damped - usually through poor or over-reactive leadership
(leadership overreacts to events or team members do so respectively) - then your
project will expend wasted resources, burn out people or vibrate out of control
and fall apart.
If the project leadership is too conservative, it can result in the project taking too
long to reach a new and desired state for the project. And in business terms, that
could mean millions of lost revenue because the competition arrived at the
solution first.
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18. The Equations of Motion for Your
Project
Team’s Natural Team’s Damping
Harmonic Coefficient
The natural frequency, ω, is a function of spring constant (or natural dynamic of
the project)
The mass, M, or size of the project or team.
The dampening coefficient, λ, is in terms of the damping constant (or friction
constant) and can be considered a summation of the resistive forces working
against the team or decisions of the project manager.
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19. Traditional Project Control Variables
Specific project control variables can changes depending
on the project, but the traditional high-level control
variables are (vehicle analogies in parentheses):
 Resources (Fuel)
 Scope (vehicle functional capabilities or mission profile)
 Project status and authority (attitude determination and
control)
 Schedule (Thrust, velocity, etc.)
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20. What’s Coming Next:
HOW THIS WAS APPLIED TO
CXP SPACE SUIT PROJECT
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21. Background: CxP Suit Requirement
Development Schedule
 Planned Schedule for 2007:
 May 31-Jun 5 – Requirement Training and Kick-off
 Jun 1-22 – Suit Element Requirements Generation Activities
 June 25-29 – Suit Element SRR Doc(s) review
 July 2-6 – Suit Element SRR Doc(s) update & SRR final prep.
 July 10 – Suit & Vehicle Interface Elements SRR Kick-off
 July 10-20 – Suit/VI Element SRR Doc review & RID submittal
 July 22-Aug. 7 – Suit/VI Element SRR Panels and Boards.
 Aug. 9-Oct 20 – Close SRR Actions and update ERD
 Oct. 23 – Suit ERD for Baselining at EVA PCB.
 Oct. 29 – Suit ERD rev. A draft submitted to EVA CM for pre-blackout CSSS
Tech. Library drop for Prime contract RFP release
* Final outcome, Element SRR slipped one week to ensure
quality of products where ready for review. Review
revealed products were ready and of the appropriate
fidelity by EVA project management.
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22. System Requirement Review (SRR)
Scope
Requirements
Design
MCR Manufacture
or Code
SRR
Verification
Operations
SDR
Upgrade/
PDR Maintain
CDR
TRR
MCR: Mission Concept Review
 Baseline requirements SRR: System Requirements Review
 Assess feasibility SDR: System Definition Review
PDR: Preliminary Design Review
 Set expectations CDR: Critical Design Review
TRR: Test Readiness Review
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23. Putting Requirement Risk in the Proper
Perspective
 Not to put too much pressure on you….
 The Requirements Document is probably the single most influential
piece of paper that we have control over in the entire Constellation
Program.
 This is our chance to make sure that we are asking for what we
really want. Let’s get it right.
 This is a big, fat, hairy deal. If we don’t get this right, folks 20 years
from now will be shaking their heads and saying, “What were those
yahoos thinking?”
 I’ll be around and don’t want to go to that meeting.
CxP EVA Suit PGS Team Requirement Kickoff
Meeting 5/2007
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24. Background: CxP Suit Requirements
Development
Approach: What’s New About That?
 Given the extremely success-oriented  In this situation the team was formulated
schedule, an un-reported problem that and the process in which they would
might result in a schedule slip of just a operate, communicate, the information that
day or so was an unacceptable outcome. would be shared, its latency and applicably
to what was being controlled was modeled
 Like the high performance aircraft, the
and documented in the very same way
subsystems had to work well
that of a vehicle’s GN&C system would
independently, they had to communicate
have been designed.
with other subsystems, they had to
communicated on prescribed schedules to  Even down to understanding the mass,
the project manager to which he had to spring constant and friction coefficient
assess the information and provide a quantities of the team and the
guidance update to the team and had to subsequent damping response of the team
produce the desired product to the agreed was used to modify the processes, limit
to schedule. the size of the team based upon the
unique team dynamics.
 Information had to flow frequently,
accurately and the metrics had to be  By the end of the scheduled four months
meaningful to the tasks at hand that the team met the schedule dead-line and
were being managed. delivered the first 500 page version of the
CxP Suit Element requirements
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25. Suit Requirement Development Process
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26. Results in Project Reviews
 For the Suit ERD SRR, a ratio of 0.38 Review Item Descriptions
(RIDs) were received per requirement.
 In comparison, the parent document had a 2.94 RID/requirement ratio at
its SRR.
Bidders for the development of the “… the most comprehensive and of the highest
Suit Element stated that the ERD
was: quality they ever remember seeing.”
“I can't say enough about how amazed I am by
The JSC Engineering Directorate this set of requirements documents. As far as I
Crew and Thermal Systems
Division Chief was also very know, no other Cx project has allocated and
impressed with the quality of the decomposed anywhere near to this level of
Suit ERD, saying: depth. You are the first. I have also never seen
anything like these from previous programs.”
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27. Suit Development Activities to PDR
 The remainder of the project was re-formulated in the same manner
as has been discussed here to address the changing nature of the
team and the external input and expected outputs of the system.
 New control systems were put into place where required and tuned
so the dynamic response of the team was as required.
 Control and management tools like WBS, resource-loaded
schedules, control account codes, project risks were all linked such
that when on changed, the effect immediately modified the others.
 Therefore, per GN&C principals, the Control system’s dynamic
model of the system is in terms of the system’s inputs and expected
outputs.
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28. Example of Requirement Validation
Testing for CY 2007
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29. Take Away Messages
 The experience with utilizing modern adaptive GN&C
concepts and experience with the CxP Suit Element
engineering team:
 During the five years of leadership
 Never over-ran the budget
 Only responsible for a two-week schedule slip during the
project’s second year.
 All the while, the team implemented all of the mandated
NASA and CxP project control requirements,
 Implementation of EVM, WBS structures, resource-loaded
schedules and program reporting and lead many of the NASA
teams in setting up and utilizing the mandated usage of
document control system, development of project control
processes and structures.
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30. Presenter Biography
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31. Terry Hill
NASA/JSC
Terry R. Hill is a member of NASA’s Johnson Space Center International Space Station / Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility
Unit (EMU) Team where he is responsible for providing engineering insight into the sustaining engineering and flight
operations of the ISS EMU, the 2010 life extension hardware modifications, determining what the system hardware
impacts are to extending the ISS EMU support out until 2028 and investigating how the EMU can be used as a
demonstration platform for technology development. Terry has a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and an M.S. in Guidance,
Navigation & Control Theory with a minor in Orbital Mechanics and Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin.
He began his career at NASA while working on his graduate thesis project in
developing banks of simplified Kalman filters integrated into an artificial neural
network to obtain an optimal state solution for precision landing on Mars.
While at NASA, Terry has worked on projects and programs spanning from
ISS navigation software verification, Shuttle navigation design test objectives
and back room mission support, X-38 Crew Return Vehicle navigation
algorithm development, Space Launch Initiative technology development,
Orbital Space Plane Project office ISS-prime integration, STS-107 “Return to
Flight” tile repair capability development, to CxP Space Suit Element
leadership.
Terry and the Suit Element have been interviewed by the Associated Press
and covered by media outlets including CNN.com, Forbe.coms and National
Geographic video “Living on the Moon” air date 2009. Terry has also been
identified as one of NASA’s Constellation Stars, and was identified as NASA
Tech Brief’s Who’s Who in NASA for November 2010.
In leading the CxP Suit Element engineering team, Terry had the
responsibilities of JSC’s Engineering Project Manager, the CxP EVA Systems
Suit Element Deputy Lead and Element Lead during his tenure on the project.
He facilitated the development of system functional requirements for space
suit development and a “clean-sheet” design approach that has been widely
recognized within and outside NASA. 31