About the Course
NASA challenged Palatine Group/Management Worlds to teach its project managers to get to Mars. Literally!
They came back with Return to Mars, a groundbreaking, interactive, media-rich learning experience that recreates NASA's innovative Pathfinder Mission to Mars in a self-paced, online course. NASA's extensive project archives (which provided rich content on which to build the courseware), as well as video documentary interviews with the original project team, provide the fabric to re-live that historic mission. The course uses an advanced project to create a dramatic context for a learner to build skills and practice project management techniques within a subsystem of the mission.
Engaging, entertaining, challenging and highly personalized, the courseware blends 40 movies, over 300 screens, state-of-the-art sound, animation, interface facility - and even Leonard Nimoy - into 14 powerful, 45-minute episodes.
The course puts you in the hot-seat of a bold attempt to land a spacecraft on Mars. The budget is tight: $150 million, though the last mission to Mars cost over $1 billion. The schedule is rigid: do it in 3.5 years, or you'll miss the launch window. Since participants get to simulate a real project, they come away with skills and information they can immediately apply to their own projects.
Performance Focus
The courseware gives participants a clear understanding of the dynamics and challenges of project management, and provides the tools and techniques to manage the entire life cycle of a project. The course develops essential soft skills by immersing the participant in a simulation of Pathfinder's unique project environment, stressing performance and creativity, as well as innovation under tight budget and schedule restraints, since Pathfinder was one of the first NASA missions to subscribe to the faster, better cheaper way of conducting projects. Alongside its critical insights into the value of such skills as leadership, teamwork, and communication, Return to Mars provides practical tools such as work breakdown structures, lessons learned, and a 60-day scheduling software.
Required Software/Platforms
Macromedia Flash Player, Microsoft Project Scheduling Software, Adobe Acrobat. Will run on Windows or Mac OS. High-speed Internet Connection.
Listen to the Experts (Movies)
Tony Spear, Pathfinder Project Manager -- the immensely experienced leader of this historic team. Variously described as "colorful", a "people manager", and having "a reputation for honesty."
Brian Muirhead, Flight Manager. Designed and developed the Pathfinder flight system, and assumed the role of Project Manager on launch -- for which he was awarded NASA's Outstanding Leadership medal. Author of High Velocity Leadership, the book that inspired this course. PMI's Project Manager of the Year and at the helm when the project won PMI's project of the year.
Rob Manning, Flight System Chief Engineer. Manning designed, developed and tested all aspects of the spacecraft and was the lead system engineer for the entry, descent and landing phase of the mission.
Susan Roberts, Project Information/Knowledge Management Specialist. Began working on Pathfinder in 1994, when it was called Mars Environmental Survey. Among other achievements, she designed and maintained an electronic project library at JPL that is still in use today.
Kathleen Spellman, Experiment Operations Manager. During spacecraft operations, Spellman coordinated each Martian day's science activities-responsible for the management of over 100 scientists from around the world. |
