Management lessons from Mars

Many elements of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project can seem alien to other agencies: the vast distances involved, the harsh environment, and the intense media coverage of the successes and failures. Yet in many ways, the NASA team deals with familiar management challenges: How do you define clear mission requirements? How do you put together the right team and manage it successfully? And how do you deal with oversight from your agency and Congress?

In this video interview, Steven Squyres, an astronomy professor at Cornell University and scientific principal investigator for the Mars project, shares some of the management lessons he has learned in the two decades he has worked on the project. Christopher J. Dorobek, editor in chief of Federal Computer Week, interviewed Squyres April 3 after his keynote presentation at the FOSE conference in Washington, D.C.