Risk Assessment Practices at NASA: Studies of Design and Review Methods

Abstract

This report 1 describes a number of design and review activities observed at NASA for risk identification, assessment, and management. The NASA life-cycle is centered around the experience of its scientists, engineers, and managers, and the checks-and-balances are primarily instituted through a number of programmatic and technical reviews but also workshops and design tools. This paper explores the project development on both a full mission level as well as an accelerated design project to better demonstrate the range of methods used to identify and manage risk in NASA missions. With better understanding of not only the execution but motivation for the current development life-cycle practices, organizations, including but not limited to NASA, can better improve and errorproof their design process through risk management.