Measuring Performance and Benchmarking Project Management at the Department of Energy (BICE)

In 1997, Congress, in the conference report, H.R. 105-271, to the FY1998 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Bill, directed the NRC to carry out a series of assessments of project management at the Department of Energy (DOE). The final report in that series noted that DOE lacked an objective set of measures for assessing project management quality. The department set up a committee to develop performance measures and benchmarking procedures and asked the NRC for assistance in this effort. This report presents information and guidance for use as a first step toward development of a viable methodology to suit DOE’s needs. It provides a number of possible performance measures, an analysis of the benchmarking process, and a description ways to implement the measures and benchmarking process.

Proceedings of the 25th Naval Hydrodynamics Symposium (NSB)

The Naval Hydrodynamics Symposium Series provides an international, unclassified forum for the scientific and technical exchange of naval hydrodynamics research developments of common interest to all the countries of the world. The Twenty-Fifth Symposium on Naval Hydrodynamics was held in St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada from August 8-13, 2004. Seventy-six papers were presented in 14 topical areas. The areas covered in this meeting were selected because of recent scientific and technical advances and their importance to the overall field of naval hydrodynamics. The Proceedings, including all authored papers plus discussion questions and responses, are available on a compact disk.

Government/Industry/Academic Relationships for Technology Development: A Workshop Report (ASEB)

Released 01/18/05

NASA’s Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) program within the Office of Space Flight has proposed a new framework for space technology and systems development—Advanced Systems, Technology, Research, and Analysis (ASTRA) for future space flight capabilities. To assist in the development of this framework, NASA asked the National Research Council to convene a series of workshops on technology policy issues concerning the relationship of the various stakeholders in advancing human and robotic exploration and development of space. The second workshop, which is the summarized in this report, focused on the interrelationship between government, industry, and academia in the development of technology. Examples from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation were covered in order to discuss best practices of such cooperative efforts as possible lessons for NASA’s space exploration activities.