Team X at Work  (19 Slides)     [Page 1 of 1]  
   
The customer kicks off a one-week Team X study with a half-hour presentation on background and objectives.
Two engineers carry on a side room discussion to address a special issue with scientific instruments on the spacecraft.
Team members use several information channels simultaneously: projected screens on the wall, their own desktop screens, and conversation through the room or its telephone network.
In the first half of the first session, team members focus on baselining their own subsystems to suit the mission.
The Project Design Center provides a rich visual and conversational environment for team interaction.
  IMG_1725  
  IMG_1727  
  IMG_1730  
  IMG_1733  
  IMG_1735  
While less prominent in the room, whiteboard resources are heavily utilized to tackle challenging problems.
Engineers keep paper and pencil handy for drawing ideas to one another.
Subsystem- and system-level engineers move freely in and out of ad hoc discussion groups as needed.
Team members will bring in their own computers and even pocket calculators with valuable information or familiar capabilities.
The arrangement of people in the room follows the arrangement of conversations that need to happen as the study progresses.
  IMG_1736  
  IMG_1741  
  IMG_1743  
  IMG_1745  
  IMG_1746  
Once or twice each session, the facilitator will bring everyone to attention, so each subsystem chair can relay status and issues to the whole team.
The projector screens are remapped to different workstations to display the most useful information at any point in the study.
The Configuration (CAD) workstation is a hotspot for discussion: here design issues take on visual meaning.
Engineers' physical presence allows them to use hand gestures to communicate around electronic 3D drawings.
Paper drawings support additional discussion before the CAD engineer puts geometry into electronic form.
  IMG_1752  
  IMG_1782  
  IMG_1785  
  IMG_1787  
  IMG_1788  
An array of cabinets (top right) stores published records of previous JPL missions: experienced engineers use these to recall design points from past work (bottom left).
The small whiteboard in the main room preserves snapshots of many design decisions worked out during the course of a study: the figures appear meaningless outside the context of the moment.
Toward the end of the study, the spacecraft geometry takes on its final form, and the deputy systems engineer reviews the collected parameters of the design.
The internal detail of the spacecraft geometry reflects a host of quick estimates about component sizes and structural layout.
  IMG_1791  
  IMG_1795  
  IMG_1797  
  IMG_1803  
Album last updated on 10/10/06 12:51 AM
Powered by JAlbum 6.5 and BluPlusPlus skin
© 2006 California Institute of Technology. Photographs and captions by Thomas Coffee. The views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or the California Institute of Technology. Many thanks to Mike Evans, Tibor Balint, and Team X for permission to observe the study photographed here. Additional thanks to Rebecca Wheeler, Luke Voss, and Melissa Vick for help with export clearance.