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Seven Key Risk Factors Examined

• The risk factors considered were: supply chains, dependency on external sources, acquisition costs and schedules, workforce issues, organizational and managerial considerations (e.g., the issues arising from NASA's distributed management between mission directorates and research centers), domestic and international political situations (e.g., partnership instabilities, congressional equities), and technical issues including information security.

Structured Methodology Provides Benefits Beyond Final Calculations

• Considering not only risks but also mitigations at an early stage in the analysis can prompt a structured thinking process that allows for clearer and more-thoughtful decisions.
• The use of a normalization process allows comparison of disparate risk issues that contribute to important decisions. Without such normalization, decisionmakers would be presented with a number of risk factors using different scales (and likely different grading and weighting) with little ability to understand comparisons within or among them or the overall risk burden associated with a decision.
• The result of such an analysis is a graphical representation of normalized relative risks designed to allow for understanding the NASA organizational-level risk associated with its decisions.

Case Studies Validate Suggested Methodology

• Each discrete risk assessment requires that the methodology be changed to reflect the particulars of the issue under consideration.
• Two decisions — one past and one future — were considered as a way to test and partially validate the methodology. The previous decision considered was the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program and commercialization of the transportation to the International Space Station, while the future decision focused on Cislunar habitation.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confronts a variety of organizational-level risks within its programs that could influence the success of its missions or programs. Comparing, contrasting, and mitigating these risks require developing a common lens through which to view them. Such an evaluation can increase overall understanding of the risks associated with NASA-level decisions. This report provides NASA's Office of Strategy and Plans with a risk assessment methodology that integrates risk factors and risk management approaches tailored to NASA's management, operations, and acquisition structures. While NASA has deep experience in conducting risk assessments on highly technical issues for individual programs and projects, it has not developed an overarching methodology for thinking about overall NASA-level risk associated with its decisions. For this effort, a methodology was developed for normalizing and comparing supply chain, external dependency, cost and schedule, human capital, organizational and managerial, political, and technical risks. The goal ultimately was to develop a single, overarching, risk-informed decision support methodology for looking at disparate risks through a common lens. The methodology presented is for a non-expert audience so that any practitioner or decisionmaker with any level of training can use it.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Risk Assessment and Risk-Informed Decisionmaking Methods

• Chapter Three

  Definition and Discussion of the Risk Factors and Components

• Chapter Four

  Development of the Risk-Informed Decision Methodology

• Chapter Five

  Case Studies

• Chapter Six

  Findings and Conclusions

• Appendix A

  List of Potential Cases for Consideration

• Appendix B

  Cancellation of the Space Shuttle Program and Commercialization of Transport to the ISS Case Study

• Appendix C

  Cislunar Habitat Case Study

• Appendix D

  Human Capital Risk Methodology