March 2022 | The Smart Mission: NASA’s Lessons for Managing Knowledge, People, and Projects by Ed Hoffman

People, projects, and organisations are engaged in missions. The word denotes purpose, meaning, and social impact. This session explores six factors – learning, knowledge, teaming, global collaboration, culture, and story – that promote a smart mission.

Dr. Ed Hoffman is the CEO, Knowledge Strategies, LLC.  Knowledge Strategies is engaged in research, education, and consulting services in support of organization performance.

Dr. Hoffman is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, where he researches and leads a course entitled, ‘Navigating the Future of Work.’ His research indicates that intangibles of ideas, conversation, trust, and collaboration are critical for organisation growth.

He serves as Strategic Advisor for the Project Management Institute, with a focus on supporting organisations around knowledge, learning, and leadership for teams.

He retired from a wonderful journey with NASA as a Senior Executive. At NASA, he was the first NASA Chief Knowledge Officer, and founder of the NASA Academy for Program, Project, and Engineering Leadership. 

Following the Columbia Space Shuttle failure, he led a small team that designed the NASA Strategic Management and Governance approach.

He received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2010.

He has co-authored an upcoming book, ‘The Smart Mission: NASA’s Lessons for Managing Knowledge, People and Projects,’ scheduled for spring 2022 release by MIT Press. He is currently researching and designing a curriculum sequence on the future of work, for Columbia University. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262046881/ref=nodl_

Ed is a popular organisation speaker on knowledge, leadership, and high performance teams. He has written numerous journal articles, and co-authored Shared Voyage: Learning and Unlearning from Remarkable Projects (NASA, 2005) and Project Management Success Stories: Lessons of Project Leaders (Wiley, 2000).