--- In ssi_list@... "Donald Brewer, Jr."

> I have used some citations from this newsgroup, so
> I would especially appreciate those I've cited

It looks fine to me. That's quite a tome you've produced.
Impressive. Hope you get a good grade.

TangoMan

--- In ssi_list@... "Donald Brewer, Jr."

> I have used some citations from this newsgroup, so
> I would especially appreciate those I've cited

It looks fine to me. That's quite a tome you've produced.
Impressive. Hope you get a good grade.

TangoMan

Okay, I read it though I did fast forward through some of it like the
funding paper.
I noticed a "two" that should have been a "too" in the first or second one.
You have a tendency to restate your opening paragraph several times. By
the time I am though the second or third restatement I am wondering
where the meat is.
While only the last paper had actually references to the SSI list, I
noticed several areas that have been topics of discussion on the list.
This is a derivative work rather than a primary research paper. All of
the concepts were pulled from some form of source material and as such
represents a history of other peoples research and opinions. Where I
really didn't like this was in the discussion of FasterCheaperBetter
which was solely focused on doing NASA work the NASA way using NASA
because that is the way the source papers were written. There was no
out-of-the box thinking and therefore I felt that the conclusions and
suggestions were invalid. It bothered me that somebody reading this
paper would think that this was all that there was on the subject rather
than understand that it was only a very limited set of fix NASA solutions.

Mitchell James

James,

Thank you for your comments. They are appreciated. I have to go through
and proof one more time so I'll be sure to keep an eye out for the too/two
incident. As to your second comment, part of it was a attempting something
that apparently did not work. I'll relook at the way I restated things for
emphasis for an alternative way of getting across what I was attempting to.
You are correct in the next to points that while the last one was the one I
used citations from SSI resources, I cited some of the members in other
areas. I think a couple were personal emails and therefore would only have
an internal citation and not an entry in the reference list. Also you are
absolutely correct in that this project is entirely derivative. That was my
task. In it, I needed to demonstrate theoretical teachings with what was
within the literature. Hopefully I accomplished that, I'm not as sure as
I'd like to be about it. The original research project comes next. I'd
love to hear any suggestions you might have on what you see as a worthwhile
project in that vein. Your last comment concerned me a bit. My main reason
for posting this document to the list aside from the fact I thought some of
you may find it interesting, was to ensure that I hadn't taken anything out
of context. I believe that you are saying I have with FBC paper. I will
pull out all the original source documents again for another in depth look.
I would appreciate any further thoughts you have on the matter, and
references to any source documents you feel I may have left out.

Again, I really appreciate the feedback. I've found the people on this list
to be extremely constructive in their criticism, and I'm sure that any
criticisms you have will come up in my defense as well. I'd prefer to fix
the problems now than later.

Sincerely,

DBJ

Okay, I read it though I did fast forward through some of it like the
funding paper.
I noticed a "two" that should have been a "too" in the first or second one.
You have a tendency to restate your opening paragraph several times. By
the time I am though the second or third restatement I am wondering
where the meat is.
While only the last paper had actually references to the SSI list, I
noticed several areas that have been topics of discussion on the list.
This is a derivative work rather than a primary research paper. All of
the concepts were pulled from some form of source material and as such
represents a history of other peoples research and opinions. Where I
really didn't like this was in the discussion of FasterCheaperBetter
which was solely focused on doing NASA work the NASA way using NASA
because that is the way the source papers were written. There was no
out-of-the box thinking and therefore I felt that the conclusions and
suggestions were invalid. It bothered me that somebody reading this
paper would think that this was all that there was on the subject rather
than understand that it was only a very limited set of fix NASA solutions.

Mitchell James

--- In ssi_list@... "Donald Brewer, Jr."

> and I'm sure that any
> criticisms you have will come up in my defense as well. I'd
> prefer to fix the problems now than later.

You didn't tell us the purpose of the paper. It'll help me judge how
critical to be if I know whether this is a term paper, a Bachelor's
Honor Project, a Master's level term paper, or a Master's thesis.

TangoMan

--- In ssi_list@... "Donald Brewer, Jr."

> and I'm sure that any
> criticisms you have will come up in my defense as well. I'd
> prefer to fix the problems now than later.

You didn't tell us the purpose of the paper. It'll help me judge how
critical to be if I know whether this is a term paper, a Bachelor's
Honor Project, a Master's level term paper, or a Master's thesis.

TangoMan

> The posting was 5 of 6 comprehensive final questions for a Ph.D.

A Ph.D in which field?

> The general questions I want to answer is whether technological
> advances (or lack thereof) are driving industry to the detriment
> of business interests, or if business interests are driving
> industry to the detriment of technilogical advances. I would also
> really like to do a case study on either SpaceDev, Scaled
> Composites, or Transorbital. I just haven't yet formulated a
> solid enough research design in my mind yet to offer anything for
> debate.

How do you define business interests?

What principles are you hoping to derive from a case study? Would it
be a management case study? An engineering one?

TangoMan

> The posting was 5 of 6 comprehensive final questions for a Ph.D.

A Ph.D in which field?

> The general questions I want to answer is whether technological
> advances (or lack thereof) are driving industry to the detriment
> of business interests, or if business interests are driving
> industry to the detriment of technilogical advances. I would also
> really like to do a case study on either SpaceDev, Scaled
> Composites, or Transorbital. I just haven't yet formulated a
> solid enough research design in my mind yet to offer anything for
> debate.

How do you define business interests?

What principles are you hoping to derive from a case study? Would it
be a management case study? An engineering one?

TangoMan

Hash: SHA1

| Your last comment concerned me a bit. My main reason for posting
| this document to the list aside from the fact I thought some of you
| may find it interesting, was to ensure that I hadn't taken anything
| out of context. I believe that you are saying I have with FBC
| paper. I will pull out all the original source documents again for
| another in depth look. I would appreciate any further thoughts you
| have on the matter, and references to any source documents you feel
| I may have left out.

It is late a night so this might not be understandable. Despite the
fact that many at NASA didn't like Goldin's FBC until it was forced on
them, Goldin's changes didn't really represent any sort of drastic
change to NASA. Goldin's background is as an insider in the military
aerospace culture. He wasn't out to make sure that something like
space colonization was achieved. He was retuning the NASA system.
Therefore the focus on FBC in the paper precludes the discussion of
"did these changes really get us closer to space colonization?" or any
other goal because the discussion is on a process used to achieve a
goal not the fact there was no clear goal against which to measure the
process. So there is a lack of "context" about why is this process is
important or not important. Not important from my point of view.

The commissions who's works you are siteing, are considering did this
piece of the process work better on this project vs a slightly
different way on another project and therefore are not addressing the
subject of what SHOULD the process be. Case in point is the conclusion
that collocation is important to FBC. Where the issue really was,
"was there a method to retain and distribute the "whys" and
discussions that happend during any project so that these were
available later?". Without this the whole system is only as good as
the weakest chain. The first person with critical information in
their head to leave or die pushs the whole project into failure.
Colocation insures this type of failure whereas seperateness requires
interface documents and many other types of documents to be generated
so at least some knowledge is written down. Just stateing that
collocation worked better ignores the lack of repeatability by anybody
but that specific team. Change the team enough (one person in the
wrong spot) and you might as well pick any random group to do the work.

Mitchell James

Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFBEGK20doL2+r9FcgRAg2GAKCH6JW7tYeZk5r9s11wSQTw0w8znwCgh71W
VLKhIUOm461mJnXRzrT6LxQ=
=JFEV

Hash: SHA1

| Your last comment concerned me a bit. My main reason for posting
| this document to the list aside from the fact I thought some of you
| may find it interesting, was to ensure that I hadn't taken anything
| out of context. I believe that you are saying I have with FBC
| paper. I will pull out all the original source documents again for
| another in depth look. I would appreciate any further thoughts you
| have on the matter, and references to any source documents you feel
| I may have left out.

It is late a night so this might not be understandable. Despite the
fact that many at NASA didn't like Goldin's FBC until it was forced on
them, Goldin's changes didn't really represent any sort of drastic
change to NASA. Goldin's background is as an insider in the military
aerospace culture. He wasn't out to make sure that something like
space colonization was achieved. He was retuning the NASA system.
Therefore the focus on FBC in the paper precludes the discussion of
"did these changes really get us closer to space colonization?" or any
other goal because the discussion is on a process used to achieve a
goal not the fact there was no clear goal against which to measure the
process. So there is a lack of "context" about why is this process is
important or not important. Not important from my point of view.

The commissions who's works you are siteing, are considering did this
piece of the process work better on this project vs a slightly
different way on another project and therefore are not addressing the
subject of what SHOULD the process be. Case in point is the conclusion
that collocation is important to FBC. Where the issue really was,
"was there a method to retain and distribute the "whys" and
discussions that happend during any project so that these were
available later?". Without this the whole system is only as good as
the weakest chain. The first person with critical information in
their head to leave or die pushs the whole project into failure.
Colocation insures this type of failure whereas seperateness requires
interface documents and many other types of documents to be generated
so at least some knowledge is written down. Just stateing that
collocation worked better ignores the lack of repeatability by anybody
but that specific team. Change the team enough (one person in the
wrong spot) and you might as well pick any random group to do the work.

Mitchell James

Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFBEGK20doL2+r9FcgRAg2GAKCH6JW7tYeZk5r9s11wSQTw0w8znwCgh71W
VLKhIUOm461mJnXRzrT6LxQ=
=JFEV