Description

This 2-day experiential workshop provides project and engineering leaders the knowledge and skills necessary for creating a high performance, organizationally accountable teaming culture capable of accelerating systems development.  This course will help you to create an innovative, collaborative, empowered, trusted team, which is critical to encouraging the curiosity and social awareness necessary to effectively embracing the uncertainty associated with systems development.  Developing a learning and open culture is key to infusing “Risk Leadership” principles and enabling “Decision Velocity” necessary to efficiently deliver missions in today’s rapidly changing environment.  Participants will develop tactical skills through experiential exercises and case studies to understand the development cycle “DNA” and learn how to recognize and mitigate imbedded culture barriers and address the natural neurologic drivers behind the need to overcontrol the development process.

This course uses real-world NASA project and engineering examples to enhance performance of the entire workforce, including experienced Project and Program Managers, Lead and Senior Systems Engineers, Chief Engineers

Course Outline:

1. Build a high performance, accountable organizational culture.
2. Establish a collaborative operating environment to help accelerate innovative solutions.
3. Select appropriate leadership techniques for empowering creative team solutions.
4. Identify and mitigate underlying individual and organizational inhibitors.
5. Employ “Risk Leadership” principles.
6. Create “decision velocity” by leveraging built-in disciplines of PM and SE.
7. Recognize unconscious bias drivers.
8. Apply these learned enhanced communication skills.

What You Will Learn:

1. Development Cycle DNA: Understanding and creating an innovative environment; navigating the dichotomy and tension of development to operations mental models.
2. Embracing the Risk Conundrum: Challenging defensiveness of status quo; analysis paralysis versus methodical uncertainty decision.
3. Communication and Language Barriers: Aggressive listening to understand, inquiring and advocacy model, and developing emotional and social intelligence.
4. Collaboration, Compliance, and Control: Complex systems integration, empowerment and engagement, and process versus product.
5. Creating Decision Velocity: Mission focus, eliminating death by meetings, and enabling empowerment and accountability with experiential intuition (IQ+EQ+SQ).
6. Authentic Leadership Skills: Values, behaviors, coaching, and situational leadership.

Instructor(s):

Christopher (Chris) Singer recently retired as NASA Deputy Chief engineer and is currently an independent consultant and executive coach.  He is a proven, dynamic leader with over 34 years of experience and a highly motivating catalyst for Agency capability integration and innovation & collaboration culture.

Prior to this position, he served as Engineering Director at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, an organization of 2500 people responsible for the design, testing, and operation space systems developed by the center.  He lead engineering thru particularly difficult times including Columbia tragedy, Constellation cancellation and Space Shuttle retirement. He developed experiential workshops, “Retooling Engineering” and “Getting to First Flight”, for creating an innovative culture to rapidly infuse advanced technologies such as selective laser melting, structured light scanning and wireless avionics and sensor systems.

 He is working as a Leadership Consultant and Certified Executive coach and facilitator.  He is an AIAA Associate Fellow and has numerous awards including Distinquished Service Medal and Presidential Rank Award— the highest honors for career federal employees and the coveted Astronaut Corp Silver Snoopy Award.

 A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Mr. Singer earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1983 from Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee. 

He enjoys woodworking, fishing and Hang gliding and is married to Jody Singer.  They have three children and 8 wonderful grandchildren.