CASE ANALYSIS

Group 3:
Apoorva (007) | Sneha (170) | Abhay (274) | Shubham (346)

ould Lee recommend the launch or delay of Mars Mission? How do you decide thi
Critical Issues that emerged after
Critical Events Readiness Review

Benefits of delaying the launch of Mars

Mission

BMSA Instruments:
Possibility of reducing the risk associated
Risks were reduced to 3 but the
with landings as higher resolution images
likelihood was still 3 leading to an
will be available thus reducing the overall
overall heat map score of 9
risk to below 5%
Delay would give them time to mitigate
indicating yellow risk
Landing site risks:
other risks which are unknown at present
20% probability exists that the
Failure of this project can have
lander would not land
catastrophic effects on the prospects of
successfully
future funding because the previous
With a likelihood of 3 and a
MARS mission was also unsuccessful
An increase of 20%-40% in cost would
consequence of 5, overall heat
map of
score
of 15 falls
in red is
zone
substantially
the probability
The probability
success
of project
80% which falls
below theincrease
acceptable
range of 90%,
project and
success
hence the MBE project must be delayed to mitigate known
unknown risks

Identify principal risk management processes in MBE?What

roles eachplay?
CompareitwithyourorganisationriskManagement processes.
TheMBE
(1/3) projecthada12 person riskreviewboard, chaired byLee andcomprising
experienced and respected technical experts from JPL, NASA and the projects prime
contractor
The review board created a culture of Intellectual
threecriticalreview meetingsduringthe project

Confrontation

during

Preliminary Mission and Systems Review

Critical Design Review
Critical Events Readiness Review
The boardquestionedand challenged project engineers thereby giving an outsiders
perspective to project engineers regarding the possible risks associated with the project

Identify principal risk management processes in MBE?What

roles eachplay?
CompareitwithyourorganisationriskManagement processes.
(2/3)
Theteamassessedtheriskslikelihoodofoccurrenceb
5

asedon experience and used a two dimensional matrix

called as Heat Map to evaluate the seriousness of the
issue. Each cell represents the product of risks
likelihood and consequence. Based on this, the risks
were classified as:

4
Likel
ihoo
d

3
2
1

Risks with score <=5 : Green Zone

Risks with score (6-14) : Yellow Zone
Risks with score (>= 15) : Red Zone
1

Consequence

Identify principal risk management processes in MBE?What

roles eachplay?
CompareitwithyourorganisationriskManagement processes.
For any new project, following steps were followed to mitigate the risks:
(3/3)

Identify

Risks associated with the project were listed out by the various departments involved
in the project

Assess and Evaluate

Possible solutions and action plan was prepared by the respected departments
These were reviewed by the senior management and appropriate course of action was
decided

Take actions
Actions were taken as decided upon in the meeting with the senior management
These were reviewed continuously during the course by the concerned authorities

Review and Report

Final report, that contains the assessment of the risk after the proposed actions have
been implemented
The report was reviewed by the higher management and then the proposal was
accepted

Do you consider Lee as a Good Chief Risk Officer (CRO)? Justify your decision
Relevant experience
Prior association with the Vikings project of NASA that engineered the first
successful landing of spacecraft on Mars
Also a part of the Galileo project which was also an inter planetary mission to Jupiter
This will enable him to have a better understanding of the risks associated with this
project and possible solutions to mitigate them
Past association with the organization
Having worked with NASA in the past, he had a fairly good understanding of the
organizational culture
Realising the issue that the intellectuals from top universities face, he introduced
the concept of Intellectual confrontation
Strong Academic background
He was a graduate from University of Texas and MIT and holds strong academic
credentials
Because of the aforementioned reasons, we believe that Lee was a good Chief Risk Officer

What challenges Lee faced in MBE? Suppose you are the CRO at your
organization what will be the challenges you face?
Challenges faced by Lee

Challenges faced by CRO at a typical

petroleum refining company

Challenge that Lee faced was the

critical decision of whether to go ahead
with the launch or to delay the project
6 yellow category risks were identified in
the PMSR stage which reduced to 2 in the
CERR stage (one in yellow and one in red
category)
Overall probability of success of EDL stage
was 80% which was much lesser than the
acceptable range of 90% and more
If launched and failed, this project will
adversely affect the future prospects of
other projects
Delaying the project will escalate the costs

Construction of a new distillation unit, a

primary process which will generate
feedstock for the secondary processes.
The proposed plant generally has
interdependencies with several other
secondary processes.
A failed attempt to mitigate the risks in
the construction of the new plant may
indirectly affect other related secondary
processes
As it is highly regulated industry, hence
risks to meet the latest environmental
regulations has to be managed to stay
competitive

Is the risk management policy aligning with JPL's strategy and

Culture?

JPLs aim was to successfully execute the space missions

New risk management policy will help them in identifying and mitigating the risks
which in turn will help JPL to improve their success rate in tandem with their
strategy

Cultural shift from Be bold, take risks to new risk management policy in 2000
helped them to further reduce the risks associated with the planetary missions

In adherence with the new policy, they embedded the risk management with the
engineering process to ensure that it is continually front of mind during the
projects life
Concept of Intellectual Confrontation was introduced to make scientists
comfortable thinking about the things that can go wrong
Hence, the new risk management policy was aligned with their strategy seeking a cultural
shift from risk taking to risk managing