SMA Technical Excellence Program NASA Safety Center

1. SMA Technical Excellence ProgramNASA Safety Center Karen Meinert Sept. 23, 2008

2. The NASA Safety Center (NSC) Is located as a tenant organization of the Glenn Research Center, and is housed within the Ohio Aerospace Institute A support organization for NASA that will enable Program Safety & Mission Success

3. Background • Technical Excellence • NASA should develop a comprehensive “Technical Excellence” Program • NASA: Concur… Technical Excellence in the following disciplines: • System Safety Engineering • Reliability and Maintainability • Quality Engineering • Software Assurance • Aviation Safety • Operational Safety • Recommendations • Establish a NASA Safety Center: • Establish a technical excellence initiative • Increase & sustain SMA domain knowledge • Improve Agency Incident Reporting Information • System • Develop an increased role and approach for • conducting audits, mishap investigations and • independent assessments

4. NASA Safety Center NSC Director’s Office Alan Phillips Rafael Sanabria Technical Excellence Office Vacant Knowledge Management Support Office Delores Moorehead Audits & Assessments Office Vacant Mishap Investigation Support Office Ken O’Connor • Provide infrastructure and support to allow the effective collection, analysis, dissemination, and management of knowledge for the SMA and the broader NASA communities • S&MA Tech Excellence Program • Brokering of discipline participation on technical SPRTs • Hosting/ logistical support of discipline conferences and meetings • Collecting and maintaining workforce data in technical disciplines • Provide the compliance verification activity for the Agency’s SMA Requirements set per NPR 8705.6 • Provide a combination of products and services that will enable the timely conduct, close-out and dissemination of mishap investigations throughout the Agency

5. NSC Technical Excellence Office Technical Excellence Director (Vacant) Discipline Fellows TBD Mark Kowaleski Systems Safety Diane Chapman Technical Support Kerry Remp COTR - Curriculum Development Natesan Jambulingam Reliability & Maintainability NASA Safety Training Center EDUCATE Alphaport Warren Hall Operational /Aviation Safety Karen Meinert Software Assurance Ray Kacmar Quality Engineering NSC - Technical Discipline Team Leads

6. Technical Excellence Goals- To improve the state of SMA in the Agency - Advance the stateof the SMA discipline workforce through systematic, structured, measurable, and accessible training and experience opportunities Enable consistent and advanced SMA Products for Programs/Projects Provide SMA career paths Provide Forums and Collaboration Improve the Agency’s Safety Culture Elevate NASA SMA to world-class status

7. SMA Tech Excellence Program (STEP) Elements – Reference Model STEP • Curriculum • Training • Education • OJT • Forums • Working Groups • Conferences • Professional Society System Safety Software Assurance Quality Engineering Reliability & Maintainability Aviation Safety Operational Safety • Qualification • Qualification • Equivalence • Levels • Support • Mentors • Champions • Fellows • Best Practice

8. Curriculum Structure Risk Management, Decision Making, Systems Engineering (APPEL/OSMA) Core training topics are threaded throughout the curriculum Discipline specific Levels 2 - 4 Curriculum escalates in difficulty and complexity through each Level (NSTC, OSMA, Academia, new courses, updated courses, etc.) Intro to SMA Mission Directorates (APPEL) Policy & Procedures docs Shadowing, Meetings Optional

9. STEP Implementation Plan Voluntary program Initial target participants are SMA professionals in Software Assurance, System Safety, Quality Engineering, R&M, Aviation Safety and Operational Safety Level 1 roll out CY09 Pilot at GRC and JSC, then roll out to other Centers Courses will be computer based, instructor-led, in-house, commercial, and on-demand (synchronous and asynchronous) SATERN will be used for curriculum management and hosting, and tracking participant progress CMS will be used for metrics and workforce planning

10. STEP Development Progress Finalizing STEP Framework for all disciplines (equivalence, curriculum requirements, levels qualification, etc.) Developing Level 1 content Finalizing curriculum management processes using SATERN Piloting distance learning technologies Developing STEP Handbook for participants Developing STEP Web pages on NSC Website and other informational materials Discipline teams are defining curriculum requirements for levels 2-4

11. Level 1 – Discipline Training For All Disciplines (All computer based training in SATERN) Discipline Topics NASA SMA History Basics of Aviation Safety SMA/OSMA Overview Basics of Operational Safety Basics of Software Assurance Basicsof Reliability and Maintainability Basics of Quality Engineering Basics of Systems Safety Center Specific SMA Organization Overview (one for each of the 10 Centers) Core Topics Risk Management Overview SMA Implementation Topics Decision Analysis Overview NASA SMA Program Implementation Systems Engineering Overview Mission Directorate Program/Project Examples Case Studies Columbia Case Study Challenger Case Study Apollo 13 Case Study Software Assurance Overview SMA-061-01 Apollo 1 Case Study Aero Case Study Science Case Study Modeled after JSC Basic Qualification Training

12. Current State of NASA SA Training Only a few NASA Software Assurance (SA) Courses exist NSTC – Software Safety Course (needs updating) SOLAR – Introduction to Software Safety (inactive) New SATERN Software Assurance Overview course (July) New Introduction to Software Reliability Engineering (June) New Software Safety for Practitioners (February) New Introduction & Assurance of Complex Electronics (July) More commercial courses do exist, and most SA have received training via these courses, OJT and mentoring In support of CxP, more software safety and reliability training is needed

13. Goal State of the SA Curriculum A structured set of good courses that allow a Software Assurance or Software Engineer to develop either a solid foundation across the SA disciplines or to specialize in a discipline such as software safety Provides a clear path –eliminates guessing what to take and searching for courses A curriculum that aligns with the Software Engineering curriculum including sharing courses A curriculum that enables participants to easily take the training they need

14. Approach to Defining Curriculum Requirements TEAM followed a structured design process based on discipline competencies, similar to the approach used by the Software Working Group, and used their products as guides and starting documents In process done done almost done Assess existing courses against Descriptions Course solutions & GAPs Identified knowledge, skills & traits SA Professional Profile Identified SA tasks across for life cycle phases and crosscutting processes Swim Lane Chart Grouped tasks, knowledge, skills to define course requirements Course Descriptions Determine OJT, enrichment, etc. Layout curriculum in Framework

15. DRAFT Discipline Courses

16. DRAFT Discipline Courses

17. Challenges in SA Curriculum Software Assurance is still evolving. Importance of software safety is just now being recognized. Software reliability is even more unknown. Lack of existing NASA courses for the curriculum. Will need to procure courses or develop courses ($ required). Lack of NASA subject matter experts who have time to develop NASA courses. Although considerable overlap with SE curriculum – most of the SE curriculum courses do not exist SA is a broad discipline – many courses needed to cover the entire discipline and yet fit into the STEP framework SA professionals also need to be competent in software engineering processes, software languages, software architectures, etc. –requires additional training and OJT

18. New Courses Instructor Led Introduction to Software Reliability Engineering Software Reliability Toolkit & FMEA - Softrel Introduction and Assurance of Complex Electronics Software Safety for Practitioners Software Safety & Security Requirements - SEI Perspective Based Formal Inspections – Fraunhofer Center Computer Based Software Assurance Overview SMA-061-01 Introduction to Complex Electronics –in development Assurance of Complex Electronics – in development Introduction to Software Safety – in development

19. Instructor Led Course Offerings