[waiquoo]

It's also really interesting the effect of management to drive timelines and innovation. If you look at the Apollo program, there was a ton of innovation driven by a incredibly fast design/launch cycle. Well managed timelines and goals can have a focusing effect (point the innovators in the most effective direction and give them the tools). The issue is when meeting the timelines and goals BECOMES the measure, rather than measuring effect. At that point it's just teaching the test and micromanaging.

[imglorp]

That's an extreme and useful counterexample. Did anyone distill Apollo project management lessons learned into something we can apply now?

[waiquoo]

Of course. Here are couple interesting papers by NASA leadership from the Apollo era (PDF warning):

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/197200...

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/293253main_62682main_jerry_madden_f...