The Truth is Out There: Insights from Improv with NASA

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-1157.vid Identifying challenges from employees working on large-scale complex engineered systems is a difficult endeavor in Project Management and Systems Engineering (PM&SE). Employees are often hesitant to speak about hidden truths in the workplace, which can leave substantial gaps in project and system understanding, contributing to failure. Traditional research methods can be ineffective in eliciting hidden truths, necessitating a novel approach. The relaxed atmosphere of an improvisational theatre production has been previously shown to help participants lower their inhibitions and reveal hidden truths about problematic workplace topics. This paper follows the development of an improvisational theatre workshop, formed in collaboration between The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), NASA Headquarters/The Office of the Chief Engineer Program (HQ/OCE), Program and Project Management Policy, Practice and Development Division (PMPD), and NASA Systems Engineering Research Consortium (SERC). A series of improvisational templates were developed around these topics in consultation with Friedrich Klatt and Associates (FK&A) to elicit hidden truths from the PM&SE community. An improvisational theatre workshop was held at the 2019 NASA Cost and Schedule Symposium (C&S) in Houston, TX, USA. PM&SE leadership and community members were recruited to participate in the workshop, which consisted of a series of informal rehearsals and a live performance in front of the larger C&S community. The research findings indicate that participants believed the workshop was successful in uncovering hidden truths and identify key areas for future workshops to explore. Further development of this research concept may allow PM&SE practitioners to improve project outcomes by more fully understanding the hidden truths that contribute to project and system failures.