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Description of Driving Event:

In the 1995-1996 timeframe the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) began development of a distance learning capability under the umbrella of the Professional Development Initiative (PDI). This distance learning capability eventually evolved from a Safety and Mission Assurance discipline system into the Site for Online Learning and Resources (SOLAR) (http://solar. msfc.nasa.gov), currently one of NASA's primary distance learning resources. The intent of the initial development effort was to design and implement a prototype system for the Safety and Mission Assurance discipline. OSMA managed the project and the Training and Development Division at NASA Headquarters (Hereafter referred to as the Sponsor) provided the funding. The only stipulation that the Sponsor made was that whatever capability was developed it needed to be adaptable for use across all of the Agency's functional disciplines. The prototype distance learning system was successful and did evolve into SOLAR which is a multi-discipline Agencywide distance learning system.

As part of the decision to release SOLAR, OSMA and the Sponsor agreed that since the training materials were no longer limited to just the Safety and Mission Assurance discipline, that at some point in time the Sponsor would assume responsibility from OSMA for day-to-day management of the overall system. OSMA and the other functional discipline areas would retain responsibility for their individual discipline segments of the system including their specific course materials. No milestone was established for the transition of responsibility and no planning was conducted to prepare for the transition. Both the OSMA Project Team and the Sponsor assumed that there would be adequate opportunity to plan and prepare for the transition of responsibility.

Unfortunately, changing needs within OSMA dictated identification of a transition date with short notice for planing, preparation and implementation. Of course no time is a perfect time for a transition, which was also the case here as several other issues were also consuming both the SOLAR Project Team and the Sponsor's time. Since there had been no transition planning on the part of either the SOLAR Project Team or the Sponsor several issues quickly materialized. The principle one being that the OSMA was not going to transfer any human resources to continue Project management responsibility and the Sponsor did not have any staff with sufficient time available to assume that responsibility. While OSMA and the Sponsor did eventually complete the management transition it did adversely affect SOLAR by essentially stalling all new system development work while the transition team focused on completing the transition and maintaining day-to-day system operational capability.