Agile Conversations: Transform Your Conversations, Transform Your Culture

by Douglas Squirrel

In The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, Diane Vaughan investigates the space shuttle explosion in 1986;6 and Richard Feynman, in an appendix to the Rogers Commission Report, separately analyzed NASA’s responses to problems observed during launches of the space shuttle on cold days.7 Both observed what Vaughan called the normalization of deviance: Because the shuttle had launched without calamity over and over in cold conditions, NASA concluded that cracks observed in booster components on such flights were not a problem. Although no cracks at all in the O-rings were expected, the fact that they were small in size led some engineers to conclude the danger they posed was low. Others had concerns—What reason could there be for believing that the next crack would be as small as the previous ones?—but did not speak up loudly enough to stop the flights.