How the Most Successful Organizations Create Cultures of Excellence through People and Knowledge Management

Ed Hoffman, PhD, 

Senior Faculty, Information and Knowledge Strategy, Columbia University
CEO, Knowledge Strategies, LLC
Strategic Advisor at PMI
Former NASA Chief Knowledge Officer and Director, NASA Academy

Social starts at 6:00pm and talk starts at 6:30pm

The world of work has changed. There are heightened expectations for organizations and teams to respond with efficiency, agility, and innovative solutions. The most important factor in success is the capability of people to work within a culture of rapid learning, access to solutions, and deep knowledge. Such a culture does not simply occur. It is the result of committed leadership at all levels that has a focus on strategies and tactics that elevate the importance of collaboration, conversation, relevant technologies, and workforce engagement. In this presentation, Dr. Hoffman will offer both current research and actual examples for how organizations build cultures of learning and knowledge capability.

Co-Sponsored with MIT Club of Washington DC & Columbia University School of Professional Studies

For over thirty years Ed Hoffman was responsible for designing, developing and implementing an integrated system of learning, engagement and building expertise for NASA. He was appointed shortly after the Challenger disaster, to design the NASA Academy, that would focus on performance strategies for individual development, project team performance, and designing a federated knowledge management program. This session will focus on teaching leaders’ principles for competitive advantage in the knowledge economy.

Potential Topics for Discussion:

• How the world of work has changed, and why intangibles of knowledge, learning, and collaboration are more important than ever before.
• Lessons and research findings on the future of work.
• Hear how NASA built a knowledge capability based on knowledge sharing and capturing leading practices and lessons learned.
• Consider the challenge and opportunity of learning from failure, and the drivers of knowledge sharing.
• Describe the critical elements of a successful and integrated knowledge management program.
• The importance of starting with strategy, and using an experimental, small approach that emphasizes people.

Dr. Ed Hoffman is CEO, Knowledge Strategies, LLC. Knowledge Strategies is engaged in research, education, and consulting services in support of organization performance.  Dr. Hoffman serves as Senior Lecturer, for Information and Knowledge Strategy Program at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies. He directly supports the Project Management Institute as a Strategic Advisor with a focus on integrated systems for talent management, knowledge engagement and learning strategies.

Dr. Hoffman retired from NASA as a senior executive after thirty-three years. He was appointed the first NASA Chief Knowledge Officer in 2011 and held responsibility for system-wide strategy, integration and deployment of knowledge services. Prior to this role he was the founding director of the NASA Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL) serving in this role for over 20 years. During this period the Academy was the top-rated Project Management Academy in the world.  In addition, to leading the NASA Academy, he was the project manager for the NASA Strategic Management and Governance Handbook that established new governance after the Columbia Shuttle accident.  He started his career at NASA as an organization development consultant supporting NASA teams and projects, and having responsibility for leadership development.

Dr. Hoffman has written numerous journal articles, and co-authored Shared Voyage: Learning and Unlearning from Remarkable Projects (NASA, 2005) and Project Management Success Stories: Lessons of Project Leaders (Wiley, 2000), He has been faculty at Columbia University, The George Washington University, University Technology Sydney, ECS Lille, and Drexel University in the School of Engineering.

He received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2010. Dr. Hoffman holds a Doctorate, as well as MA and MS degrees, from Columbia University in the area of social and organizational psychology. He received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Brooklyn College in 1981.

The Carnegie Institution for Science is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is an endowed, independent, nonprofit institution under the leadership of President Eric D. Isaacs. Significant additional support comes from federal grants and private donations. A board of trustees, consisting of leaders in business, the sciences, education, and public service, oversees Carnegie’s operations. Each of the six departments has its own scientific director who manages day-to-day operations.

In addition to the scientists on staff, there is a constantly changing roster of pre- and postdoctoral fellows and associates, as well as visiting investigators, at each facility. Each of the six departments is independently managed by a director, who is aided by support staff. Carnegie is also involved in education at the lower levels.

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