Needs Analysis and Technology Alignment Method

Our research (reported in two parts) improved software for a NASA Mission Controller group for the International Space Station and provided evidence for a key factor we believed contributed to the expected improvement. This factor is the degree of alignment of the technology to the structure of the work it is intended to support, or its fitness-for-purpose. This paper, Part 1, reports our needs analysis and software redesign, which provide specific and more general contributions. The specific contribution was new prototype software for planning work of the Attitude Determination and Control Officer group, who schedules trajectory and orientation changes of the International Space Station, with its Russian counterparts. The general contribution was a new needs analysis method, product-document analysis, a general design-process benefit. Product document analysis is a method complementary to task analysis and work domain analysis. Our needs analysis method characterized the high-level structure required of acceptable plans in terms of the plan components and their relations and constraints. The redesigned software was better aligned with the structure of work, as captured by needs analysis. We discuss conditions when product-document analysis may be useful.

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