Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) is facing a crisis brought on in part by their Organisational Structure and the inherent detriments of being an organisation that is naturally project centric rather than info-centric as it should be. The other large factor contributing to this rift in the foundations of the organisation is the separation and non connectedness of each individual project team, contractor, sector and additionally the gap between management and lower level employees. In this way there can be two distinct faults in the organisational structure that prevents GSFC from managing its knowledge effectively, retaining said knowledge and creating an environment that is conducive to learning and innovating. Within the topic of organisational structure there is also another consideration to mention and that is due to the funding structure (i.e per project) the organisation became focused on achieving deadlines and justifying costs. This issue is of the utmost importance because it forces the structure of the organisation to change and it has more than enough potential to shape the future of the company.
Why then is it important that Organisational Structure is a major point of analysis in GSFC’s quest for better Knowledge Management practices? It is crucial because the way that an organisation is crafted and built lays down the channels, the avenues and the roads for change in the future. Planning the organisational structure of GSFC with best knowledge management practices should have been in the forefront of the minds of the directors, and instead it was neglected and subsequently, through the lack of intricate planning, ended up comparable to a poorly planned city with many one way roads and traffic congestion. Again, this can be largely attributed to funding allocation method. The point is that without fixing the structure of GSFC, there is no possibility