Project and knowledge management at European public space agencies: The need for a three-dimensional project management office

Space agencies are continuously developing new space missions, each of which undergoes a long development cycle, from the feasibility study to routine operations and disposal, as per the European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS), the body responsible for developing and maintaining a set of standards for the space industry in Europe. Each mission is a stand-alone project, where the development cycle starts every time from scratch, with new resources, technologies, and requirements, applying the same (tailored) standards, but with limited usage of lessons learnt from earlier or parallel projects. In this article, we analyse typical project management and knowledge management approaches adopted by public space agencies, making use of a relevant case study in Europe. From the results of our case study analysis, we propose a three-dimensional Project Management Office (PMO) governance, explaining how this novel approach helps address limitations and challenges of the current approaches when dealing with multiple complex projects, such as space missions. With the PMO defined as an organisational body or entity assigned various responsibilities, the authors focus on three specific areas, namely, Strategy, Resources, and Knowledge, as three key drivers that can improve the current management of projects of the organization.