I'm looking for a book about the Apollo program that specifically focuses on the logistics of the mission, as if it were a case study in project management. How were records kept, goals tracked, teams formed and coordinated, etc?
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1$\begingroup$ A boatload of Gantt charts, for the most part. You have to read the whole contents of NASA's history office pubs - see the meta.space.stackexchange.com/questions/249 list on Meta. Plus books written by NA and Grumman folks. $\endgroup$– Deer HunterDec 4, 2014 at 22:04
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$\begingroup$ @DeerHunter could you be more specific? I looked through the list at Q249 and didn't see much that looked promising in terms of my particular interest. Where did you read about the "boatload of Gantt" charts? $\endgroup$– Linda HDec 7, 2014 at 14:21
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$\begingroup$ Thomas J. Kelly - Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. Wash., D.C, Smithsonian Books, 2001. My recollections were wrong, however - it was not only Gantt charts but also PERT (Larry Moran's group at Grumman). $\endgroup$– Deer HunterDec 7, 2014 at 15:25
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1$\begingroup$ Also, history.nasa.gov/SP-4102/contents.htm $\endgroup$– Deer HunterDec 7, 2014 at 15:29
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2 Answers
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This NASA technical report seems to correspond to your focus:
Project management in the Apollo program: An interdisciplinary study
Drucker, Pooler, Wilemon, Wood.
Publication Date: Jan 01, 1972
Document ID: 19720025304
Findings concerning project management in the NASA Apollo program are presented. The Apollo program in the context of the total NASA organization is examined along with the nature of project management and the manner in which project managers functioned in the Apollo program. The utilization of the in-house technical competence in the support of the Apollo program, and the formal and informal relationships between Apollo managers and the contractors are discussed.
There is a list of references that seems also interesting (appendix B, starting page 165).
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A brace of studies (intentionally made community wiki):
Stephen B. Johnson. The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs. Johns Hopkins Univ., 2002. About the book
Thomas J. Kelly - Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. Wash., D.C, Smithsonian Books, 2001. About the book
SP-4102 Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, NASA History Office