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The 'Apollo 13 - an ITIL case experience' simulation game.


'Apollo 13 - an ITIL case experience'

Apollo 13 was launched on April 11 1970. The third mission aimed at landing two astronauts on the Lunar surface. At approximately 55:55 minutes into the mission the crew reported hearing a loud 'bang'. This was accompanied by a rapid loss of oxygen and power. From this point onward the mission was no longer about landing men on the moon, it was about returning the three astronauts safely to earth in a spacecraft that was slowly dying.




'The total Apollo system of ground complexes, launch vehicle, and spacecraft constitutes the most ambitious and demanding engineering development ever undertaken by man'. For these missions to succeed, processes, people and equipment must perform to near perfection.

Perfection is not only difficult to achieve, but difficult to maintain. The imperfection in Apollo 13 constituted a near disaster, averted only by outstanding performance on the part of the crew, the ground control team and the processes and technology that supported them.

'Apollo 13 - an ITIL case experience' is an intensive one day training in which the ITIL concepts and processes are not only explained, but also experienced by the course attendees through the use of an interactive game. In this training 'real life' situations taken from the Apollo 13 mission are simulated. Course attendees work in teams, playing the roles of the Mission operations ground crew charged with bringing the crippled craft and it's crew safely home.

What the customers say

  • Really good, fun, original way of playing the processes
  • 'eye opener' - which processes are running in parallel..which ones are important at that time.
  • ...became aware of the dependencies between processes
  • Confronts you with decisions and choices that need to be made
  • Helps understand how 'priorities' change as time goes by.
  • You can see the cost of not doing it right
  • Time pressure is good. It is like real life and you must plan and make choices
  • You become aware of the chaos and confusion in the processes and responsibilities when you play
Introduction - the game

In the game the teams experience 4 phases of the mission. In each phase the players are confronted with mission events and situations. Throughout the game various ITIL processes are necessary to enable ground staff and the crew to resolve problems and to make timely changes to the spacecraft configuration and its trajectory.

Phase Characteristics Issues
Build & launch 'Fitting it all together and making it fly'
  • Managing the complex configuration of components that make up the Saturn V launch vehicle and spacecraft.
  • Managing the release, build and testing of the Apollo 13 vehicle
  • Integrating the vehicle electrical, flight and communications systems with Mission control (Computer Operations & Service Desk)
Earth orbit
&
Lunar approach 		'the earth is getting smaller and smaller..'
  • Providing crew communication and support (Service desk)
  • Dealing with incidents and fixing problems (Incident and Problem management)
  • Invoking emergency abort procedures as availability of critical systems signals an approaching disaster situation. (Availability and Continuity)
Transearth coast 'the long journey home'
  • Making the available Oxygen and power last the long journey home, with three men in a spacecraft sized for two. (Capacity management)
  • Planning and executing untested changes to flight trajectory to ensure a safe return path home. The 'docked-DPS burn'(Change management)
Re-entry and Splash down 'Making it back alive'
  • Proactively working to prevent a major problem as carbon dyoxide build up threatens the astronauts safety.(Capacity management, Problem management and Configuration management)
  • Planning and executing a mid-course correction and fast engine burn to speed up the journey home. The PC+2 engine burn. (>b>Change management)
  • Managing the critical level of capacity to power up the command module and ensure all critical systems are operating.(Capacity management and Availability management)


Post Mission Review

Following the game a post mission review is held. Finding out what went wrong and making sure it wouldn't happen again' became a key concern for Nasa mission control. A Review panel a was put in place. The Key activities of the panel were:
Game approach

At the start of the game the team receives a balanced scorecard which represents their Service Level Agreement with NASA. At the end of each phase the team will report on its compliance with the Service Levels required. Before each phase a set of ITIL theory is explained in relation to the processes that will be encountered in that round of the game. At the end of each phase the actual Apollo 13 mission will be reviewed and related to the ITIL processes to show how mission success was ultimately realised, using those processes.

Service level area Requirement Notes
Innovation and learning
  • Deploy the Apollo Lunar surface experimental package (ALSEP)
  • Take pictures of landing sites for future missions
  • Yes or No
Customer
  • Astronaut safety measured as a %
  • At the start of the game this is 100%. if events and situations are incorrectly dealt with this will be reduced by a pre-defined % value
Internal processes
  • % of incidents resolved in phase
  • average incident resolution time
  • overall process performance
  • The Service Level manager will gather incident logs to determine the % of incidents resolved and the average resolution time.
  • Internal process performance begins as 100. If events and situations are incorrectly dealt with this is reduced by a predefined amount per event.
Financial
  • Cost control
  • Initial costs should be $157,780,000. Incorrectly handled events and situations will cause additional costs
The uniqueness of the game