NPS & AU Grassroots Distributed Innovation
22-23 JULY 2021
Summary
Air University and Naval Postgraduate School are business processes for Grassroots Distributed Innovation (GDI) and connecting Professional Military Education (PME) initiatives to address operational problems. The PME community is striving to make innovation education more widely available and to reduce innovation education barriers for high-impact projects. Participants identified pathways to develop repeatable innovation practices to “institutionalize” innovation across the enterprise. Organizations are evaluating best practices to promote greater awareness of GDI activities to mitigate duplication of efforts and connect similar initiatives. Participants also ideated the best methods to advance promising, mission-focused projects.
Problem Statement:
How might we identify and/or develop injection points for Grassroots Distributed Innovation (GDI) at the individual and organizational levels and leverage them for Professional Military Education (PME) and human capital improvement?
Outcome
CyberWorx hosted 11 government and 4 industry participants on 22-23 July 2021. The group marshalled their experience as innovation intrapreneurs and private subject matter experts to explore the defense innovation ecosystem and identify points of impact for PME, GDI, and defense innovators.
Next Steps
Participants developed courses of action during the sprint and are prioritizing initiatives to develop and implement solutions. CyberWorx plans to facilitate more focused events to increase collaboration across the ecosystem, expand DoD access to innovation, and connect GDI activities, Academia/PME, and program offices to create a value stream for PME-sponsored projects.
