An Innovation Strategy for the Decisive Decade

Book excerpt: The Task Force arrived unanimously at one overriding conclusion: the Pentagon is not moving at the speed necessary to meet the national security needs of the United States. Our nation is awash in innovation, and we believe that the Department of Defense’s (DoD) challenges are not primarily about technology but instead center around culture and process. It takes far too long to transition technology to the warfighter, and DoD’s process- focused, risk-averse culture creates enough obstacles to make it nearly impossible for non- traditional defense companies to contribute to the DoD mission. Many studies have made recommendations to address DoD’s innovation adoption and scaling problem, but the solution boils down to changing a culture that favors caution and existing processes into a culture of innovation that embraces experimentation, agility, learning, and risk.