ADVOCATING FOR THE AIRMEN 

Fostering Innovation

In an era of great power competition, our squadrons, more than ever, are the heartbeat of the Air Force. To foster innovation at the level of command that makes the greatest impact, Secretary Heather Wilson and General David L. Goldfein initiated a second year of Squadron Innovation Funds (“SIF”) for fiscal year 2019 so commanders can tackle their most pressing readiness and national-security challenges. In keeping with previous guidance, we must continue to THINK BIG, start small, and Scale Fast! THINK BIG. Cultivating innovation at the edge not only resolves local challenges but also leads to revolutionary concepts and capabilities that will shape our future. This kind of innovation happens when any Airman, at any level, can drive capability development, organizational problem-solving, and policy or process changes. We create this environment when leaders are willing to squint with their ears, units and higher headquarters adopt a learning culture, and everyone embraces experimenting and failing productively until we succeed.

Start small! You have a problem that you face in your unit. We want to see you test out these ideas, and your Squadron Commanders have the funds to make it happen. We want you to come up with a minimum viable product. We want you to test and validate solutions at your unit. We want this to happen in weeks and months to increase both readiness and national security in our mission.

Scale Fast! Over this past year, you and your squadrons have done a superb job learning, sharing, and connecting as you executed SIF. We recognize cross-functional teams—across squadrons, wings, higher headquarters, and beyond—were a major contributor to innovation successes. To facilitate this kind of teaming, we will resource AFWERX to create several programs that directly support squadrons, wings, and MAJCOMs with the execution of SIF and enable us to scale the best ideas across the Air Force.

Our Intent

Our intent is to build on the innovation ecosystem started last year that catalyzes Airmen to bring their ideas forward so you can act on the best ones. I ask that you aggressively collaborate with each other and higher headquarters along the way. We need your ideas, lessons, and feedback via the AFWERX ideation platform. Please populate the virtual platform (https://usaf.ideascalegov.com) as you move forward. Specifically, check out the FY21 SIF campaign.

Continuous Process Improvement (or CPI) is also part of our robust innovation ecosystem the Air Force is building. It is the AF’s long-term goal to have Innovation and Improvement skills embedded in the way all Airmen think and act. Our newest Airmen will know the basics and be able to participate in improvement efforts productively. As Airmen progress throughout their careers, they will develop increasing depth and breadth of skills going beyond participation to facilitating problem-solving efforts of increasing complexity throughout end-to end business and operations mission areas in ways that propel the Air Force into a long-term, upward spiral of accomplishment and performance.

To attain this end-state, the AF embarked on an effort to jump-start capabilities by standing up an “internal consultancy” work force consisting of three different skill levels of Improvement and Innovation mastery: Green Belt (GB), Black Belt (BB), and Master Black Belt (MBB). These certifications are attained by completing the coursework and mastering a body of knowledge associated with each level of certification, and completing a prescribed set of projects to show the Airman not only knows the material, but also has mastered application of the knowledge.

The cornerstone of the Air Force’s CPI mindset is an eight-step problem solving model. Use of the standard model provides context for issues and recommendations for leadership decision making and execution that transcends the transient nature of our workforce. When applied properly and consistently, CPI methodologies and tools help ensure problems that are solved, remain solved. The Air Force advocates using this standardized eight-step framework as the umbrella for Airmen (and certified practitioners) to facilitate improvement efforts using a host of tools that help identify root cause issues to be addressed. Airmen use this approach to document problem, context and logic of their solution.

OVERVIEW OF THE INNOVATION HANDBOOK

The Innovation Handbook is intended to provide a framework for Airmen to develop and evaluate innovative ideas, describe how to move those ideas into execution, to learn how to tap into a broader network of innovators, and, ultimately, to prepare the innovative ideas to be taken to scale. The Handbook is not intended to be the final word on how to scale innovative ideas using the SIF program, but is intended to help provide quick reference to some of the techniques and practices that are associated with successful solution development, and to point you to resources that can help you learn more.

The Handbook is divided into two parts. The first part of the handbook is on Getting (new) Stuff Done. The Air Force is investing significant resources to help you identify and lead innovation efforts; the handbook makes it clear how you can access them. The second part of the Handbook is on a disciplined approach to innovation. As you’ll see, innovation is not about luck or a moment of inspiration; innovation is about dedicated focus on solving the most important problems in a systematic way. The second part of the handbook is on The Four Phases of Innovation, which it describes the four-phased approach to disciplined innovation. 

PHASE ONE - IDENTIFY, PRIORITIZE, GET BUY-IN

PHASE TWO - GET TACTICAL

PHASE THREE - FIND THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS AND SHOW SUCCESS

PHASE FOUR - PREPARE FOR SCALE

To view the handbook please follow the link provided (https://www.afwerx.af.mil/resources/Innovation%20Handbook.pdf) so that you and your team can begin to innovate!