1. Piloting
Innovative Idea Capture/Management Tools
at
NASA Langley Research Center:
Lessons Learned
Lowering barriers to Innovation.
Putting ideas into action.
Martin Waszak
Strategic Relationships Office
NASA Langley Research Center
Presented at NASA PM Challenge • 22-23 February 2012

2. Outline
 The Innovation Challenge
 Toward an Innovation Culture
 Fostering Innovation through Processes/Tools
 Lessons Learned
 Epilogue
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3. What‟s the National Challenge?
 Strategy for American Innovation
Despite American economy‟s historic strength, our economic
growth has rested for too long on an unstable foundation.
Explosive growth in one sector of the economy has provided a
short-term boost while masking long-term weaknesses. While
our economy remains the most dynamic, innovative, and
resilient in the world, we cannot rest on our laurels while other
countries catch up. We must redouble our efforts to give our
world-leading innovators every chance to succeed.
“Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity”
Michael Porter (Harvard Business School)
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
Steve Jobs (CEO, Apple Computer)
“We need you excitement, your dedication, and your
innovation. With your help, NASA will continue to be a
springboard for technological breakthroughs.”
Charles Bolden (NASA Administrator) 2

4. What‟s the National Challenge?
 Technology is accelerating at an increasing rate
 Increasingly R&D is being done in the private sector and outside the U.S.
3

5. What‟s NASA‟s Challenge?
The Best Places to Work – Federal Government Survey
 Employees rank NASA as most innovative agency
– Government Executive, August 9, 2011
 ”… you have a workforce that is individually motivated to be creative, but not
organizationally supported to achieve that”
– Max Stier, President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service.”
NRC Report Finds NASA has “Depleted” Technology Base
 NASA's technology base is 'largely depleted' and the agency hasn't been producing
the breakthroughs needed to achieve new goals.
 . . . “ambiguity" in space goals "has undermined innovation at NASA and hurt its
ability to develop new technology
4

6. What‟s the Langley Challenge?
 Balancing Research & Development
 Balancing Aeronautics, Science & Space Exploration
 Balancing directed &competitively sourced work
 Coping with pressure to „do more with less‟
Balance meeting near term commitments and
exploiting/creating future opportunities.
5

7. ‹#›

8. Where We‟ve Been
 Research and Benchmarking*
 Fact Finding
 Innovation Zone Workshop – June 2010
 Langley Organizational Innovation Plans – Sept 2010
 Initiative Dialogues w/ Orgs – Fall 2010, Winter 2011
 Network Design Workshop – April 2011
 Framework Design Review – July 2011
7
* Note: Limited information on “NASA-like” environments to benchmark

9. Toward an Innovation Strategy
 Align innovation investments with future opportunities
and emerging technologies
 Revolutionary Technical Challenges
 Space Technology Grand Challenges
 Stimulate idea generation
 Raise Awareness of the Innovation Imperative
 Publicize Benefits on Contributing Ideas
 Lower Barriers to Participation
 Foster culture of creativity and innovation
 Encourage Collaboration
 Prompt Action (avoid the black hole)
 Actionable Feedback (help people to change)
8

10. Enablers/Debilitators of Innovation
 Key Enablers  Key Debilitators
 Relevant Challenges  Focus on ROI
 Access to Information  Focus on Efficiency
 Collaboration  Seek Stability/Certainty
 Diversity of Perspectives  Eliminating Risk
 Tolerance for Ambiguity  Fear of Failure
 Tolerance for Informed Risk  Reliance on Experts
 Patience  Discipline Focus
 Allowance for Failure
9

11. Characteristics of
Langley‟s “Research” Culture
 Individual incentives (limits collaboration)
 Proposal focus (limits diversity of perspectives)
 Technology Push vs Needs Pull (limits relevance)
 Technology vs Systems focus (limits relevance)
 Experts Rule vs Beginners Mind (incremental bias)
 Mature workforce in a mature industry (incremental bias)
 Risk averse, fear of failure (limited tolerance for untested ideas)
 Black hole of ideas/proposals (raises cynicism)
 Lack of meaningful feedback (limits future success)
Need to encourage behaviors to overcome
organizational inertia. 10

12. Innovation Process – The “Pipeline”
All innovations must be supported through each stage of the pipeline.
Increase the number and diversity of ideas aimed at addressing
opportunities & challenges. Help move them along the process of
innovation toward measurable outcomes.
11

13. Innovation Fund Pilot Project
 Create a new mechanism for soliciting and managing IRAD projects
 Target: New OCT Center Innovation Fund
 Goals
 Innovation from Everyone and Everywhere
 Systems Level Solutions
 Relevance to Center and Agency Needs
 New Collaborations
 Evidence of Innovation-enabling behaviors
 Success Measures
 Level of participation (users, contributors, votes, etc.)
 Number of submissions (ideas, comments, votes)
 Number of collaborations
 Quality of submissions
 Ability to adapt innovation management tool(s) to Langley‟s process/workflow
12

14. Basic Process Flow
13

15. Issues and Concerns
 Prior ad hoc approaches have had limited success (InnovaThon, NASA
Challenges)
 Low participation It‟s not
Important
 Lack of visible follow-up Info
Overload
Too
Busy
Awareness R Users
 Participation is critical
R It‟s my
 Awareness idea
Waste
 Relevance of Time
R
 Priority Relevance Contributors
Nothing
will
Happen
 Credibility is critical
 Commitment R Ideas Comments
R
 Decisiveness Too
 Action Busy
Closed to
Selections Criticism
14

16. Pilot Projects - Becoming a Smart Buyer
 Learn from the best
 Suck their brains
 Steal their best stuff
 Gain experience
 Understand trades-offs
 Understand the costs
 Get useful results while learning
 CIF Ideas/Proposals
 C&I Ideas/Proposals
 Others?
 Measure results and outcomes
 What works & what doesn‟t
 Build credibility
15

17. Langley Innovation Opportunities Pilot
Timeline
• Aug/Sept 2010: Planning
• Oct. 21 – Nov. 22: Topics Open
• Nov – Jan 2011: Assess results
Topics
Langley Creativity and Innovation
• Revolutionary technology (up to $20K)
Center Innovation Fund
• Space Technology Innovations (up to
$200K)
• Center-Wide Innovations ($2-10K)
Future Opportunities
C&I (up to $20K)
Audience
• All Langley Center employees and
contractors 16

18. Process Overview and Roles
Implementation
Team
17

19. Challenges – Targeting Strategic Opportunities
 Space Technology Innovations
 Systems Level Approaches for advanced innovative, high-risk, low TRL (1-2) concepts and
technologies that address the Space Technology Grand Challenges
 Disciplinary Approaches for advanced innovative, high-risk, low TRL (1-2) concepts and
technologies that address the Space Technology Grand Challenges
 Center-Wide Innovations
 Innovative ideas and approaches for high payoff investments to address a wide variety of
challenges and opportunities across the center, agency, and nation (little or no funding)
 Examples – center operations, center processes, education and public outreach, workforce and
career development, facilities, business development, emerging technologies, new products and
services
 Creativity & Innovation
 Center Director‟s discretionary funds focusing on emerging technological trends
 Future Challenges - Problems, challenges, opportunities that should be considered in the
future
18

20. Langley Innovation Opportunities Portal
19

21. Idea/Proposal Submissions
 Encourage innovators to take a wider view of innovation with emphasis on
 Relevance
 Awareness of state-of-the-art
 Consideration of infusion paths
 Heilmeier Questions:
 What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no
jargon.
 How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
 What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
 Who cares?
 If you're successful, what difference will it make?
 What are the risks and the payoffs?
 How much will it cost?
 How long will it take?
 What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success?
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22. Evaluation/Selection Criteria
 Relevance
 Address a problem, challenge, need, opportunity with clearly identified/characterized
potential for significant impact, system level solutions, and substantial benefits to the
center, agency, nation, and/or world
 Innovative technology concepts to enable formulation of application to one or more of
the Space Technology Grand Challenges
 Collaboration
 Involve collaborations and partnerships within Langley, other NASA Centers, other
government agencies, universities, industry, and the public
 Solicit and consider comments from technical community
 Innovativeness
 Past IPP Evaluation Criteria – Novelty and Potential Impact, Technical Merit, Value to
NASA, Team Experience
 Advance the basic principles of a technology and demonstrate application to or
evaluation of a capability associated with one or more of the Space Technology
Grand Challenges
21

23. Idea/Proposal Review Form
22

24. Evaluation/Selection Process
 Evaluators
 CIF – Space Technology Innovations
 RTC Leads
 CIF – Center-Wide Innovations
 Center Chief Technologist
 Selections made by Center Chief Technologist
 Prompt Reviews and Selections (within 1 month of submissions)
 Prompt Actionable Feedback (within 1 month of selections)
 Acknowledgement and recognition
 Explanation of strengths and areas for improvement
 Frequent and visible communication of status and progress
 Reviews in progress, completed, and awaiting selection
 Selection announcements
 Feedback to all submitters
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25. Results of LIOP Pilot
Hits Participants Ideas Comments
• 48 Branches/Offices contributed ideas and
C&I Initiative 3300 182 62 18
comments
Center
Innovation 8800 319 111 120 • 11 C&I projects selected, 10 Center-Wide
Fund (small) projects selected
Future • 30 CIF Projects Selected
930 109 9 24
Challenges • 18 Space Technology Innovations
• 12 Center-Wide Innovations
Totals 13030 610 182 162
Key Insights
• Desired levels of visitation and total ideas achieved
• Greater diversity of ideas and sources than expected
• Idea quality high, but collaboration limited (fewer comments than ideas)
• Most ideas entered toward end of event (~56% on last day)
• Majority of ideas came from civil servants (~86%)
• Most ideas came from Technical Organizations (~85%)
• A third of all ideas were submitted for “review team only”
• Inhibitors: Uncertainty in funding, complicated login/password process, uncomfortable with
open platform for this purpose, cynicism and resistance to change
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26. Lessons Learned – Tools & Design
 Awareness
 Communicate, communicate, communicate, . . .
 Exploit multiple communication channels
 Access
 Easy access is really, really important
 IT security requirements make access a challenge
 Need to learn how to better manage SaaS tools
 Challenge Event Designs
 Conducting simultaneous challenges can be confusing (3 Simultaneous
Challenges may be too many)
 Too many topic areas can be confusing (13 Space Technology Grand
Challenges in 3 categories, 10 Revolutionary Technical Challenges)
 Important to provide background information – guidelines, process
descriptions, POCs, etc.
 Event design requires clear understanding of workflow models and tool
attributes 25

27. Lessons Learned – Culture
 Contributions
 Need to overcome hesitance to share ideas
 Need better guidance for answering Heilmeier questions
 Need mechanism to increase comments, votes, and collaboration
 Need to educate contributors regarding IP rights and processes
 Assessment and Selection
 Need mechanism to make doing reviews a priority
 Submitters very appreciative of prompt and meaningful feedback
 Need a mechanism to support promising ideas needing further development
 Soliciting Ideas vs. Proposals
 Asking for ideas rather than proposals confused many submitters
 Need to overcome ingrained “proposal culture”
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28. Epilogue
 Success of the LIOP pilot was jeopardized by CIF funding delays
 In response to funding challenges projects were implemented using a phased
approach
 Startup Phase – small infusion of funds to initiate an expanded portfolio of
projects (10-15% of total project budget)
 Ramp-Up Phase – fully fund projects down-selected from Startup phase
 11 of 18 projects received additional funding
 None received full budget request due to reduction in OCT CIF funding
 Several CWI ideas were deemed worth implementation but were only
provided FTE. Many of these were pursued and implemented. Sanction by
the Center was sufficient encourage the PIs to persevere.
 Numerous ideas/proposals not selected for funding were archived and were
reconsidered when late year and early FY12 funds became available
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