National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Innovation at NASA Chief Technologist’s

Update to The NASA Advisory Council

Dr. Douglas Terrier Chief Technologist (Acting)

March 28, 2017

NASA Advisory Council, November 2016

• How do we promote innovation? • How do we address barriers to innovation?

OCT will brief the next NAC TI&E meeting on NASA’s initiatives to address impediments to innovation

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Summary

• NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) broadly engaged Mission Directorates and Centers at various levels to identify barriers to innovation

• Barriers were mapped to cross-cutting themes and potential solutions developed • Cross-Agency effort evaluated and deployed potential solutions • A-suite level review evaluated progress and assigned actions to address

impediments and formalize innovation initiative • Communicating effort across the United States Government (USG) as the Federal

Center for Excellence in Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), and with private sector.

OCT is currently assessing NASA’s innovation efforts across the Agency and developing a framework to leverage existing resources and promote enterprise

level management while fostering a culture of innovation

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NASA Innovation Surveys

• Internal survey results from 2011 showed desire for improved innovation culture:

93% - I am constantly looking for ways to do my job better Barriers Describe a Gap

• Lack of Opportunity • Project (Short-Term) Focus • Risk-Averse Culture • Communication Challenges • Process Overload • Organizational Inertia • Instability –Silos & Unwillingness to Change

74% - I feel encouraged to come up with new and • NRC Review on NASA (2011) better ways of doing things – NASA’s technology base is largely

depleted – Success will depend on advanced

61% - Believe creativity and innovation are rewarded technology developments Source: OCT 2011 survey results

• NASA innovation culture is improving (2017 Partnership for Public Service report) – #1 in Innovation in large Federal Government agencies – Best in government in adopting best commercial practices

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Methodology for Identification of Challenges

• Define Innovation – Establish a shared understanding of innovation from a NASA

perspective (including industry/academic perspectives)

• Broadly engage every field center – Each Center identified Center-Level innovation barriers

(surveys, focus groups, interviews, data-mining, etc.)

• Combine and compare to identify Agency-level barriers – Achieved through team consensus – Agency-Level: Barriers broadly affect Centers but they

have limited/no control over them

• Summarized barriers into key themes

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Barriers to Innovation at NASA

Risk-averse culture

• Management/workforce conservatism and oversight bodies drive costs and create more incremental steps

• Immediate mission needs (for example, meeting level 1 requirements) often must take Short-term focus priority over development of future capabilities

• Changes in decisions and direction set by external stakeholders as well as t actical Instability decisions have dried the innovation pipeline and led to a cycle of technology start/stops

• Fewer flight opportunities have reduced available pathways for infusion of innovations.Lack of Opportunity Technology demonstrations historically c ome and go, yet have spurred some of the

revolutions i n NASA history

• Excessive administrative burdens can stagnate innovators; process owners have Process Overload become gatekeepers instead of enablers

Communication Challenges

• Organizational silos, ‘not invented here’ thinking, and lack of commonality in IT and communication technologies for linkage

Organizational Inertia

• Cultural tendency to stay the course and a lack of trust often portray innovation as a threat; need to balance the risk with reward

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Methodology for Solution Generation

• Solutions addressing barrier cross-cutting themes – Address multiple categories of barriers – Looking for high impact/investment solutions

• Solutions identified through Agency working groups – Working group from Center Chief Technologists and

NASA senior leaders from across the Agency – NASA Senior Management Council study

• Prioritized solutions with best impact/investment – Focus on Organization and Technical innovation – Categorized as Disruptive, Transformative,

Incremental and Revolutionary

• Developed actionable solutions – Engage centers for diverse range of options – Team collaboration to integrate and prioritize new

and existing solutions to solve innovation challenge

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Solutions to Innovation Impediments

• Allow, recognize, and reward innovation

• Projects & innovation funding

• Process streamlining

• Engage the public

• Open communication (knowledge-share) and stovepipe reduction

• Corporate time for creative thinking

• Innovation labs & creative spaces

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Solution Matrix Example Initiatives Across NASA

Risk averse culture

Short-term focus

Lack of Opportunity

Process Overload

Communication Challenges

Organizational Inertia Instability

Allow, recognize and reward innovation

Center Innovation Awards, iTech

OHC Culture Strategy

Innovation Budgets & Strategies

Innovation Day LaRC Fast

Track to Market

OHC Innovation Awards, Innovation

Day

OCOMM, Innovation Daily Emails

STMD Tipping Point, iTech

Projects & innovation funding

iTech, NIAC, CIF, Early Career

Initiatives (ECI)

JSC Innovation Charge Account

(USG) S&T Partnership

Forum

Flight Opportunities

CoECI

Space Technology Research Grant

NASA@work Collaborative

Programs/Tools

NASA@work NIAC, CIF, ECI

Process streamlining

PPPs, SAAs, Human Health

Risk Framework

HEOMD ScAN ”2040” Network

Architecture

STMD OCT

NASA@work Innovation

Portal

challenge.gov Federal NSSC OSMA IV&V

OCOMM CoECI

OCT STMD

MSD Partnerships

STMD BIG Idea, OCE Technical Fellows

NASA SOLVE

Prizes and Challenges

CoECI Prizes and

Challenges, NASA HH&P Innovation Award at RiceU

NASA Regional Economic

Development; Dual Use Technology Development Program

NASA Open Innovation,

NASA Regional Economic

Development

Centennial Challenges,

NARI

ARMD Student Challenge Engage the public

Open communication (knowledge-share) and stovepipe reduction

Innovation Day CoECI

Innovation Portal Innovation Seminars

Advanced Systems Concepts

(MSFC) & Lab (LaRC)

Office of Education

Digital Learning Network

GSFC Science Engineering

Collaboration Program

Office of Education Digital Learning

Network

NASA@work Innovation Portal

Innovation Seminars NARI

NASA@work Innovation Portal

Innovation Seminars

Corporate time for creative thinking

NASA@work CIF, Early Career

Initiative

STMD Game Changing

Development

Ames ARCTek

InnoCentive SSC TPZ (Tech

& IT union)

SMD Explore JSC Sandbox

NASA@work Innovation Seminars

SMD Explore

CIF, ECI Innovation Seminars

Innovation labs & creative spaces

Center; NASA Tournament Lab

LaRC Larkworks

CIF JPL

Ames Space Shop

GSFC: ICC and Space IC

GRC CI2 & iLab KSC Swampworks ARFC Maker Space

9Note: These are examples of the many initiatives underway across N ASA;

nearly all ongoing solutions tackle more than one barrier

Example Solutions to Innovation Impediments

Allow, recognize and reward Innovation

• Innovation Day & iTech:NASA has held a series of events to highlightinnovation within the Agency (NASA Innovation Day) and to introduce innovation from outside the Agency (iTech); all candidates were given corporate time to champion their innovations to the Agency, as well as cash and labor prizes to competitively selected teams; Centershave their own, and Innovation is primary award criteria (e.g. GSFCInformation Sciences)

Projects & innovation funding

• Prizes & Challenges: NASA has increased the number and scope of prizes and challenges (e.g. studentresearch, entrepreneurial support, crowdsourcing,leveraging competition) to provide continuous funding to innovative efforts both new and in developmentwhile investing the Nation’s future inventors and entrepreneurs. For example,out of NASA Tournament Lab’s first 100 challenges,93% were categorized as “successful.”

Process streamlining

• Consolidated Prizes & Challenges: OCT consolidated ”Challenges, Prize Competitions and Crowdsourcing Activities” policy in NPD 1090.1 and operational management is consolidated by STMD’s Commercial Partnerships Portfolio. NASA was chosen as the Federal Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), thereby streamlining innovative RFPs across the USG

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Example Solutions to Innovation Impediments

Engage the public

• NASA SOLVE:allows everyone to engagein prizes, challenges, andcitizen science (over40,000 uniquevisitors/month), andprovides an umbrella overvarious MD, Center, andAgency efforts such asHEOMD’s NASATournament Lab, theNASA Education OfficeChallenges, etc.

Open communication (knowledge-share) and stovepipe reduction

• Innovation framework &innovation portal:being developed by OCTto unify the Agency’svision for innovation,(building off past internaland external inputs, andexpanding external inputs)and allow citizens outsideof NASA and civil servantswithin to actively engage.Involves every office anddirectorate at nearly everyNASA location:Education’s DLN, OHC’sCulture Strategy andOCIO’s SEWP etc. NASAOCT is co-leading effortsacross the FederalGovernment with theInteragency S&TPartnership Forum.

Corporate time for creativethinking

• NASA has introducedcorporate time forcreative thinking byincorporating multiplesolutions:Center Labs for bottoms-up time, Innovation Day &iTech for top-down time,and Prizes & Challengesfor cross-cutting work oninnovative solutions, bothinternal and external.

Innovation labs & creative spaces

• Center labs:facilities have expandedsignificantly in size andnew facilities have beenbuilt with low, inconsistentand unprotected funding(Range: $20k – $200keach); JSC’s InnovationDesign Center has 260projects worked since2011; LaRC’s Larkworks,has produced over 3000parts and assisted manyNASA projects as well asemployee initiatives sincethe end of FY15; theSpace Innovation Centeris a public-privatepartnership housed atGeneral Dynamics,connecting a network of350 across the privatesector.

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Path Forward

• Emphasis on leveraging and integrating initiatives into an Agency-wide framework

• This framework will leverage internal NASA initiatives while expanding collaboration with external sources of innovation

• NASA is currently: – Coordinating existing innovation activities to

leverage our resources more effectively

– Continuing augmentation of Center capabilities and open innovation spaces

– Conducting a wide range of innovation activities in every center and Mission Directorate

– Leveraging shared interests and tools with USG and private sector Partners

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OCT is Champion for Innovation at NASA

OCT is NASA’s champion for innovation and is coordinating with Mission Directorates and Centers to drive NASA’s innovation culture

• OCT is developing an innovation framework to integrate and manage innovationactivities across the Agency

– Vicki Crisp, OCT, executive champion for Agency innovation activities– Developing a strategic plan for innovation activities, to

institutionalize processes and best practices for innovation at NASA– Working with senior leadership to address Agency-level constraints– Coordinating across Mission Directorates through NASA

Technology Executive Council (NTEC)– Cooperating across USG through Interagency S&T Partnership Forum– Coordinating cohesive Center initiatives through Center CT council– Developing an Innovation Portal to augment NASA SOLVE– Refining current innovation activities to drive more return to participants

• Our challenge is to bring all NASA’s innovation activities together into a self-sustaining corporate innovation endeavor

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

THANK YOU

BACKUP SLIDES

Back-up Slides

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Current Framework

DRAFT

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Challenge Workshops

DRAFT

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H ow You Can Leverage th e P ow er o f th e Crowd? Request a Challenge W orkshop

Run aSoftware or Algorithm Challenge

Register

Participate in a Challenge

Launch a Challenge

Free - Weeks

$50-80K, 3-6 m otsnhCost & Duration Depend on the

Challenge

Run a Tech Search

$21.4K, 4-6 m otsnh<$3.5K, 2 mot snh

Gov't Purchase Cardhttp://www.nasa.gov/coeci

Run an Innovative Problem Solving

Challenge

Run a Micro Challenge

Challenges Results

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Out of NTl's First 100 Challenges...

• Successful Solutions were Provided 93% of the Time. Ofthose Solutions:

- 54% of those solutions In use- 13% pla nr ed fo r futu re use

- 7% not going to be used- 24% unknown

48 Product Development Challenges (Software, CAD, Logo, Graphics, Video):

Successful Products were Provided 98% of the Time. Of those Products: -

81% are in use - 6% are planned for future use

- 4% not used- 6% are unknown

ChallengesUn­

successful 7%

Successful 93%

Input/Ideas

18%Problems

35%

Products Dev 48%

35 Problem Solving (No current Solution, Improvement, Algorithm): • Successful Solutions provided 83% of the time. Of those Solutions:

- 21% have been used - 14% are planned for future use-14% not used - 55% are unknown

18 Seeking Input/ldeas (Ideation, CAD, some theoretical):

Successful/Useful Ideas/lnput were Provided 94% of the Time, Of those ideas/inputs

- 6% have been used

- 6% are planned for future use- 13% not used

- 75% are unknown

DRAFT

NASA’s Web of Barriers 2015

Barriers to Innovation

Organizational Inertia

Process Overload

Solutions deemed to have high potential value

with high impactLack of Opportunity

Different categories of innovation

Instability

Risk Averse CultureShort-Term Focus

Communication Challenges

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DRAFT

G. Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” Model for High-Tech Markets

“Pragmatists”

Each group has different expectations for a new, disruptive product:

Innovators see a competitive advantage to allow them to leapfrog their competition…

…While Pragmatists want a COMPLETE SOLUTION to a business problem (the Whole Product Model)

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