Translating Strategic Guidance into Effective Solutions Organizing a New Business Model for Space

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Translating Strategic Guidance into Effective
Solutions Organizing a New Business Model for
Space

• Col Chuck Beames
• Director, Intelligence, Surveillance
  Reconnaissance Division
• Office of Under Secretary of Defense
  (Acquisition, Technology Logistics)

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Space is quickly becoming a contested dimension
for maneuver warfare

• Maneuver is action to gain advantage over the
  enemy
• Pivot points in military history often occur with
  successful application of new technologies

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver.the
greater the general, the more he contributes in
maneuver, the less he demands in
slaughter. Winston Churchill
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Maneuver (Revisited)

• History
• Call of the wild, old as recorded history
• Mans pursuit to gain advantage through
  application of technology
• Standoff range from spear to virus
• Speed from mechanization to decision-making
• Lines of communication from resupply to global
  presence
• Dimensional Maneuver
• As technologies are invented, the combatants who
  successfully applied them gained dimensional
  advantage
• Space is no different than any other turning of
  history

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Todays Situation

• DNI
• Greatest concern is proliferation of technology
  and ease of access
• 8th Century worldviews with 21st century
  technology
• Invention rate is at all time high
• Moores Law is making the battlespace flatter and
  less predictable
• Internet allows open collaboration for
  application/innovation
• Nuclear components (EMP), DCS, info ops,
• Lessons from highly innovative companies point to
  interesting conclusions in relation to military
  culture

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11 Axioms on Innovationfrom Apple, Google, IBM
case studies

• People
• Recruit the best people you can possibly afford,
  and avoid the worst at all costs
• Establish a culture of seeing problems to be
  solved
• Direct a sizable and conscious amount of
  work-time effort to foster the creative
• Organize around small work groups 3-4 people
  foster the highest level of innovation.
• Greatest leadership trait is credibility -
  technically skilled and perceived as such.

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Axioms (Contd)

• Thinking
• Commitment at all levels to radical honesty
• The starting point of all relevant innovation is
  solving a real problem
• The very essence of creative, innovative thinking
  is accomplished by individuals
• Action
• Disciplined, rational, but audacious movement at
  all levels
• Vision and raison d'être are internalized by all
  levels and members of the organization
• Everyone must have hands-on skills related to the
  work they are leading or involved with.

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Getting to a New Business Model

• Doctrine -
• Recognize Innovation as Principle of War
• Organization -
• Establish numerous 3-4 person teams vs large
• Reduced levels of bureaucracy
• Training
• E-1 to O-9
• Emphasize radical honesty in LRCs to How to
  Challenge the Status Quo
• Begin in Boot Camp, continue through
  CAPSTONE/Executive level
• Education
• Emphasize reward technical education/scholarship
  s

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Applications Continued

• Materiel
• Requirements process - think less about
  invention, more about application
• Begin process by solving problems, not a passion
  for toys
• Consider strengthening ties to graduate schools
• Direct 10 of effort towards peer reviewed
  individual research
• Leadership
• Reward/incentivize innovative thought
• All levels must set the example of challenge
  status quo
• Encourage radical honesty while maintaining
  bearing/decorum

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Applications Continued

• Personnel
• Recruiting -
• Hire the best candidates possible
• After leadership potential, also look to creative
  genius Education - Incentivize a
  multi-disciplined workforce to solve the complex
  problems of tomorrow
• Assignment
• Appropriate skills engender enthusiasm
  productivity
• Too much broadening is counterproductive
• Promotion
• Peer/subordinate reviews (of supervisor) included
  in promotion folder
• Evaluate creativity audacity in performance
  reports

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Conclusions Recommendations

• US military still promotes rewards a statist,
  Cold War construct
• We no longer have a monopoly on instruments of
  maneuver (recent Chinese Russian events are
  good, recent examples)
• Must change from an attrition to a dimensional
  maneuver mindset
• Cannot be out-maneuvered in dimensions of
  battlespace not thought of this way (cyber,
  economic
• The answers or actionable solutions will come
  when weve begun to unleash the creative genius
  within national security space establishment