SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)

Herman B. Leonard, Mitchell B. Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik, Kerry Herman

James "Hondo" Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. Overseeing acquisitions in one of the most secretive parts of the U.S. military, Geurts had founded SOFWERX, an open platform to diversify and speed the rate of new ideas into Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, and the like. His approach helped source the idea for the EZ-Fly, a hoverboard, from a YouTube video. At his confirmation hearing, the Senators' questions had a common theme: How should things like SOFWERX and protypes like the EZ-Fly find a place within the Navy writ large? How would Geurts's experience running an innovative procurement effort for U.S. Special Forces units enable him to change a much larger-and much more rigid-organization like the U.S. Navy?

Learning Objective

The case was developed both for Harvard Business School's public entrepreneurship course and for other courses on innovation management, both for public sector leaders and private ones. It focuses on how to drive innovation and whether 1) agile efforts and 2) open efforts like crowdsourcing and contests can be scaled from smaller to larger and more bureaucratic organizations. It invites students to consider the mechanics of these innovation streams (how one creates a platform that brings together those needing solutions and those that might provide them) and their interaction with the culture of the organizations. The case also provides an opportunity to consider the pros and cons of rapid prototyping. And to look at that in contrast to more planful R&D/procurement efforts.

Details

Pub Date: Sep 9, 2019(Revised: Sep 10, 2020)

Discipline: Entrepreneurship

Subjects:Acquisitions, Crowdsourcing, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Inventions, Open innovation, Organizational change, Procurement, Prototypes

Source: Harvard Business School

Product #: 820047-PDF-ENG

Teaching note: Available

Industry: Public administration

Geography: United States

Length: 19 page(s)