STRATFI - Driving Innovation Into Air Force Missions through Innovation Governance and Education

The scope of Dcode’s Phase II product with AFWERX supports each phase of the technology innovation life cycle, from developing a culture of innovation to navigating acquisitions, to driving successful implementation and transition technology and innovation pilots into programs of record. As part of this effort, Dcode worked with end-users from various Wings and Major Commands across the US Air Force (AF) to develop, iterate, and validate the need for our solution. Given the success of Dcode’s Phase II development, Dcode is expanding our product to address AF enterprise-wide technological innovation and transformational strategic capabilities in support of key leaders across the AF. Tech innovation must be addressed at the strategic level for the AF to intentionally build an enterprise culture of innovation and enable the identification and deployment of solutions that drive mission success. Dcode proposes to scale Phase II innovation efforts with the Secretary of the Air Force / Concepts, Development, Management Office (SAF/CDM) as the primary end-user and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force/ Strategic Studies Group (CSAF/SSG) as an additional end-user. Both offices are strategic level organizations in the Air Force facing critical challenges in identifying and launching tech innovation at the enterprise level. SAF/CDM and CSAF/SSG are working to define a commonly understood set of innovation objectives and priorities across a diverse set of AF program offices. Currently, AF stakeholders are often misaligned on innovation priorities and innovation efforts often become fractured, siloed, or fail to garner the leadership buy-in needed to scale across the enterprise. Dcode’s solution incorporates our accelerate and scale methodology, which prioritizes scalable and sustainable technology implementations to ensure mission impact does not die with the prototype phase. This methodology can catalyze innovation across the strategic levels of the AF and ensure that innovation is embedded intentionally into major programs. Key elements of our solution include: Developing an intentional culture that establishes objectives, assesses innovation maturity, and provides an innovation governance framework to facilitate the alignment of strategic priorities and integration of cutting edge technology. Leveraging commercial best practices to overcome common barriers to innovation including problem framing, solution evaluation, and procurement. Integrating vetted emerging technology that are ready to scale in the Federal government through tech scouting/vetting, industry acceleration, and outreach.