{"id":82951,"date":"2024-02-09T18:29:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T18:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2024\/02\/09\/army-struggles-to-standardize-innovation-without-stifling-it\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:17:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:17:19","slug":"army-struggles-to-standardize-innovation-without-stifling-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2024\/02\/09\/army-struggles-to-standardize-innovation-without-stifling-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Army struggles to standardize innovation without stifling it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ATLANTA \u2014 For Capt. Chris Aliperti, January\u2019s <\/b>\u201chackathon\u201d \u2014 an annual innovation collaboration between the 3rd Infantry Division and Georgia Tech<\/a> \u2014 felt like coming home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young infantry officer, whose Ranger tab and Expert Infantry Badge<\/a> are supplemented by his former NASA internship and biomedical engineering master\u2019s degree from Johns Hopkins, came up in the Georgia-based division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After leading an infantry platoon, Aliperti was tapped to co-found the division\u2019s Marne Innovation Center and serve as a deputy innovation officer in 2022. In that role, he spearheaded the development of the Mold Conditions Awareness Tool<\/a>, which used sensors and 3D-printed parts to monitor a brigade\u2019s worth of barracks in hopes of catching mold before it begins to grow. He loved collaborating with soldiers across the division to solve their everyday problems, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Aliperti neared the end of his assignment at Fort Stewart<\/a>, Georgia, <\/b>he realized there wasn\u2019t a next step for him to take as an innovation officer. He faced a dilemma: leave the Army in order to keep working in emerging tech, or attend his next phase of professional military education and check the infantry officer boxes until he could apply for other opportunities within the Army?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He isn\u2019t alone. The Army\u2019s talent development and management bureaucracy is struggling to meet the needs of soldiers valued for their ability to break the system, creating an innovation paradox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aliperti, to his relief, was spared the choice \u2014 a senior official at Human Resources Command intervened to place him as a mechanical engineering instructor<\/a> and associate director of an engineering innovation center at West Point. Recognizing how unusual the Army\u2019s intervention in his case was, Aliperti teamed up with Capt. Chris Flournoy<\/a> (currently the Marne Division\u2019s innovation director) and other soldiers in similar roles to concoct a talent management<\/a> strategy proposal for the service\u2019s innovation community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to formalize innovation enough to create a lasting impact on the Army,\u201d said Flournoy. \u201cBut [it must] still be flexible enough to allow operational units to tailor the innovation cells to meet their immediate needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Now-Capt. Chris Aliperti, left, and Capt. Chris Flournoy, right, spoke with Army Times about the future of innovation talent management in the Army. (Army)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Col. Kris Saling, who led Human Resources Command\u2019s innovation efforts before joining Recruiting Command last month, the Army is well-aware of the task it faces, and \u201ccreative individual talent management\u201d won\u2019t be enough forever. She said an Army-level planning team is exploring ways to track soldiers with such experience and create permanent dedicated roles for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aliperti and Flournoy are supporting that process, and they spoke with Army Times to explain their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the bind, Aliperti argued, is that \u201cit doesn\u2019t seem that there\u2019s a great model of identifying what makes a good innovation officer.\u201d Currently, selections are informal and decentralized, which contrasts with the formal board process adopted by centralized organizations like the Army Software Factory<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other services, such as the Air Force, have developed personnel management tags \u2014 known as additional skill identifiers in the Army \u2014 that track troops who have served in innovation roles. Army skill identifiers frequently require a formal education curriculum as well; the captains see that as an opportunity to ensure all formally labeled innovation officers have tech and data literacy, in addition to other relevant skills. Saling said an effort is underway to create a skill identifier, but Aliperti cautioned it could be years from completion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although developing a skill code is the Army way to solve the talent tracking problem, Aliperti and Flournoy also want to create an organized consortium of innovation professionals that trains, tracks and helps leaders employ such soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then comes the challenge of finding ways to use such talent that don\u2019t require the Army to manage innovators by exceptions, as Aliperti was. The captains had mixed feelings about the Army codifying tactical innovation jobs in unit organizational tables (as Saling indicated the service is exploring), which runs the risk of prescribing a one-size-fits-all solution that may not work for every unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not all such soldiers need to spend their entire careers in specialized jobs, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flournoy, for example, is set to lead an infantry company after he departs from his current assignment. He changed his mind about leaving the Army because he sees potential benefits to the service using his expertise at the company level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of my experience with human-machine integration, I would be a great company [commander] to be tagged to go to Project Convergence and test out things<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u201cI have that background knowledge of why this is important, but the [Army\u2019s talent management system] has no way of knowing that I\u2019d be a good candidate for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How innovation may help a Georgia-based armor brigade<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although the Army\u2019s tactical innovation movement has drawn criticism<\/a> from those who believe such organizations\u2019 insulation from the service\u2019s traditional procurement pathways undercuts their value, officials attending the Jan. 7 event at Georgia Tech emphasized the real-world results they\u2019ve seen from such efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Col. Molly Solsbury is the commander of the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade, which provides intelligence support to U.S. Central Command from Fort Eisenhower, Georgia. Before her current assignment, Solsbury completed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology fellowship and worked in data and innovation-oriented roles with the 18th Airborne Corps and Joint Special Operations Command. Her soldiers participated in the hackathon event, where she spoke with Army Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Col. Molly Solsbury, commander of the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade, addresses participants at the 3rd Infantry Division and Georgia Tech’s annual innovation “hackathon” event at the Coda Center, Atlanta, Georgia, Jan. 7, 2024. (Courtesy of Dean Winkie)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know that it is possible to use the talent that we have in our universities and our research institutes to create a laboratory that we then can take to the battlefield for results,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen some instances where it\u2019s worked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solsbury (as well as Aliperti and Flournoy) emphasized the importance of maintaining a cadre of specialized innovation personnel as catalysts who empower line soldiers to design and implement solutions to their problems by providing them the tools, space, expertise and resources they need. The running partnership between the 3rd Infantry Division and the Georgia Tech Research Institute provides participants with just that: time, tools and technical expertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Jan. 7 event, teams presented proposals for cheap, vehicle-mounted electromagnetic spectrum sensors; rapid-hardening foam to help vehicles quickly cross anti-tank ditches; portable cooling tools for battlefield computer servers; and portable high-frequency signal emitters. According to Flournoy, the commander of the division\u2019s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team tasked his units with identifying and submitting project proposals ahead of the unit\u2019s summer National Training Center rotation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the soldiers working on the foam bridge project was Staff Sgt. Nicholas Harris, a platoon sergeant from A Company, 10th Brigade Engineer Battalion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving the scientists here \u2026 expedited the things that we were trying to figure out,\u201d Harris said. The engineer explained that testing his team\u2019s ideas at the unit level \u2014 without external support such as the innovation event \u2014 would\u2019ve \u201cabsolutely\u201d been a drawn-out, labor intensive process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He thinks putting soldiers and scientists in the same room also ensured everyone was on the same page about the stakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn a day-to-day basis, scientists or professors who try to deal with problems like this don\u2019t really get to understand [them] to the lowest end user \u2014 a soldier actually employing it,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A diorama model depicts a proposed technique for crossing anti-tank ditches \u2014 foam bridges \u2014 developed at the 3rd Infantry Division and Georgia Tech’s joint innovation “hackathon” event at the Coda Center, Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 7, 2024. (Davis Winkie\/Staff)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The foam-based bridge concept, inspired by reports of Israeli troops testing \u201csponge bombs\u201d for use against tunnels, aims to speed up hasty obstacle belt breaches under fire, which Harris identified as the most hazardous task in the combat engineer\u2019s playbook. Harris, gesturing toward himself as he spoke, said Army doctrine estimates units will sustain approximately 50% casualties for combined arms breaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe lose time; we lose people,\u201d he <\/b>said. \u201cThat\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next comes field testing to see whether any foam concoctions can dry (and support a tank\u2019s weight) quicker than the 10-minute benchmark set by current bridging tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even if follow-up experiments don\u2019t succeed, argued Solsbury, the workshop wasn\u2019t in vain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe seed that we\u2019re planting is that we have sergeants, we have lieutenants and we have young warrant officers that were in there,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to take that design thinking approach back, and they\u2019re going to teach all of their soldiers \u2026 part of the magic that happens at these [events] is getting young soldiers involved at the ground level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Army’s innovation revolution comes of age, what will happen to its people and 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