Abstract
Purpose This paper presents NASA’s experience using a Center of Excellence (CoE) to scale and sustain an open innovation program as an effective problem-solving tool and includes strategic management recommendations for other organizations based on lessons learned. Design/methodology/approach This paper defines four phases of implementing an open innovation program: Learn, Pilot, Scale and Sustain. It provides guidance on the time required for each phase and recommendations for how to utilize a CoE to succeed. Recommendations are based upon the experience of NASA’s Human Health and Performance Directorate, and experience at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard running hundreds of challenges with research and development organizations. Findings Lessons learned include the importance of grounding innovation initiatives in the business strategy, assessing the portfolio of work to select problems most amenable to solving via crowdsourcing methodology, framing problems that external parties can solve, thinking strategically about early wins, selecting the right platforms, developing criteria for evaluation, and advancing a culture of innovation. Establishing a CoE provides an effective infrastructure to address both technical and cultural issues. Originality/value The NASA experience spanned more than seven years from initial learnings about open innovation concepts to the successful scaling and sustaining of an open innovation program; this paper provides recommendations on how to decrease this timeline to three years.
Highlights
I n the last ten years many organizations have adopted open innovation (OI), an approach that searches outside their boundaries to find breakthrough solutions to challenging problems
We offer a roadmap to successfully scale pilot open innovation activities to sustained use that is applicable to for-profit and non-profit organizations
The experience of the Human Health and Performance Directorate (HH&P) at NASA, which has been captured in journals and in a Harvard Business School case, provides a successful example of moving from pilot challenges to establishing the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) to sustain open innovation in seven years.[2][3] After conducting a thorough retrospective analysis, we suggest a process for condensing the timeline to three years
Summary
Learn: 18 months (2008-2009) Conducted OI and portfolio workshops Solicited pilot funds Engaged legal and procurement experts Selected technical experts to run competitions. Pilots: 13 months (2009-2010) Procured pilot platforms Conducted OI training Conducted external challenges Conducted internal challenges. Scale: 27 months (2011-2012) Conducted leadership meeting Procured longer term platform contracts Harvard field study Established Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) Initiated the Solution Mechanism Guide (SMG) project. Sustain: 28 months (2013-2015) Developed, tested and deployed SMG Procured additional OI platforms Added CoECI staff and capabilities
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