What exactly is innovation? Is it new technologies? That is the most common image that comes to mind when the word is used. Or is it new ways of doing things? That is a broader, but also more ambiguous, definition. Or is it both new outcomes and new processes?
Keep those two definitions in mind over the next few months when you hear arguments about the DOD budget. The Defense Department's budget may seem to be a strange place to be holding a debate over innovation. But, I believe the competing definitions will implicitly underpin much of the discussion over the Pentagon's funding
Here is the background. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the new FY 2010 budget, with a new set of spending priorities. Cut were a number of high tech weapons systems, including the Navy's DDG 1000 stealth destroyer, the Air Force's F-22 and the Army's Future Combat Systems. That is likely to cause a number of people to complain that Gates is anti-innovation (meaning anti-high tech). Already, there were complaints about the cuts (for more see stories in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post).
Gate had earlier signaled his intension in an article in Foreign Affairs -- A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age. This reprogramming is twofold: strategy and operations. In the strategy, Gates is seeking to redefine the military mission:
we must not be so preoccupied with preparing for future conventional and strategic conflicts that we neglect to provide all the capabilities necessary to fight and win conflicts such as those the United States is in today.
With respect to operations, Gates noted that in combating the insurgency in Iraqi:
For every heroic and resourceful innovation by troops and commanders on the battlefield, there was some institutional shortcoming at the Pentagon they had to overcome.
In other words, Gates is trying to get the Pentagon to act in new ways - to do things differently. That is a path others have tried before. In this case, Gates believes that innovation means moving away from some of the high-tech areas. That sets up the clash between innovation (conventionally defined) and innovation (broadly defined).
There will be lots of defenders of the conventional approach to innovation at DOD -- more high tech weapons systems (something that might be labeled status-quo innovation). We will see how many advocates there are for new ways of doing things.
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