This week’s guest post is by Rick Dunham, from MITRE’s Air/Ground Surveillance Program, and it highlights a recent application of the Innovation Toolkit to the F-35 program.
Lead Human Factors Engineer Jessica Yu (standing) briefs F-35 Lightning II Enterprise Focus team members on using the Innovation Toolkit.
An Air Force Portfolio High-Profile Program, F-35 Enterprise team leads Portfolio Manager Jen Hebert and Project Leader Chris Jella—facilitated by the Innovation Toolkit Team—pioneered and challenged four main focus area groups: Reduce Live Fly; Implement Advance Capabilities; Integrate US, Partner, and International Efforts; and Modernize Mission Support and Infrastructures. The goal is to leverage and link cross-functional expertise in building shared mission-driven impactful products and outcomes.
This team-based approach and visionary mindset is why our F-35 Enterprise sponsors have come to rely on MITRE to organize work so that it magnifies the delivered capability to any one individual sponsor. By synthesizing MITRE’s internal, full-spectrum-funded research, labs, direct sponsor work, and related activities, the government pays once for a capability that benefits many sponsors and stakeholders.
Additionally, shared deliverables are a centerpiece of the MITRE F-35 Enterprise strategy. Each focus area group has both a set of sponsor-specific deliverables and a well-crafted outcome that contributes to a higher strategy while addressing local sponsor priorities.
This collaborative, get-to-know-you comradery structure will pay dividends, strengthening MITRE’s core excellence and service and ultimately, solving our sponsor’s most challenging C2D2 needs.