More than 40 innovators embedded throughout units across the U.S. Air Force, Civil Air Patrol and NATO ACT Innovation Hub recently came together to work on solutions for problems their organizations face every day. Of those 40 members, three came from the 36th Intelligence Squadron: 2d Lt. Chad Irick, 2d Lt. Elsa Lovejoy and Senior Airman John Robert Maddray.
According to the Project Mercury website, their mission is to instill Innovation Culture, Competency, and Community within the Air and Space Forces to outpace all peer competitors.
“[Project Mercury, cohort 9] The intent of the course is to bring diverse groups of uniformed service members together to address real Air Force problems with innovative solutions that are actually actionable,” said 1st Lt. Brian Guerrero, 91st Cyberspace Operations Squadron and Project Arc Jedi, who was imbedded with the 36 IS members.
The 36 IS members goal for this course was to investigate a problem they were assigned to, develop a solution, and pitch that solution to a potential sponsor to gather funding and manpower to implement it. Along the 14-week course, the students were provided with a guiding innovation framework delivered through academics and a coaching staff to review progress on a weekly basis.
“We opened this opportunity to the squadron in December for a January start for a 3-month educational opportunity,” said Lt. Col. George Hart, 36 IS commander. “I wanted to test a hypothesis that our ‘youngest Airmen can accelerate how we solve hard problems because they are not burdened by the technologies we have grown up with yet.’ By unlocking their minds to how they can approach problems in various ways, they have been given tools to quickly develop multiple ways forward, thus accelerate their team's OODA loops of learning, and experimenting the rest of their careers. Mastering the skills of our AFSCs coupled with innovative mindset will be critical to how quickly our Airmen can a adapt and win the next fight.”
Each group or Cohort, typically around 40 participants, completes this hybrid program of academic readings and reflection along with an immersive team project over a 90-day period. Participants represent a range of ranks, locations, and organizations, uniting in teams to explore difficult cross-functional challenges.
Project Mercury is broken into three categories: Jumpstart, Acceleration and Pitch. “Jumpstart” begins Project Mercury. This is a week-long conference in which participants gain foundational tools, form teams, and explore problems and opportunities. “Acceleration” phase allows teams to meet virtually to brainstorm, experiment, connect, and deliver results under the mentorship of peer coaches. Each team is then responsible to “Pitch” their proposals to a customized sponsor in their quest for an effective handoff.
According to Guerrero, Project Mercury is intended to be completed alongside normal duty responsibilities. The total commitment is anywhere from five and 10 hours a week. This includes reading academic articles on innovation, researching the problem space, interviewing Airmen in the field, meeting with the team to report findings, participating in innovation exercises, brainstorming solutions, testing solutions, and presenting a final pitch. Often there were two meetings a week, once with the whole cohort of eight teams, and again with just our team of four. This is alongside the work woven into the standard duty day of reaching out for interviews/information and test hypotheses with people in the field.
When asked about the hardest part of the course, Guerrero commented on learning to overcome the engrained military structure.
“Through the course you are asked to really put yourself out there and make those connections that will get the job done without yielding to chain of command and top cover,” he said. “There was a lot of cold calls, being ghosted, and confused replies, but you must persevere for that one ‘in’ that will get you what you need.”
According to Hart, the 36 IS was able to connect with another innovation effort in the U.S. Air Force, Project Arc, where an Airman from another squadron also completed the course with our Hawkeye Airmen and is now TDY with them for an additional four months to bridge the problems our Airmen are facing and developing or coding solutions to make their lives better.
“Even if we don't hit a home run with this experiment, we will have failed fast and informed larger programmatic decision as to the opportunities, risks, and costs in joint target intelligence integration as we experiment with Combatant Commands this summer,” Hart said.
Guerrero, who is normally stationed at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, was the Project Arc representative. Project Arc enables a few select uniformed scientists and engineers to work directly with operational users to solve problems at the point of impact. Project Arc deployed Guerrero with the 36 IS [to partner with Project Mercury] to produce a tangible product that follows their team’s (Team Domino) solution.
His team is developing a real product that they hope to field as a prototype in the June/July timeframe.
“Lt. Lovejoy and I will be supporting Lt. Guerrero in all ways that we can as he continues his work through Project Arc,” said Irick. “We are very excited to see our innovation project come to life and help our Airmen get to where they need to be.”
The successful completion of this course results in a credential earned through the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering in collaboration with Air University: Certified Professional Innovator.
“The best part about this course it that it provides you with replicable methods and processes that can be applied to any innovation endeavors,” Lovejoy said. “The goal is that participants can take this knowledge of innovation and securing sponsorship and apply it to wherever they find a need for innovation.”
“Our Airmen are the beating heart of the Air Force,” the 36 IS commander said. “I'm inspired daily on what our teams can accomplish. We owe them better tools to connect, share, learn with technologies that are intuitive, while still providing the veracity and trust our senior leaders expect of targeting intelligence professionals who develop options and effects to our Nation's hardest problems.”
For more information about Project Mercury, please visit https://projectmercury.us/.
| Date Taken: | 05.09.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.09.2023 08:29 |
| Story ID: | 444338 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 279 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 36th Intelligence Squadron members complete hybrid AU professional Innovator Course – Project Mercury, by TSgt Anthony Hyatt, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
