MIT's Dr. Phil Budden Shares Innovation Research with NUWC Division Newport Workforce
Dr. Phil Budden, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management, delivered a briefing titled “MIT’s Approach to Innovation” to the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport workforce on May 7, as part of a monthlong focus on innovation.
NUWC Division Newport and MIT have a relationship through the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), which gives Division Newport scientists and engineers access to a variety of MIT conferences, events, research and webinars. During his visit, Budden also received an overview about Division Newport from Chief Technology Officer Dr. Jason Gomez, met with leadership, visited some of the labs, recorded a podcast and participated in a meet-and-greet session with employees.
In 2019, Budden and a colleague, professor Fiona Murray, wrote a paper titled “Defense Innovation Report: Applying MIT’s Innovation Ecosystem & Stakeholder Approach to Innovation in Defense on a Country-by-Country Basis.” What he learned was that not all innovation will happen at the Pentagon, which he called the “heart of the military-industrial complex.”
“You really do have to turn to your experts in various places, including Newport, to pull together those capabilities,” Budden said. “Smart, committed people like you have made that investment of time and effort where you have those solutions that can be pulled together quickly into capacities and capabilities that make a difference for our warfighters.”
Budden explained that technology innovation is a “secular phenomenon,” meaning it is occurring throughout the world independent of any political system. Through its Regional Entrepreneur Acceleration Program (REAP), MIT studies and teaches technology innovation at various points around the globe, including in communist countries like China and Russia. The research indicates that “others are getting quite good at tech innovation, and we, what is known as the West, no longer have a monopoly on those things,” Budden said.
As tensions rise globally, large organizations, like the Department of Defense, must innovate at a more rapid pace, but with minimized risk, Budden said. His talk was based on the material in his new book, which he also co-wrote with Murray: “Accelerating Innovation: Competitive Advantage Through Ecosystem Management.”
He noted that nowhere in that eight-word phase does the term technology appear because “innovation is more than technology.” It is indeed a process that requires more than a one-off moment, and it must have an impact, whether that is financial gains for corporations, medical breakthroughs for health care or mission impact for defense organizations. The idea, Budden said, is the match between a problem and a solution.
Budden introduced a graphic that depicted his “Problem/Solution” matrix. At the origin of the axis is what he called “BAU,” or business as usual. Along the axes were “exploring novel solution space” and “exploring the novel problem space.” Exploring the novel solution space involves performing research and development to eventually bring forth new technology, while exploring the problem space centers on potential solutions others already have developed that quickly can be applied to satisfy the need.
Leaders in large organizations must be able to curate the influx of ideas to help find the best problem-solution matches because “not every idea is going to be taken forward,” Budden said. “That’s what happens in the wilds of an innovation ecosystem.” Additionally, leaders need to champion an innovative mindset and culture so it’s not business as usual, he said.
The ideas that are explored further can be classified in two ways: “Big I innovation” and “little i innovation.” The former leads to a significant transformation of technology, while the latter has roughly a 10% impact. To reduce the risk involved, large organizations should focus on “little i innovation,” Budden said.
“It’s small improvement steps. It’s modest,” he said. “It's still a challenge to do 10% improvements on sonar arrays, lethality, survivability. But those are meaningful changes, and they will be appreciated by those among us who serve on those platforms in uniform. Like any large organization, you’re more likely to be able to carve out the space, the permission, the resource, the time to do those 10% improvements.”
Continually making those incremental improvements tend to equate with minimal risk, Budden said.
Innovating in large organizations is possible, Budden said, but it’s not easy and it takes dedication from all employees.
“Everybody in their job should be able to find areas where they can do 10% improvements, whether it’s generative artificial intelligence or human resources or budgeting, through to how do we make better propellers?” he said. “Being open to those ideas is really important because those 10% improvements around different parts of the carrier or different parts of the torpedo will make a real difference.”