EMERGENCY INSURGENCY


Peter Newell, former chief of the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, thinks DOD and intelligence agencies execute their missions but won’t do innovation well until innovation has a separate but integrated system of its own.


by Mr. Michael Bold I Peter Newell


s the U.S. defense establishment structurally capable of fostering innovation? Peter Newell, a retired Army colonel and former director of the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF), doesn’t think so. In his new role as managing part- ner of the Silicon Valley consulting firm BMNT, Newell is working to change


that, helping to develop a national security pipeline to drive innovation in DOD at startup speed.


Newell is on the speed dial of leaders throughout the defense and intelligence acquisi- tion communities, people who reach out for his company’s help defining and solving tough problems and erasing organizational roadblocks that stop innovation in its tracks. With Steve Blank, the startup guru who launched the Lean Startup movement (See “Get Out”, Page 124), Newell created Hacking for Defense, a national university program run by the nonprofit arm of BMNT that helps DOD and the intelligence community solve critical national security challenges.


Newell’s work with REF and BMNT has given him a unique vantage point for under- standing how government agencies and other large organizations can get innovation right. He points to two things that need to change for the Army to make progress in terms of innovation:


• Creating a separate but integrated innovation system. • Changing how requirements are written.


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ARMY AL&T


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