Productable Makes Portfolio Approach To Innovation A Reality For U.S. Air Force With Multi-Million Dollar Partnership

[AUSTIN, TX DECEMBER 8, 2021] Productable, an innovation management platform that accelerates the innovation process and guides critical decision-making, signed its third deal of the year with the U.S. Air Force, increasing the partnership's total contract value to $3.1 million.

The contract is funded by the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and SAF/MG, the Department of the Air Force organization responsible for developing and implementing business transformation initiatives. The primary goal is to develop customizable portfolio innovation software that: 1) offers Air Force leadership improved visibility, accountability and transparency and 2) empowers Airmen with the resources and processes required to accelerate their innovation efforts.

Productable’s new deal to make portfolio approach a reality for the Air Force follows the success of a Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) prototyping contract with Air Force CyberWorx and a development and piloting phase, also led by SAF/MG.

‍BENEFITS OF PORTFOLIO INNOVATION

‍In her academic research with top institutions such as MIT and Singapore University of Technology & Design, Productable Founder & CEO Rachel Kuhr Conn discovered repeatable patterns of success when using a portfolio approach to innovation. Today, these patterns are the backbone of Productable’s patent-pending methodology that reinforces every feature in the platform.

“My years of innovation research revealed that it’s not enough to focus on what is known as bottom-up innovation,” said Conn, explaining that bottom-up innovation refers to employee-initiated ideation. “There has to be a strong top-down element as well, where leadership forecasts opportunities and guides intrapreneurs [individuals who promote innovation] on the types of ideas they need to make success happen. This approach strengthens the position of the innovator and gives them the guidance, transparency and resources they need to move their ideas forward and succeed.”

In addition to forecasting opportunities and broadcasting vision, portfolio innovation offers the following benefits to organizations:

• Portfolio Innovation provides leaders with decision-making confidence. Productable lets innovation leadership create decision guidelines for every phase of innovation, thus accelerating the entire process with a framework for making solid decisions.
• ‍Portfolio Innovation gives intrapreneurs a clear path to resources. Productable’s platform gives innovation leadership a method to preallocate budgets, so projects do not stall due to lack of resources.
• ‍Portfolio Innovation offers much needed transparency to innovators. Productable bridges the gap between leaders and innovators, so everyone knows what success looks like and what is needed to move forward.
• ‍Portfolio Innovation improves overall return on investment. Productable guides Air Force intrapreneurs through the right process at the right time, so they ensure fiscal stewardship on prototypes and tests.

“Productable provides Air Force leaders with a true portfolio approach to innovation and allows the department to accelerate efforts with solid decision-making guidelines, strategic resource planning and a sustainable process,” said Wm. Brou Gautier, Director of Continuous Improvement & Innovation and Spark Tank Capability Lead for the Department of the Air Force. “Currently, we are leveraging Productable’s methodology on more than 70 executive-level projects. We look forward to taking our commitment to innovation best practices one step further by leveraging this portfolio approach to increase our current volume of innovations ten-fold and focus incoming ideas on the long-term outcomes we need to meet combat and competition requirements.”

The introduction of portfolio innovation to the Air Force allows the department to increase their innovation velocity, a critical objective outlined in the Accelerate Change or Lose strategic vision laid out by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr.

‍BETA PROGRAM

‍With the success of its alpha testing within the Air Force, Productable opens its beta program to all innovation units within the Department of Defense to support leadership decision-making, identify barriers to innovation and further modernize innovation capabilities across the military.

Department of Defense beta program participants receive:

• Visibility into their entire portfolio of projects. Currently, the Productable innovation management platform gives intrapreneurs an easy way to share project status and updates with leadership, allowing them to communicate project wins as well as barriers to success. Beta participants are also granted access to all the new solutions and features as they roll out.
• Weekly leadership strategy sessions. Productable’s team of innovation process experts work directly with leadership to provide ongoing consultation and strategic direction, focusing on removing systemic barriers, establishing repeatable processes and improving decision-making criteria.
• Hands-on innovator workshops. Productable facilitators conduct strategic workshops to quickly guide intrapreneurs through the phases of concept development using the right methods at the right time, empowering them to more effectively solve problems.

To see a demo of the Productable platform and get more information about the beta program, please visit http://www.productableaf.com/beta.

‍ABOUT PRODUCTABLE

‍Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Productable is an innovation management platform that sets organizations up with everything they need to innovate successfully. Our all-in-one solution gives leaders the reporting, insights and decision-making guidelines they need to drive transformation quickly and connects innovators and intrapreneurs with the right process and right tools to scale their ideas into real solutions. Productable Founder & CEO Rachel Kuhr Conn launched the patent-pending SaaS platform in 2019 after more than a decade of testing transformation methodology as academic research with top institutions such as MIT. She then perfected the innovation process with Mark Cuban Companies and 20+ large corporations.‍