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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2019

  SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)

  Herman Leonard, Mitch Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik and Kerry Herman

  Citation:

  Leonard, Herman, Mitch Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik, and Kerry Herman. "SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 820-047, September 2019.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2018 (Revised December 2018)

  SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command

  Herman Leonard, Mitchell Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik and Kerry Herman

  James “Hondo” Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command, was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. The questions had a common theme: how would Geurts’s experience running an innovative procurement effort for U.S. Special Forces units enable him to change a much larger—and much more rigid—organization like the U.S. Navy? In one of the most secretive parts of the U.S. military, Geurts founded an open platform called SOFWERX to speed the rate of ideas to Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, and the like. His team even sourced the idea for a hoverboard from a YouTube video. But how should things like SOFWERX and protypes like the EZ-Fly find a place within the Navy writ large?

  Keywords: James Geurts; innovation; public entrepreneurship; open innovation; crowdsourcing; contests; prototyping; SOFWERX; Special Operations; SOCOM; govtech; procurement; FAR; EZ-Fly; Navy; Department of Defense; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Acquisition; Public Administration Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Leonard, Herman, Mitchell Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik, and Kerry Herman. "SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command." Harvard Business School Case 819-004, July 2018. (Revised December 2018.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018

  Learning How to Honnold

  Eugene F. Soltes, Sara Hess and Dutch Leonard

  Alex Honnold is the world’s most accomplished free climber. To many, climbing sheer vertical faces of rock—like the famed El Capitan—without a rope is viewed as not simply risky but reckless. Honnold contrasts this sentiment by presenting his perspective on risk taking and the challenges of living a fulfilled life.

  Keywords: Risk Management; Goals and Objectives; Personal Development and Career; Perspective;

  Citation:

  Soltes, Eugene F., Sara Hess, and Dutch Leonard. "Learning How to Honnold." Harvard Business School Case 119-043, October 2018.  View Details

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