Case Study: Aerospace

While working in the aerospace defense contractor arena, as Chief Technology Officer for Advanced Programs, we learned of a sister P&L center who was challenged with significant inefficiencies and affordability problems on their largest government simulator program of record. As CTO for Advanced Technology Programs in our line of business I was very familiar with this "sister" P&L center and its programs, I reached out to the senior executive team to work with them to develop a strategy and implementation plan to transition the program to "green." I proposed a dedicated commitment of my time to work shoulder-to-shoulder with their senior leadership to structure and implement the L5 methodology:" Listen, Learn, Link, Layout and Lead" the approach to resolve the program challenges in a timely and effective manner.

Daily, weekly and monthly I met with and listened to the executive team, middle level management, technology leads, chief engineers and chief architects and programmers to hear firsthand about the challenges, problems and gaps distributed across the program.

I learned that there were growing capability gaps, redundancies, and work-flow inefficiencies and functional disconnects driven by challenges with staffing limitations i.e. the inability to identify appropriate subject matter experts, over a thousand poorly defined requirements, and needs for improved systems engineering process rigor, and development limitation with physics-based models, analytical tools and algorithms that were mission critical to the program. The subsequent step was to create a link-map that captured the challenges to technology, staffing and processes, into the strategy and implementation plan. I worked closely with the executive leadership to layout a "get to green," forward action plan. The outcome was that I led the development of a strategic program plan augmentation, that transitioned the "challenged program," back to green. – We saved the government multi-millions of dollars and the contract award fees were returned promptly that following program review cycle.

Our government customers and corporate executives found that the L5 methodology was effective to comprehensively evaluate the program needs, develop a strategy and approach to resolve issues and challenges and deliver an appropriate and timely implementation solution.

The horizontal integration, cross-corporate communication, coordination, and collaboration were instrumental in the success of this L5 initiative.

Case Study: Defense

As Chief Technology Officer for a P&L center working for a large defense contractor and Senior Manager Research & Technology for a mid-sized engineering firm with the federal sector, I directed the innovation portfolios, technology forecasting and market roadmapping, research and development, university and laboratory partnerships, and a formalized IP monetization process.

These are crucial segments of a strategic technology plan. Generating new revenue streams via a technology strategy and new business investment requires a technology visionary with passion, persistence and perseverance. The ability and business acumen to collaborate communicate and coordinate horizontally and vertically across an organization regarding the business cases and value props of the technology are essential both internally to the executive leadership, and externally to clients or investors.

A very under appreciated part of pursuing new revenue streams with technology is the communication. The individual must be able to comfortably speak to interested clients or potential investors, be familiar with the product / solution, be familiar with the addressable market, the needs of the client, and possess the professionalism and the expertise and personality to interface with clients.

I led the development of a technology strategy and operated and directed a technology organization which required several imperatives:

Find the right people;
Fully understand and define business and program requirements;
Drive innovation and disruptive technology initiatives;
Continuously collaborate, communicate and work cooperatively with the Marketing and business development teams;
Create the market segmentation plan, identify market channels and market-chain, generate G2M strategy;
Continuously work with executive leadership of the P&L centers, and managers, chief engineers and architects who possessed key insight into client buyer behaviors, and long range technology interests;
Create and connect business cases and value props to the investment strategy;
Comprise a research portfolio of advanced independent R&D, University R&D collaboration, innovation initiatives, e.g. tournaments and showcase demonstrations;
Create a process to measure capability development and technology maturity index i.e. TRL;
Partner with research labs, and software companies to enhance development and accelerate productization;
Develop and implement a technology transition process and IP monetization plan;
Lead, capture and manage contract research and development programs;

All that being said above, a scenario of generating new revenue streams and opening up new business was realized via the L5 approach.

As I networked, met with, and listened to one of our key government clients and heard about their top challenges with leveraging current technology, I learned about what technology was sufficient and insufficient to satisfy their mission needs and priorities. I then linked appropriate IP / innovative technology to address client and mission needs, and worked closely with corporate executives and key customers to layout options for suitability, cost risk, and performance. Subsequently I led the development and delivery for an optimal solution that best fit the overall client needs and mission. It was the client and mission focused advanced R&D that once verified, field-tested and hardened transitioned to IP and was delivered as the key technology and engineering services that won multi-million dollars of contract work with the defense market.

Case Study: Technology

I introduced the L5 approach to the executive leadership team of a nonprofit healthcare clinic. I worked side-by-side with the leadership to "listen" to each department-head, manager, and key staff, to understand current and future business requirements, assess, evaluate and characterize the needs and priorities; I "learned" of the central challenges and disconnects with work-flows, redundancies and gaps in their business and/or technology processes; "linked," problems and functionality to solution families; we then developed a "layout," a technology road map, and a full spectrum investment options, and subsequently as a team "lead," the synthesis of a technology strategy to transition their enterprise to state of the art.

It is always a tremendously exciting experience, and when you are able to work vertically and horizontally across organizations, communicate, collaborate and coordinate with key stakeholders, and decision makers,


To create a strategy and vision that aligns to the organization’s future, the L5 journey can be highly effective.

Listen - Develop with your clients the business cases and value props to clarify the navigation path.

Learn - Gain a full understanding of the user-needs, the user-experience, and mission-based outcomes and future vision.

Link - Make data-driven-decisions and recommendations.

Layout - Synthesize with the client a technology roadmap and family of investment options based on priorities.

Lead - lead as a team, understand and plan for the organizational impact of transition, i.e. transitioning an IT enterprise is a multi-fascetted integrated journey.

organizational culture, communications, change management, and training are all interconnected to the strategy, the implementation and the success to transition an IT enterprise and its service delivery to its clients, its users, and its workforce.