Sandia accelerates innovation, targets three new goals

Imagine a doctor begins their appointments by handing the patient a prescription. Then the patient describes their symptoms.

Backward as that sounds, many attempts at problem-solving through research and development take this approach. The inventor of a cool technology sets out in search of challenges that can be met by their invention.

Sandia set a Labswide goal in 2023 to accelerate innovation. As part of its all-hands-on-deck pursuit of the goal, Sandia made a concerted effort to broaden the use of design thinking. Not specific to engineering, design thinking is a broad problem-solving method that focuses on deeply understanding the needs of those affected by the problem to develop innovative solutions.

“Instead of me coming to the stakeholder with an idea, I came to them with curiosity, and we conversed about their problem,” said Sharlotte Kramer, a mechanical engineer who applied design-thinking methodology to work with stakeholders on proposed improvements to the process used to qualify components for the nuclear deterrent. “Without that, I don’t think I would have come up with the solution I did … I would have come to them with a preconceived notion of what their problems were.”

Sharlotte’s story is an episode in the epic tale of how Sandia accelerated innovation. In a Jan. 21 event at Steve Schiff Auditorium, the Labs’ top leaders declared success in this goal, described its evolutionary next step and pointed Sandia staff toward three new Labswide goals: future-ready engineering, future-ready operations and a future-ready workforce. Sandia staff can watch the recording.

“Sandia is different now than it was in September 2023, when (then-Labs Director) James Peery introduced the goal to accelerate innovation,” Labs Director Laura McGill said. “We have made significant progress since that time as a result of efforts across the Labs, and also driven by the urgency of the moment, where we need to deter two nuclear peer adversaries and a host of other threats.”

Workforce sentiment around innovation has changed for the better. A Labswide innovation survey in July 2024 and Sandia’s employee engagement survey in March 2025 both included the statement, “I feel encouraged to come up with better ways of doing things.” Over those eight months, agreement with the statement jumped from 73% to 84%, from lagging behind industry benchmark to exceeding it.

Sandia’s achievement in accelerating innovation consisted of many discrete steps that added up to this cultural shift. Sharlotte and about 30 other colleagues from across the Labs were trained as design-thinking facilitators during spring 2024. In less than two years, that modest cohort, dubbed Sandia Catalysts, led more than 2,300 participants through design-thinking sessions.

The Labs instituted an innovation competition, created events and infrastructure for celebrating innovative methodologies and sharing lessons learned, established a way of crowd sourcing solutions to important questions from Sandia’s 16,000 staff, encouraged staff to take intelligent risks and removed more than 400 requirements from its policies.

“The broader nuclear security enterprise and Sandia had become more risk averse,” said Deputy Labs Director David Gibson, reflecting on the problem that the goal to accelerate innovation aimed to solve. “We had built policy and procedure and, really, a culture, that was less conducive to innovation.”

The increased emphasis on innovation coincided with technical accomplishments including achievement of the B61-13 first production unit in a schedule-slashing 13 months and development of SkyFox, a first-of-its-kind 3D-printed hypersonic glide body.

The progress made Sandia executives comfortable closing the goal to accelerate innovation and directing the Labs’ attention toward new goals. Readying its engineering, operations and workforce for a complex and fast-moving future will demand that Sandia keep innovating.

“Innovation is evolving from a Labswide goal to a pillar of our Sandia culture,” said David, referencing a six-characteristic culture the Labs has described for itself that includes “we innovate,” “we deliver,” “we team,” and more. “Innovation isn’t the end. Really, it never was. It’s how we need to show up to accomplish our goals. I think we have succeeded in remaking ourselves so that we can honestly say, ‘we innovate,’ which is the language of our Sandia culture. Now it’s on each of us to make sure that remains true.”