Using value-focused thinking to select innovative force protection ideas

The United States Air Force has seven battlelabs, including the Force Protection Battlelab. A variety of proposed solutions or ‘initiatives’ are presented to the battlelabs as alternatives to improve the Air Force's ability to execute its core competencies and Joint Warfighting. The battlelabs must prioritize these initiatives to maximize the use of their limited resources. David Jurk, Stephen Chambal, and Al Thal develop a value-focused thinking model to evaluate and rank the competing initiatives for the Force Protection Battlelab. The results of this study provide a decision analysis approach for allocating their budget in an objective, defendable, and repeatable manner.