Team Valis
Columbia University
Optimizing Army Manpower Distribution Through Process Improvement
The Team
Sean Kim
• MS in Computer Science, Columbia University
• Sean is a Masters student at Columbia University studying Computer Science. Sean has spent most of his career at startups and currently works in product and engineering at RIZZ, an AI dating assistant with over 3.5 million downloads. Sean hopes to continue working at startups and tackling hard problems.
Jamie Bishop
• BA in History, Columbia University
• Jamie is a senior in the Dual BA program between Columbia University and Trinity College Dublin. She studies history and is currently completing her senior thesis on the nineteenth-century neighborhood of Five Points, New York. She also works as a business development analyst for an ed-tech startup. After graduation in May, Jamie intends to move to Austin, Texas to continue her career at Oracle-Netsuite.
Muse Gimicael
• BA in Computer Science, Columbia University
• Muse Gimicael is a senior at Columbia University studying Computer Science. Gaining early experience in programming from developing games, Muse has been fascinated with software development from an early age. After completing an internship at Amazon's FinTech department and co-founding a music discussion startup at Columbia, he looks for the next problem to solve.
Akshat Gautam
• MS in Computer Science, Columbia University
• Akshat Gautam is a Masters student at Columbia University studying Computer Science. After working at companies like State Farm and Capital One, along with machine learning research, he hopes to utilize his skills in software development with his interests in research and data science.
Problem Sponsor
Army Human Resources Command, Fort Knox, KY
Original Problem Statement
Directorate leadership in HRC need a process to track and analyze the engagements and visits we have with the organizations we support across the Army to better predict and meet informational and practical needs.
Beneficiary Discovery Interviews
23
The Innovation
Team Valis was tasked to assist the U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC) improve their overall visitation process. The HRC oversees distribution of manpower to over 40 brigades with approximately 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers in each brigade. Leadership from the brigades frequently visit the HRC primarily to discuss manning shortfalls and talent management issues. At the start of course, the HRC was using a form to facilitate visit requests and another form for visitor feedback, which often went unread due to limited capacity to analyze feedback. The HRC hoped Team Valis could help them better predict organizational needs and needs of soldiers, ultimately saving time and money for everyone involved.
With new buzz around Artificial Intelligence capabilities, the team thought new software tools could be utilized to streamline the HRC’s visitation processes, but found that implementation would be difficult given the military’s constraints and tech adverse culture. They discovered the problem was “less about visitation processes and more about cutting through the red tape.” Based on feedback from their interviews, the team developed their first Minimum Viable Product (MVP), a five-step process to plan, schedule, track, manage and analyze visits to the HRC. Their plan envisioned optimizing pre-visit coordination, creating an online booking and visit intake form with a portal for HRC and the customer to track, view and change visits, and provide data to analyze from each step.
However, for their final MVP, the team focused on one of the five steps - developing a more detailed intake form based on issues visitors wanted to address. Through their interviews they discovered the current HRC intake form had many open-ended questions that contributed to the overall problem. The team also recognized the need to build the intake form using applications compatible with the Army’s existing Microsoft infrastructure, so the HRC could easily implement their solution within budget. Their MVP not only streamlines processes for the HRC but also helps improve soldier career development and manpower allocation for force readiness.
By focusing on the biggest immediate pain point based on interview feedback, the team was able to build a solution that could be quickly implemented. Their sponsors at the HRC were thrilled with the results and are continuing to work with Team Valis beyond the semester to implement and test the solution. The team has plans to fly out to Fort Knox, Kentucky for further discovery, including talking with the HRC Chief of Staff. With encouragement from their teaching team at Columbia, the team is exploring taking their solution outside the Army to other organizations that face similar issues.
Presentation
Team Valis’ Hacking for Defense Experience
Each member of Team Valis came into the Hacking for Defense (H4D) course with different backgrounds and intentions for taking the class. For Jamie the class was an opportunity to diversify her schedule beyond a humanities focus and “have a direct impact on people and the world.” Her experience with H4D also helped build her confidence prior to starting her career post-graduation and provided her a chance to work with others with different academic backgrounds. Muse previously worked in a startup centered on creating a music discussion application. He shared the startup’s biggest issue was discovering “the problem they were trying to tackle wasn’t actually a problem.” During the course, Muse discovered that “if you can find the problem, the hardest part is just building around it and trying to satisfy your customers.” Sean’s attraction to the course stemmed from his interest in national security and defense tech. According to Sean, “The H4D class was a way to directly work within the Department of Defense (DOD) space without having the guardrails of a huge conglomerate and directly having an impact without taking 30 years of experience.”
When reflecting on the H4 methodology, the team emphasized resisting the urge to build a solution until they had thoroughly conducted beneficiary discovery and assessed feasibility. Both Sean and Jamie noted their favorite part of the course was the moment when everything “clicked” and they came to the revelation that an improved intake form was needed for the HRC. Working with people both inside and outside the class also contributed to the team’s positive experience.
By the end of the class, Muse and Sean shared their impressions of the military changed as they gained more insight through their interviews with military members. Prior to the course, Sean assumed the Army was “high-tech,” and was surprised to learn there were so many opportunities where a student could help provide innovation to a well-established organization. From their interviews, Muse described their “behind the scenes” look into Army culture as “a lot less formal” than originally perceived for such a hierarchical organization.
Personal Impact
A H4D course would not be successful without dedicated faculty. Professor Jason Cahill’s experience as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur inspired Muse to be a little riskier with his future employment opportunities and explore some “crazy ideas.” Jamie was intimidated going into this course as the only student without a computer science background, but came out more confident with the realization that she could still be a “valuable resource” in the world of entrepreneurship. For Sean, H4D solidified his decision to pursue a career in the startup industry, where he could make a large impact at a young age, versus the traditional path that may take years for the same amount of impact.