Air University Revamps Think Tank Course

Faculty at Air University’s Squadron Officer School (SOS)have streamlined and updated a popular elective, SOS Think Tank, designed tochallenge students to come up with creative solutions to some of the U.S. AirForce’s nagging problems.

The SOS Think Tank elective has been in place since 2013.Over the years and through numerous iterations, however, the elective becametoo cumbersome to efficiently manage, and its internal workings were notreflective of contemporary design models, according to SOS officials. SOSleaders knew they had to change the model if it were to remain effective andrelevant.

One of the steps taken recently in re-designing the electivewas to enroll select SOS faculty members in various courses that excel inteaching innovative techniques to solve complex issues. Some of the courseswere Stanford University’s Design School, or Stanford d.school, and the JointSpecial Operations University’s Special Operations Forces Design and InnovationBasic Course at Hulbert Field, Florida.

Other steps included being more discerning in deciding whichstudents would be accepted to take the elective; being more selective with thefaculty who facilitate the elective; and having the facilitators take a morehands-on approach in leading the elective, guiding the students through periodsof individual research, small group sessions and larger group “vector checks.”

“We wanted to provide students a higher quality experiencewith more in-depth workshops along the way,” said Lt. Col. Jason Trew, aStanford school graduate who spearheaded many of the changes to the Think Tankprogram. “We’re now much more selective for both the faculty and the students.Facilitators must have experience with design thinking and students must beeager to play with wild ideas and do so as a team.”

After students apply for the elective, faculty use severalstrategies to select a deeply diverse group of students. For example, internalteams are formed based on the results of self-reporting personality inventoryinstruments. The intent is to get students who think differently from oneanother to exchange ideas and build upon each other’s thought processes,leveraging strengths and mitigating weaknesses in a team dynamic.

For SOS Class 19F, which graduated in late June, Think Tankstudents were charged with finding ways to take advantage of the newly formedMassachusetts Institute of Technology-Air Force Artificial Intelligence (MIT-AFAI) Accelerator by coming up with problems for the new partnership to solve.This partnership was effective May 20, 2019, and is focused on accelerating AItechnologies through basic research in computational intelligence, reasoning,autonomy and relevant societal implications.

Using the design thinking principles taught in the elective,students redefined their task. Instead of coming up with problems for theMIT-AF AI Accelerator team to solve, students got to the root of the problem,which was that the AI team did not have a mechanism in place with which to collectideas from the larger Air Force.

As a result, students proposed the creation of a sustainableframework to generate and analyze future ideas for the MIT-AF AI Accelerator.This provided the AI team a comprehensive approach to getting ideas for futureresearch and near-term development and implementation.

Recommended proposals from the students on another task wasfor the design of a virtual training assistant for trainees in the maintenancecareer fields. The virtual assistant would help trainees navigate thecomplexities of weapon systems and sub-systems and their interdependencies. Theintent is to start small with the maintenance career field and then branch outto other career fields after initial testing and development.

A third and final proposal, which received the attention oftop Air Force leadership, is the use of AI to parse, learn from and ultimatelyimprove the documents and checklists involved in a permanent-change-of-station,or PCS, move. The proposed solution shortened the timeframe between when aservice member is notified of a PCS move and when the documentation for themove is generated.

Furthermore, the addition of an attended virtual assistant would decrease the workload on military personnel flights and the Air Force Personnel Center. The assignments-focused virtual assistant would track and provide immediate responses to issues, accomplish progress checks and create a tailored process for airmen across the Air Force. The Think Tank members briefed this proposal to the vice chief of staff of the Air Force, other senior leaders and the service’s liaison officer on the AI team in mid-July 2019, and it looks like the students’ ideas might become reality in the near future.

Source: US Air Force