business model, business model canvas, mission model, mission model canvas, customer development, hacking for defense, H4D, lean launchpad, lean startup, stanford, startup, steve blank, pete newell, bmnt, entrepreneurship, I-Corps, Korea, Army
1. Original Problem
Create a secure, convenient
and integrated platform for
soldiers in the UNCSB-JSA to
communicate.
Build rapport and understanding
between US and South Korean
personnel in the UNCSB-JSA to
overcome language and cultural
barriers.
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INTERVIEWS
Stephen Badger Rachel Hirshman Jennifer Villa Jin Woo Yu
CPT Justin Bingham,
Sponsor
Don Peppers,
Industry Mentor
COL Timothy Mungie,
Military Mentor
Mackenzie Burnett,
TA
Final Problem
TEAM COMMON GROUND
Problem Sponsor:
United Nations Command Security Battalion (UNCSB)
2. Symbolizes US-ROK (South Korean) alliance
Protects Joint Security Area
Most forward unit in Korea
Provides intel on North Korea (DPRK)
Importance of UNCSB-JSA Battalion
3. Week 0 “It’s an information technology (IT) problem”
Week 0
4. Week 0 No challenge for a team of engineers!
Week 0
5. Week 1 What we heard “My ROK counterpart spoke
no English and I speak no
Korean.”
- MAJ, US Army, S3 @ JSA
“Most communication is
face-to-face.”
- CPT, US Army, JSA
“Most of my communication is
in person.”
- SGT, US Army, JSA
Week 1
6. Week 1
1) Most US-ROK interactions are in person!
Week 1 IT is NOT the problem
2) The battalion already solved its
IT issues by switching to Signal.
7. Time to Pivot
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Weeks
It's not an
IT problem
Morale
Week 2
8. Week 2 New Direction: Language and Culture
MVP: Pointy-Talky Card
Week 2
9. Week 2 What we heard
“Pointy talky would be
useful for ordering a meal,
but not for a work
setting.”
- Major, US Army
“We generally do not
interact with the ROK.”
- Specialist, US Army
“Pointy talky would need to
be a thousand pages to fill
the gap for operations.”
- Major, US Air Force
Week 2
10. Week
3-4
Where to next?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Weeks
Morale
Language and
cultural
differences lead
to frictions
11. Tactical Operations Center
ROK Chain of Command US Chain of Command
Week 3-4 Tactical Operations Center: Stovepiped Communications
Week
3-4
12. Week 3-4 Understanding the Tactical Operations Center
“Things go wrong in the
TOC all the time. 20% of the
time it’s a big deal.”
- CPT, US Army, TOC
“In the TOC, getting information
to the US is not the priority. Both
sides play dumb when they don’t
want to engage.”
- CPT, US Army, TOC
Interviewed
TOC Officers In
Charge (OIC)
Week
3-4
13. Week 3-4 Maybe it's not the Tactical Operations Center...
The battalion is already moving to a new
Tactical Operations Center structure.
There are issues outside the Tactical
Operations Center.
Week
3-4
15. Week 5-9 Tactical Operations Center is a SUBSET of the real problem
Cultural
Differences
Language barrier
Communications
bottleneck at TOC
Need for rapport and
understanding
between US and ROK
personnel
Insufficient
onboarding
Different
Priorities btw.
ROK/US
Week
5-9
18. Defense Language Institute
Monterey, CA
Week 5-9 Discovered DLI Resources on Language and Culture
1. Hundreds of hours of free
online instruction
a. Cultural Orientation
b. Pronunciation guides
2. Mobile training teams
Week
5-9
19. Traveled to Korea!
LTC Lim (ROK Dep CDR)
LTG Eyre, UNC Dep. Commander
Week 5-9 Visiting our Sponsor and Engaging Senior Leaders
Week
5-9
Ambassador Harry Harris
20. ● Provide a safe place for talks
● Bring unification to the Korean
Peninsula
● Prepare to fight the North Koreans
● Maintain surveillance over North
Korea
Week 5-9 Experiment: Describe the goal of the Battalion
Week
5-9
21. Week 5-9 Key Learnings from Korea
“The US hasn’t been there for 66 years.
The US has been there 1 year, 66 times.”
- Multiple Interviews
“You don’t want to
depend on the Camp
Humphreys stuff.”
- MAJ, US Army, JSA Battalion XO
“We currently select guys based on interest and
recognize they speak Korean after.”
- MAJ, US Army, JSA Battalion XO
Week
5-9
22. The Root Problem
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Weeks
Week 9~
It's not an
IT problem
It’s not a
problem in
the TOC
Language and
cultural
differences lead
to frictions
Morale
It’s a problem around a lack of
rapport and understanding
Weeks 5-9:
How do we fix this?
23. 1) Present “Menu” of recommendations to
Battalion Commander
Week 9-onwards Acting on Lessons Learned
2) Connect battalion with outside resources
Week 9~
25. Teaching Team
COL Pete Newell, Ret
Steve Blank
Steve Weinstein
Jeff Decker
Tom Bedecarre
Mackenzie Burnett
Nate Simon
Mentors
Don Peppers
COL Timothy Mungie
Sponsor
LTC Sean Morrow
CPT Justin Bingham
(as shown below)
Acknowledgements
Hinweis der Redaktion
Symbolizing the alliance and providing security for distinguished visitors. This battalion is UNIQUE BECAUSE US AND SOUTH KOREAN SOLDIERS ARE DIRECTLY WORKING TOGETHER.
Our mission model canvas reflected our understanding that this was an IT problem.
Team of all engineers (don’t say “on the first slide”)
Going into week 1, we conducted interviews to confirm this....and here’s what we heard.
All of a sudden, the value of our skill sets was called into question!!
Realizing it was not an IT problem, was time for us to pivot,
“We were frustrated from Day 1 because we realized we didn’t have any idea what was going on”
Maybe go to culture, Language
Needs fewer words
It wouldn’t work in the context.
Enlisted not really as involve with ROK / less part of the problem”
Mixed feedback and only an issue for some people so decided to look elsewhere in the battalion
Deciddd to explore how Language and Cultural Differences lead to Frictions IN THE HIGHER LEVEL!!!!!!!!
We’d heard several people complain about comms in the tactical operations center specifically so we thought we’d dig into this particular component of the battalion.
At this point, we knew very little about it, so it was a black box to us.
BUT IT WAS PRETTY OBVIOUS THAT IT WAS A BOTTLENECK, with STOVEPIPED COMMUNICATION as all the information shared between ROK/US had to go through the TOC>
“Its the brain of the battalion”
We talked to several officers there who detailed problems within the TOC and communications bottlenecks here.
When things go wrong in the TOC, it can have far-reaching impact on the battalion
OTher things that we also learned this week, however, already solution in the works
Also other problems outside of TOC, we were lost, and we decided to look further!
Halfway through the quarter, haven’t settled on a problem and just wasted two weeks on something that actually is probably already going to be solved.
So...we mapped out all of the pain points and honed in on the root cause.
We’d been receiving positive feedback. At our lowest point, we had the real problem before us and took a step back.
So...we mapped out all of the pain points and honed in on the root cause.
As soon as we made this shift, we received feedback from many that we were finally on the right track
We had our problem and we had our beneficiary, we were re-energized to dig in
Spoke to Korean language school and realized two ways for battalion to leverage DLI resources 1) online resources and 2) physical MTTs
By far the highlight of the quarter was making a trip to Korea to visit our sponsor to interview soldiers and senior leaders throughout the Korean peninsula
The most valuable interview was with the ROK Deputy Commander who is the highest ranking Korean in the BN - helped us understand how they see this relationship
Numerous MVPs and experiments. One of which was having soldiers write down on post-it notes what they believe the goal of the battalion to be. They ranged from providing security and unification to fighting and surveilling North Korea. This illuminated the fact that the both sides are not completely aligned, which can impede collaboration (?)
For two sides to work together effectively, they need a common goal
Confirmed we were on the right track
Two key learnings, one around personnel and one around inprocessing, supported by the top two quotes informed our final recommendations
Sums up the challenge of personnel turnover
Also mention we’re thinking about publishing a paper!