Team 2 Week 6 Blog

 

This week our beneficiary discovery focused on retesting new aspects of our MVP with contacts we already had interviewed and continuing to seek out civilian applications.

Interview count this week: 8

Interview count last week: 17

Key takeaways:

1. Civilians that we have interviewed are very excited about the potential of our MVP
2. MVP needs to replace or work with the cost estimate worksheet, as it is used for every training evolution and doing it twice would just be more work
3. We should look into other military training resources such as DTMS and RFMSS to see how our product can work within or supplant them.

 

1. Cpt. Chris – ODA commander

• The ODA Weapons Sgts are the best people to discuss planning weapons training, booking range time, ammo needs
• Each ODA has a slightly different team profile workbook. Will share our team’s template.
• Different teams have different levels of historical training and MICON repositories to fall back upon.

 

2. Chief Joe – ODA warrant officer

• Most ODAs do only one MICON per training cycle. CREF ODAs do 7-8.
• Their company has an archive of MICONs. Takes him about 4 hours to turn a MICON since he almost certainly has a recent example of a similar training plus this is his full time role.  
• DTMS is the Army’s training management system for individual training tasks. SF has avoided using the system to date but it was recently mandated within SF as well. It will likely take the place of the team profile spreadsheets – or at least parts of them.

 

3. Major Ryan – Battalion XO

• Hardest part is planning when to schedule training events based off long range calendar (especially when deployment times change) Second hardest is filling out the cost estimate worksheet(must be done for both on and off base training)
• Two documents that must be filled out regardless of on or off base:
  • CEW
  • Risk assessment(difficult to tackle could be useful to auto fill later) which describes what risks lie in training and how they will mitigate those risks and then list residual risks

 

4. Cpt. John

• RFMSS is a database of all the range coordination to see other units that are using that area. You cannot use a training area until it has been approved and deconflicted against other training units. All of the US military bases have joint service training. If Army has it marked down on Feb 23rd, I (as a Marine captain) can’t use it.
• A savvy infantry officer or ODA captain uses RFMSS as a predictive tool to forecast training out 3-4 months. This is very important because worst thing that happens is last-minute friction of a RFMSS conflict.
• RFMSS can be a very powerful tool, but there a bunch of flaws. User experience isn’t great, but the idea is right.

 

5. Cpt. Josh – Battalion S4

• Going under budget should never be a concern, if the teams go under budget there are numerous things that the battalion would like to buy that they normally don’t have the money for.
• Would like a total cost and a way to input final costs of training
• System must include all items on a cost estimate worksheet so that work doesn’t need to be done twice

 

6. RN Anna

• Nurses are required to keep up with 20 continuing ed requirements to stay certified, but most people wait until the month before there certification is up and do it all online.
• I’m sure if I spent a bunch of time, I could find 20 hours of free courses, but because of my time crunch, I’d rather just pay $20 to have them all in one place.
• As it currently exists, the process is very easy, but not particularly high quality. I love this (MVP). It probably would save a lot of time and is convenient. If the hospital would provide me with a list what people have done before, that would save me even more time and I could see what is a credible class.

 

7. Firefighter EMT Bobby

• Every firefighter is at least an EMT if not a paramedic.The way we do it (through the national registry), it sucks. If you don’t upload it there, if you try to upload your CE’s at once, it gives me heartache trying to stay up to date.
• The current process is probably the hardest thing. I’m going to let my national registry lapse because I have to jump through hoops, and some classes don’t count. I worked hard for my certification, but it’s too much of a pain in the butt to upload and if it’s not up to the national registry’s standards—if they don’t like it, or who taught it– they don’t count it. County and state are lot more lenient about what they’ll accept.
• This MVP would be beautiful for us—I can see applying it to airways, breathing, circulation. It’s easily read, “I need this class, so I check this box, and add it to my shopping cart.” With the National Registry, you’re left guessing. This would clarify a lot of things, because I now could know if didn’t get enough X recert hours and make a decision accordingly.

 

8. Lieutenant Matthew (Fire)

• In California, opting to train through the CalJAC system pays money back to your department. Some departments throughout the state love it, and some don’t sign up for it.
• With CalJAC, the individual firefighter only gets additional money if they use the GI Bill.
• The budget side of training is really not a big concern for us. We do most of our training in-house, and if we want to go outside, someone reciprocates with us. In the Fire community, we’re willing to train others if they’re willing to learn. We’ll make it happen.