Machine Learning in Air Force Human Resource Management
Volume 2, A Framework for Vetting Use Cases with Example Applications
ResearchPublished Feb 15, 2024
The Department of the Air Force is working to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) systems for mission areas and support functions, including human resource management. The authors reviewed how private-sector organizations evaluate and select such projects and developed a framework for assessing business value, technical feasibility, and implementation complexity of possible ML projects to form a portfolio.
The Department of the Air Force (DAF) is working to develop and field artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) systems for mission areas and support functions, including human resource management (HRM). Recent developments have improved the access that organizations have to data and analytic tools, opening a wide range of possible ML projects that they could pursue.
Given resource limitations, decisionmakers must choose which projects to pursue among many promising options. The DAF needs a framework to evaluate the business value, feasibility, and complexity of proposed projects.
To understand how the DAF can form a balanced portfolio of ML projects for HRM, the authors reviewed how private-sector organizations evaluate and select such projects. From the review, they arrived at a five-step framework. Broadly, the framework involves evaluating the business value, technical feasibility, and implementation complexity of possible ML projects and forming a portfolio from these evaluations. Each of these steps draws on multiple predefined criteria, which may be assessed using qualitative or quantitative methods. The authors demonstrate steps of the framework using 19 use cases for applying ML throughout the DAF HRM life cycle.
Notably, this approach does not purport to find the best approach to a business problem. It finds a potentially useful ML approach to addressing a business problem but does not provide a full analysis of alternative solutions, such as non-ML approaches, to address the problem.
Key Findings
- ML techniques such as supervised and unsupervised learning, optimization, language processing, and reinforcement learning are applicable to many HRM functions.
- ML systems can satisfy four HRM objectives: process improvement, performance improvement, enhancing service member opportunities, and enhancing service member motivation. The use cases considered overwhelmingly support process improvement.
- To be technically feasible, ML systems must have measurable outcomes, relevant inputs, sufficient data, and a suitable algorithmic approach. In the use cases considered here, data sufficiency was the most common bounding constraint. Additionally, use cases that involve process improvement are more technically feasible.
- The DAF must balance multiple objectives as it builds a portfolio of ML projects for HRM. This includes the relative weight of effort supporting core business functions versus more-transformational initiatives. Another consideration is the types of implementation complexity that different initiatives entail.
Recommendations
- To maximize return on investment, the DAF must use a systematic process to evaluate ML projects for HRM and to build a balanced portfolio.
- The DAF should shape an innovation portfolio that includes low-risk/low-reward projects along with higher-risk but potentially transformative ones.
- The DAF should develop a common ML ecosystem to enable rapid creation, comparison, and reuse of ML pipelines, models, and U.S. Department of Defense datasets.
- To enable applications of ML to HRM, the DAF must continue to invest in data infrastructure and outcome definitions.
- As the DAF evaluates projects, it must consider the types of technical and nontechnical complexity they entail.
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Document Details
- Copyright: RAND Corporation
- Availability: Available
- Year: 2024
- Print Format: Paperback
- Paperback Pages: 66
- Paperback Price: $28.00
- Paperback ISBN/EAN: 1-9774-1257-2
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA1745-2
- Document Number: RR-A1745-2
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Walsh, Matthew, Sean Robson, Albert A. Robbert, and David Schulker, Machine Learning in Air Force Human Resource Management: Volume 2, A Framework for Vetting Use Cases with Example Applications, RAND Corporation, RR-A1745-2, 2024. As of September 16, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1745-2.html
Walsh, Matthew, Sean Robson, Albert A. Robbert, and David Schulker, Machine Learning in Air Force Human Resource Management: Volume 2, A Framework for Vetting Use Cases with Example Applications. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1745-2.html. Also available in print form.
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This research was prepared for the Department of the Air Force and conducted within the Workforce, Development, and Health Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.
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