Abstract

Improving Teamwork and Team Performance through Process Training

Azad M. Madni, Ph.D.
Intelligent Systems Technology, Inc.

Sharon Garcia, Ph.D.
Air Force Research Laboratory, Human Effectiveness, Brooks AFB

Weiwen Lin, Ph.D. and Carla Conaway Madni
Intelligent Systems Technology, Inc

Abstract

It is often said that a team of experts does not make an expert team. For many team tasks, what glue a team of experts together are the overarching processes in which each team member performs a designated or dynamically assigned role. When team members perform independent tasks during process execution, each team member in an assigned role needs "mutual awareness" in terms of role interdependencies to excel in teamwork. Improving teamwork and, ultimately, team performance falls under the purview of process training. Without process training, teamwork is compromised because team members do not know how to acquire the necessary information, to whom to route their decisions and work products, what effects their delays and erroneous decisions have on other team members, and how to make timely tradeoffs and revise priorities as needed for effective decisionmaking in a dynamic environment. The type of training that must be given to team members to rectify this situation is training in: (a) process understanding including roles, task dependencies, role dependencies, data flow, and impact of delays and contingencies on overall mission objectives; (b) simulation-based "what-if" exploration of consequences for various delays and contingencies; and (c) making effective decisions under time-stress and with partial and/or conflicting information.

This paper describes a process training system that encompasses what to train for effective teamwork and how to train to rapidly achieve superior team performance. This system is especially well-suited for teaching time-stressed, team decisionmaking in reactive environments. The system allows individuals to practice individual tasks as well as team tasks with synthetic teammates in scenarios with varying degrees of difficulty. Both time stress and information availability are manipulated to create different degrees of difficulty. The application of the system for combat operations training within the Air Operations Center is presented to convey the key capabilities of the system.

From:

Madni, A.M., Garcia, S., Lin, W., and Madni, C.C., International Conference on Team Resource Management in the 21^st Century, October 24, 2003, Daytona Beach, FL.