Command and Control Research from the Phase 2 of the HFI DTC Programme
For further information regarding this research please contact Professor Neville Stanton.
Teamwork
An Exploratory Study into Remote and Co-Located Command Planning The question that this report set out to answer was whether the military commander can be kept involved in the planning process when they are remote from it.
Human Performance Under Two Different Command and Control Paradigms The paradoxical behaviour of a Network Enabled Capability (NEC) provides the motivation for this paper. In it, a traditional hierarchical command and control organisation was pitted against a network centric alternative on a common task, played thirty times, by two teams.
Social Network Analysis, Team Cohesion and Meaningfulness of Tasks: A Comparison Between Two Different Command and Control Paradigms Two teams undertook 30 iterations of a complex, high tempo scenario under two different command and control conditions: Network Enabled Capability (NEC) and a traditional hierarchical counterpart. The object of the study was to use a simple time series analysis to test the assumption that structural determinates of NEC (such as peer-to-peer working) lead to corresponding improvements in the meaningfulness of tasks for the human incumbents.
Developing Guidelines for Distributed Teamwork: Review of the Literature and the HFI DTC’s Distributed Teamwork Studies Distributed teams are increasingly being employed within complex systems and rapid technological advances are affecting the ways in which they work and can potentially work. Despite this, guidance on how distributed teams should work, how they should be organised and trained, what communications technology they should use and how support systems should be designed is not readily available. This report presents, based on a review of the relevant literature and also a series of naturalistic case studies undertaken previously by the HFI DTC, a series of initial guidelines on how teams, systems, technology and procedures should be designed and organised in order to enhance distributed team working performance
Emerging Technologies for Distributed Teamwork We considered this work from the perspective of artefacts; by dividing an artefact into two elements (cognitive and technological), we could evaluate the impact of alternate technology choices. Example cognitive artefacts were taken from the Operational Field Trial 3 planning phase, and example technological artefacts were amassed in a technology repository based on previous work on the Technology Appropriateness Guidelines Tool (TAG Tool). Cognitive Work Analysis was applied to model a generic Abstraction Hierarchy (AH) of the elements that contribute to distributed teamwork in the command and control (C2) Armed Forces domain. As a result it was possible to simulate how different technological artefacts, combined with cognitive artefacts, could contribute in different ways to distributed teamwork. By mimicking this model with a relational database in Access 2007, not only the type of contribution, but also its extent could be identified by the application of rating scales. Practical constraints were applied to filter for appropriate technological solutions.
Network Enabled Capability and Sociotechnical Reports
Forms of Network Representation for Network Enabled Capability: Human Factors interpretation of Network Representations In this report a primary goal is to consider approaches to representing networks with a view to drawing analogies between the representations used by communications and computer networks engineering and Human Factors Engineering.
Using Sociotechnical Theory to Explore the Organisational and Structural Foundations of NEC The focus of the study is on to exploit human adaptability in the NEC era, in other words, how to create the conditions in which to “leverage a disproportionate effect from a given action” (Smith, 2006, p. 84). To that end, the analysis is couched in the processes by which individuals and teams adapt themselves, and technology, to four different levels of environmental complexity under two different organisational design paradigms. The question is which type of organisation, so-called Classic C2 or NEC, creates the optimum initial conditions from which to exploit human adaptability in a simulated military context and, specifically, under what conditions of environmental complexity.
A Review of Sociotechnical Systems Theory: A Classic Concept for New Command and Control Paradigms Although developed independently, NEC exhibits a high degree of overlap with concepts derived from sociotechnical systems theory, a fact that this research paper, derived from an extensive literature review, aims to explore more fully. The paper reviews the twin concepts of NEC and sociotechnical systems theory, the underlying motivation behind the adoption of open systems thinking, a review of classic sociotechnical studies and the current state of the art.
From Clansman to ComBAT: HFI Principles for NEC System Design An ever expanding array of military equipment has the facility to have things added in and plugged on, and have its firmware upgraded with an as yet un-thought of future capability supported. Under the aegis of NEC, more and more equipment can be connected to something and/or someone and is thus slowly adapting to the current day state of modernity labelled ‘the information age’. This brings with it profound changes in the way that equipment should be designed and thought about. The purpose of this article is to help designers and procurers alike to get a grip on what this might mean in practical terms via a set of explicit design principles, backed up with comprehensive theoretical background drawn from sociotechnical systems theory.
Mapping the Study of Complexity to Human Factors: An Initial Model This report distils the concept of complexity through three overlapping themes: 1) the attribute view, which leads to a multi-dimensional problem space through which ergonomics is travelling, 2) the complex theoretic view, in which metrics and measures exist to complement established ergonomics methods and diagnose at least certain aspects of complexity, and 3) the complex systems research view. In this report, key concepts such as emergence, sensitive dependence on initial conditions and dynamical system behaviour are illustrated with reference to ergonomic case studies in command and control. The key issue is that a major source of, and solution to the challenges of complexity derives from the most adaptable component of all in complex systems: the human.
Beyond NEC The concept of an ‘Edge Organization’ is a vision of NEC as a fully interconnected web of agents and actors. This concept represents a theoretical maximum and real-life NEC is thought to adopt a variety of different architectures. This report is about exploring exactly what NEC topologies do arise in practice, and what they mean. The HFI DTC has already extended the NATO approach space in order to help answer questions such as these and an opportunity arises to use it to benchmark a live example of NEC.
Situational Awareness and Decision Making
Measuring Situation Awareness during Command and Control Activity: A Comparison of Measures Study The level of Situation Awareness (SA) that systems and devices provide to individuals and teams is a critical factor that needs assessing throughout the design process. There are various methods available for assessing SA, yet there is little guidance available on which of these methods are the most valid, reliable and accurate. The purpose of this study was to compare three existing SA measures when used to measure participant SA during a command and control experiment.
Identifying Information Requirements for Work Aid Design Ensuring that technological work aids such as knowledge wall displays and digitised mission support systems deliver the right information, at the right time, in the right format, to the right workers is of paramount importance, and yet, valid, theoretically underpinned, approaches for identifying the range of user information requirements within complex collaborative systems are scarce. The purpose of this research was to propose a structured, valid and theoretically underpinned methodology for identifying distributed situation awareness requirements (or information requirements) in complex collaborative systems.
Using the Decision-Ladder to add a Formative Element to Naturalistic Decision Making Research The primary reason for the approach developed and described in this report, is in direct response to the complexity of the sociotechnical domains that typify military systems. These complicated, dynamic domains are frequently unpredictable; thus, there is perceived benefit in an approach that models the decision making activity in terms of how actors can proceed through the process rather than how they actually do or should. The research involved a detailed examination of contemporary theories on decision making. Desk-based research was used to study the implication of decision making for the role of combat ID. A model of decision making for combat ID was then produced in a small table-top study involving a subject matter expert in the field of tank warfare. Whilst the model has been developed specifically for tank-on-tank warfare, it is broadly applicable to all combat ID activities and forms a solid basis for adaptation to other domains including maritime and air.
Decision making training for synthetic environments: Using the decision ladder to extract specifications for synthetic environments design and evaluation This research has explored the fields of decision making, training and synthetic environments. Issues surrounding the acquisition of expertise have been addressed. This understanding has been used to develop and document an approach for generating a synthetic environment fidelity specification. This is believed to have a significant role in the design of future synthetic environments. The approach can be applied very early in the design lifecycle, creating a clear specification for the developers of the system. The approach can also be used in the evaluation of existing products for the purpose of mid-life refreshments. It is also contended that the approach has utility in product selection between commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products.
Mission Planning System (MPS) Analysis
HFI DTC: Mission Planning Analysis – Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations The Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre (HFI DTC) conducted a range of human factors analyses on the process of electronic mission planning in order to inform the development of future electronic mission planning systems. An in-service electronic Mission Planning System (MPS) was used as a focus for these analyses. Secondary aims were to compare the traditional paper map planning process with the contemporary MPS software tool planning process, and to compare a range of human factors methods in terms of their outputs, ease of use and resource usage involved.
Overarching reports
Generalising from Novices to Experts in Military Studies This report completes a suite of papers delivered during 2006 that were concerned with design issues as they related to so-called ‘Command Wall systems’. This report is about whether the results gained from novices in previous studies can be generalised to an expert (i.e. military) population.
