Decomposition of dynamic team decision problems

This paper considers the question "when can a dynamic team problem be decomposed into several smaller dynamic team problems?" A team is partitioned into several groups of members. Precedence relation a nd nestedness relation of information among these groups are defined. Then the concepts of independent partition and sequential partition of a team are introduced, which are partitions satisfying some conditions on their precedence relation, nestedness relation, and cost function. It is shown that if a team has an independent (sequential) partition, the problem can be decomposed into several independent (related) subproblems. It is also shown that the finest independent (sequential) partition is unique. In addition, decomposition of decentralized control problems is discussed.