Human factors pitfalls in the automation of command

The Command Research and Evaluation Group at Fort Halstead has some eleven years experience of evaluating the impact of prototype technology support applications upon command team performance. On a number of occasions we have seen such systems actually reduce command team effectiveness. This is usually attributable to systems working in such a way as to unintentionally disrupt natural team interaction processes, and thus reduce a team´s shared situational awareness. We believe that many of these problems are attributable to a lack of understanding about how effective teams really work. In addition, we have seen that system design approaches which pay insufficient attention to cognitive requirements can result in systems which fail to provide teams with what they really need. This paper describes the use of the naturalistic decision making paradigm as a successful foundation for understanding and evaluating command teams, and for designing more effective command team support systems