The Effects of Procedural Structure and Computer Support Upon Selecting a Tactical Course of Action
Abstract
The U.S. Army wants its commanders and their staffs to consider a broad range of factors and to make tactical decisions quickly. The Estimate of the Situation is a standard process f or teaching tactical decision making. An experiment was conducted to compare structured procedures for the Estimate to a condition where procedures were unspecified and to computer-supported procedures. The structured procedures were enforced through refresher training, written instructions, and manual job aids. In the unspecified condition, teams were explicitly instructed only to select a course of action (COA) and to justify their selection. Computer support was provided in the third condition by providing a prototype tactical data system with a spreadsheet tool for war gaming the COAs. The structured and computer-supported treatments led to significantly better justifications for COA selection than did the unspecified condition. Even though computer-supported teams had only about 2 hours of instruction, there was no difference in the quality of structured and computer- supported solutions. Most of the structured teams made arithmetic errors when comparing COAs; the computer-supported teams did not. Based on the results, future enhancements should be targeted at visualizing and understanding battle events and projecting battle outcomes. Command and control, Task procedures, Human performance, Command estimate, Staff operations, Decision aids.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA257254
Entities
People
- Charles F. Carter Jr.
- James P. Flanagan
- Jon J. Fallesen
- Mike S. Perkins
- Rex R. Michel
Organizations
- U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences