Dynamical Systems Tools for Team Performance Assessment and Enhancement

The ability of a team to perform well under mission pressures can mean not only difference between mission success and failure but can also impact team safety. Effective training is a key element of building effective team performance. One outstanding need is to ensure that teams are trained on relevant skills and that team performance is assessed realistically. Past research efforts have naturally focused on team communication with attention to the structure of discourse. The overarching goal of this proposal is to support trainers in effectively utilizing this body of research through our innovative development of performance metrics that are based on the methodologies of flow analyses of team discourse, expressed in the language of dynamical systems analysis. The dynamical systems analysis approach allows metrics to be developed that take into account the temporal nature of team interactions. In order to utilize the performance metrics effectively, we propose to develop the Team Performance Assessment and Enhancement (TPAE) Workbench, will allow dynamical systems algorithms to be applied to the datasets formed by the flow analyses. Training can then take advantage of fast feedback that is obtainable through application of the dynamical systems analysis algorithms that are hosted in the TPAE Workbench.