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2013
Presentation
Titel
Information flow in small unit urban operations - an approach from industrial engineering
Titel Supplements
Presentation held at International Digital Human Modeling Symposium 2013
Abstract
Task force operations in urban environments have become increasingly important. In parallel, these operations are characterized by a vast amount of uncertainty, e.g. an uncertain security situation, an unclear depth and width of operation, loss of information because of visual obstructions. In typical urban operations, little intelligence is available and recently acquired information often requires instant action (McGuiness, 2000). Therefore, the information flow and team decision making in such operations is of special importance. Cognitive task analysis and task modeling have been used to analyze and describe the information flow in small teams operating in urban terrain. Document analysis and field observations provided insight into the complex domain of urban operations, while a knowledge elicitation technique, the critical decision method (CDM; Hoffman et al., 1998), was used to reveal the actual informational requirements of the single team members. The CDM is a semi-structured critical incident interview, in which a Subject Matter Expert retells an incident from experience. Acquired data were put into a bigger picture in a hierarchical task analysis (HTA; Annett, 2003), where the general task of clearing a building was iteratively split into subtasks. Data from instructions and cognitive task analysis as well as field observations were aggregated in a HTA-diagram, which marked the final step of system analysis and a first attempt at a system model. The HTA was taken together with temporal and agent-specific information and built into a K³-model (Foltz et al., 2000) that displayed the way information is acquired, processed and communicated. As a result, the characteristics of information flow in urban operation teams were summarized and compared to general criteria for adequate information flow in teams (Schraagen & Rasker, 2003). The methods were applied to a use case of dismounted soldiers in a ""typical"" urban operation and close-quarters-battle setting. The results show that in close-quarters-battle the organizational structure of forces in such small unit operations can best be described as a vertical team. Due to environmental characteristics (narrow doors, etc.), buildings and rooms are usually approached and entered by single team members consecutively (phalanx formation). Thereby, recently acquired information is passed through serially from the first through each single team member to the last one in line. Team decision making therefore follows a ""forces in front are always right"" principle. For stable but complex situations, the team structure changes to a flatter hierarchy and decisions are made by the designated team leader.