Assessing Team Performance in Complex Team-Based Command and Control Missions Through Information Sharing and Team Cohesion

In complex command and control (C2) scenarios, effective team performance depends on the development of shared situation awareness (SA) among team members with heterogeneous expertise. Civilians were assigned heterogeneous roles in ad hoc emergency management teams responding to a fictional hurricane scenario, such that mission success would require effective sharing of their unique knowledge during a team discussion session. Whereas previously published work using this dataset found relationships between SA and self-reported team cohesion, the current work compared team decisions against a benchmark “expert” team, where each expert received all information from all roles prior to the discussion session. Results showed that greater similarity between civilian and expert team decisions, indicating more effective information sharing, was related to higher team cohesion, more updating of individual SA, and greater overlap in shared SA. Facilitating information sharing and promoting team cohesion may be valuable methods for improving team effectiveness in C2 scenarios.