integrated Task Effectiveness and Measures (i-TEAM)

Program Description

PSE developed the Integrated Tool for Effects Based Allocation Modeling (iTEAM) to give military planners a means for shaping courses of action (COAs) through the optimum assignment of units. PSE designed iTEAM to be usable in real time by mission planners and provide an enhanced collaborative capability, which was designed in close consultation with the operational community.

HSI Challenge

Workload is reduced and product quality is enhanced when tools that are used routinely can also be employed in a crisis situation. PSE created a planning tool that enables familiar technologies to be used by personnel who are collaborating to plan a mission in response to a crisis situation. This tool supports mission planning under strict time constraints and facilitates development of the required planning products.

Approach

PSE established and maintained contact throughout this project with personnel at the U.S. Pacific Command. Activities within the Crisis Action Planning (CAP) process were mapped to collaborative stages within a model of Macrocognition in Complex Team Problem Solving developed by ONR. iTEAM tool features were developed iteratively to provide unique capabilities for task definition, COA selection, and unit assignment analysis, within a larger collaborative environment.

Solution

PSE utilized a commercially available collaborative environment to develop a comprehensive workspace for CAP. This environment links directly to the Tasking and Unit Assignment tools for easy access. It supports the development of the required planning products with commonly used applications (i.e., Microsoft Office); templates of the products are provided, and status of the process can be tracked. Also, the workspace itself can be saved as a template, and a mission-specific workspace can be created from the template within minutes by a process coordinator.

Benefits

An evaluation by military planners and systems engineers found that the iTEAM toolset improves efficiency and accuracy in mission planning and analysis. iTEAM features that promote shared understanding among planners were especially valued.