Identification and evaluation of organizational structures and measures for analysis of Joint Task Forces

Abstract

Joint Task Forces (JTF) operate in a variety of missions and uncertain environments. The architectures of these organizations must be capable of adapting to changes in the mission, the environment, or the organization itself. Mathematical models that are useful in predicting operational performance are needed for research into the optimum design of a JTF architecture for a given mission. To develop these models, properties of a joint task force organization must be understood and measures must be identified that are both sensitive to changes (differences) in architectures and related to operational performance. A literature review of civilian research in organizational structures and measures identified several candidates. To analyze the usefulness of these measures to identify differences in operational architectures, two known contrasting JTF organizations are developed using structures found in the literature. Each of the measures is applied to all structures in both architectures and analyzed to determine which measures show promise. Those that identify differences between operationally relevant architectures are deemed useful measures. Limited data from a related Naval Postgraduate School command and control experiment, in which architecture type is a factor, is used to fit a regression-type model that predicts JTF performance based on measures classified as useful.