Design and development of the scenario for the second NPS A2C2 experiment

Abstract

The Adaptive Architectures for Command and Control (A2C2) project is a research effort sponsored by the Office of Naval Research to explore adaptation in joint command and control structures. The project's second experiment builds on the first experiment and studies the interaction between task structure and organizational structure. This thesis builds on the work of previous theses by Michael Berigan and Greg Higgins. It describes a process for developing military operational scenarios within a task structure context. First, the author conducts a literature review, which defines the dimensions of task structure applicable to this project, and describes how changes in one dimension might affect other dimensions. Then a method for developing scenarios in accordance with a predetermined structure and visualizing tasks is described, including a task structure diagram and a description of a task design process using the diagram and the dimensions previously delineated. The author then applies the task design process by developing two scenarios for the second NPS A2C2 experiment that differ across one dimension of task structure, coordination requirements. Finally, a description of the experiment is given, including discussion of operationalization of scenarios and organization structures, and lessons learned from the experiment with regard to scenario design