Reinventing the Wheel: Control Task Analysis for Collaboration

Abstract

Cognitive work analysis (CWA) is a relatively new human factors perspective for analyzing complex sociotechnical systems. However, it does not yet have specific tools and techniques that allow it to address teamwork explicitly enough to provide good guidance on how to support teams and collaboration. In this paper, Decision Wheels are introduced as an extension to the Decision Ladders for representing collaboration in teamwork environments. This extension would be a significant contribution to both CWA methodology and human factors methods for team situations. It would enable human factors practitioners to understand the cognitive work of teams better, and to design better collaborative systems for teamwork environments.

Cognitive work analysis: An influential legacy extending beyond human factors and engineering

“…Initial work in this area concentrated predominantly on the first two dimensions, namely work domain analysis (Naikar, 2013;Naikar et al, 2005) and activity analysis (Ashoori and Burns, 2010;Elix and Naikar, 2008;Lamoureux and Chalmers, 2009;Lamoureux and Sartori, 2007;Naikar et al, 2006). However, over time, increasingly greater attention has been paid to the other dimensions, specifically strategies analysis (e.g., Cornelissen et al, 2013;Hassall and Sanderson, 2014), social organisation and cooperation analysis (e.g., Naikar and Elix, 2015, 2016a, 2016bPfautz and Pfautz, 2009), and worker competencies analysis (e.g., Kilgore et al, 2009).…”

Using team cognitive work analysis to reveal healthcare team interactions in a birthing unit

“…The decision wheel, like the collaboration table ( Ashoori and Burns 2011 ) is aimed at showing interactions in larger teams. The decision wheel can also be used to explore synchronous and asynchronous collaboration ( Ashoori and Burns 2010 ).…”

“…In a team CWA, each level closely follows Vicente's terminology and concepts for CWA ( Vicente 1999 ) as the most commonly used formulation of CWA and more commonly used in the recent literature. However, Team CWA ( Ashoori and Burns 2010 ) deliberately aims to identify teamwork constraints in the four different levels: (1) Team Work Domain Analysis (Team WDA), (2) Team Control Task Analysis (Team ConTA), (3) Team Strategy Analysis (Team StA), and (4) Team Competencies Analysis (Team CA). While teamwork constraints can still be identified using traditional CWA, Team CWA provides some useful perspectives that may make the identification of these requirements easier.…”

Understanding Cognitive Work

“…Review chapters focusing on CWA include Sanderson (2003) and Roth and Bisantz (2013). Many recent treatments of CWA offer novel templates intended to help analysts apply the principles of CWA more effectively at each phase, or to link analyses more effectively with analyses at other phases (Naikar, 2013;Cornelissen et al, 2012;Hassall & Sanderson, 2013;Ashoori & Burns, 2010).…”