Teamwork situated in multiteam systems: Key lessons learned and future opportunities.

Abstract

Many important contexts requiring teamwork, including health care, space exploration, national defense, and scientific discovery, present important challenges that cannot be addressed by a single team working independently. Instead, the complex goals these contexts present often require effectively coordinated efforts of multiple specialized teams working together as a multiteam system (MTS). For almost 2 decades, researchers have endeavored to understand the novelties and nuances for teamwork and collaboration that ensue when teams operate together as "component teams" in these interdependent systems. In this special issue on the settings of teamwork, we aim to synthesize what is known thus far regarding teamwork situated in MTS contexts and offer new directions and considerations for developing, maintaining, and sustaining effective collaboration in MTSs. Our review of extant research on MTSs reveals 7 key lessons learned regarding teamwork situated in MTSs, but also reveals that much is left to learn about the science and practice of ensuring effective multiteam functioning. We elaborate these lessons and delineate 4 major opportunities for advancing the science of MTSs as a critical embedding context for collaboration and teamwork, now and in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Impact of Experience, Length of Service, and Workplace Preparedness in Physicians’ Readiness in the Response to Disasters

“…Therefore, continuous theoretical training in emergency response and emergency rescue exercises is necessary. The ability of physicians to understand and cooperate with local and regional emergency response systems is crucial in helping members of the public [ 21 ]. Therefore, courses and training in disaster medicine must include practical and theoretical information about the roles of each organisation in disaster response, particularly about agencies outside of the health sector [ 22 , 23 ].…”

Decision‐making in multiagency multiteam systems operating in extreme environments

“…Disasters are managed by multiteam systems (MTSs; comprised of several teams from across emergency services, health, council, and associated agencies working towards a shared superordinate goal but with unique subgoals at individual and team levels. The flexibility of teams, specialization of skill sets, and potential to access a wide pool of knowledge and resources make MTSs ideal for operating in extreme environments, characterized by turbulence, risk, uncertainty, and need for rapid response (Marks, DeChurch, Mathieu, Panzer, & Alonso, 2005;Shuffler & Carter, 2018). However, public inquiries repeatedly identify difficulties with integrating information and making joint decisions to coordinate disaster response (Kerslake, 2018;Pollock, 2013).…”

Immersive simulations with extreme teams

“…However, this staged approach might not be feasible for some ETs as team members rotate and might not work together at set regular intervals (e.g., emergency response teams). Moreover, these approaches tend to rely on self-report data, as oppose to monitoring actual behaviour in real-time, which has limitations as detailed above (Shuffler & Carter, 2018).…”

“…Running head: IMMERSIVE SIMULATIONS WITH EXTREME TEAMS However, there has been a general call to move beyond self-report measures to gain a better understanding of how social coordination emerges in complex environments (Willemsen-Dunlap et al, 2018) and to develop more objective measures of behaviour (Rosen & Dietz 2017). This is due, in part, to the limitations of solely using self-report measures which; (i) fail to account for the richness of team-based interactions (Shuffler & Carter, 2018); (ii) lead to a proliferation of scales each attempting to measure the same thing (see Salas et al, 2015 on team cohesion); (iii) show weak correspondence with non self-report outcome measures (see Valentine, Nembhard & Edmonson, 2015 for a review in a health care setting), and (iv) are subject to a number of biases (e.g., Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). We suggest that simulations offer a methodological advantage to self-report by recording behaviour in situ.…”