Understanding and Modeling Teams As Dynamical Systems

Abstract

By its very nature, much of teamwork is distributed across, and not stored within, interdependent people working toward a common goal. In this light, we advocate a systems perspective on teamwork that is based on general coordination principles that are not limited to cognitive, motor, and physiological levels of explanation within the individual. In this article, we present a framework for understanding and modeling teams as dynamical systems and review our empirical findings on teams as dynamical systems. We proceed by (a) considering the question of why study teams as dynamical systems, (b) considering the meaning of dynamical systems concepts (attractors; perturbation; synchronization; fractals) in the context of teams, (c) describe empirical studies of team coordination dynamics at the perceptual-motor, cognitive-behavioral, and cognitive-neurophysiological levels of analysis, and (d) consider the theoretical and practical implications of this approach, including new kinds of explanations of human performance and real-time analysis and performance modeling. Throughout our discussion of the topics we consider how to describe teamwork using equations and/or modeling techniques that describe the dynamics. Finally, we consider what dynamical equations and models do and do not tell us about human performance in teams and suggest future research directions in this area.

The emergence of team resilience: A multilevel conceptual model of facilitating factors

“…For team resilience to emerge, therefore, individual members need to coordinate their human capital resources in ways that are functionally specific to the demands of the task and nature of the adverse event (i.e., temporal coordination of unfolding events). We propose that teams can dynamically arrange each individual's human capital resources functionally in ways that foster effective timing and execution of interdependent tasks for achieving a common goal via behavioural, cognitive and affective mechanisms (see also, Gorman, Dunbar, Grimm, & Gipson, ) . Although the salience of each type of coordination depends on the nature of the task, adversity, or the type of team (e.g., virtual), we expect the enactment of all three forms of coordination to accelerate or maximize team resilience emergence.…”

Antifragility in Climbing: Determining Optimal Stress Loads for Athletic Performance Training

“…It can be extended to other domains. For example, when different athletes perform together, they form a dynamical, biological system of constantly interacting individuals (e.g., Gorman et al, 2017). Thus, a sports team could be viewed as a system, which follows many of the same dynamic principles as individual athletes.…”

Cognition distribuée et Cours d’action

“…6. Sans prétention à l'exhaustivité, on trouve dans la littérature internationale, en laissant de côté celle qui s'inscrit aussi dans le programme de recherche « cours d'action » ou qui s'en inspire en partie comme (Grison, 1998) : le « coup de chapeau » de Bruno Latour à « Cognition in the wild » comme justification de sa propre théorie de l'acteur-réseau (Latour, 1995) ; diverses recherches (ou plutôt « études », sans prétentions théoriques) sur le pilotage d'avion en relation avec la sécurité aérienne, sur le pilotage de sous-marin, etc., directement inspirées des publications de Edwin Hutchins et de ses collègues ; des recherches sur le Collaborative learning (par exemple, Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O'Malley, 1996) ; des recherches en musique sur la Distributed creativity (Clarke, Doffman, & Lim, 2013 ;Haviland, 2011 ;Kaastra, 2011) ; des recherches sur la mémorisation et le rappel (Sutton, Harris, Keil, & Barnier, 2010), qui renvoient directement aux spéculations anciennes de Maurice Halbwachs sur Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire (Halbwachs, 1925) ; des recherches sur les collectifs comme systèmes dynamiques (Gorman, Dunbar, Grimm, & Gipson, 2017). De même, les contestations et essais de dépassement par d'autres chercheurs n'ont porté que sur le paradigme (Button, 2008 ;Hutto, Kirchoff, & Myin, 2014 ;Smith, 2008 ;Walmsley, 2007).…”