Human performance under two different command and control paradigms

• A simulated command and control task was performed thirty times by two teams who were structured differently.
• Due to the inherent instability of the human/system interaction a strong differential learning effect took place.
• The hierarchical command and control team were faster but less accurate than the network enabled team.
• The common ‘one shot’ cross-sectional psychology experiment would not have detected these differences.

The paradoxical behaviour of a new command and control concept called Network Enabled Capability (NEC) provides the motivation for this paper. In it, a traditional hierarchical command and control organisation was pitted against a network centric alternative on a common task, played thirty times, by two teams. Multiple regression was used to undertake a simple form of time series analysis. It revealed that whilst the NEC condition ended up being slightly slower than its hierarchical counterpart, it was able to balance and optimise all three of the performance variables measured (task time, enemies neutralised and attrition). From this it is argued that a useful conceptual response is not to consider NEC as an end product comprised of networked computers and standard operating procedures, nor to regard the human system interaction as inherently stable, but rather to view it as a set of initial conditions from which the most adaptable component of all can be harnessed: the human.