ABSTRACT
As defined by Brehmer (1991) a distributed decision problem requires a number of decision-makers to co-operate to achieve a common goal. Each decision maker owns part of the resources required to achieve this goal, but nobody has full control over all resources. The decision makers must therefore share resources, as well as co-ordinate their activities to achieve their common goal. This co-ordination is difficult, however, because each decision-maker has only a limited “window” on the task, and no one has the overall view required for the co-ordination that is required. Hence the decision makers must communicate to achieve the common understanding (or “situational awareness”, to use a popular term; see Wellens (1993) for a discussion of it in distributed decision making) that is necessary for their co-ordination.
