ABSTRACT
Teams are of interest to a number of organizations in such fields as aviation, the military, and industry (Guzzo and Dickson, 1996). Over the past 20 years, the research community has invested a great deal of resources into the study of teams in complex environments (Salas and Cannon-Bowers, 2001). For example, research concerning teams in aviation arose through the examination of accidents and incidents in commercial and military flights. It is well documented that 60 to 80% of mishaps in aviation can be traced back to human error (NASA, 2002). One solution to this problem, as suggested by NASA, is training for aircrews or teams involved in teamwork. Because of its heavy reliance on teams (e.g., cockpit crews, ground crews), aviation has been at the forefront of team research from the beginning. This has led to some notable successes, such as crew or cockpit resource management (CRM). The military has also been interested in team research and training for decades (Salas et al., 1995). For example, due to incidents in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s and early 1990s, teamwork and team training has risen to the forefront of military research in the U.S. and abroad (Cannon-Bowers and Salas, 1998). Taken together, much progress has been made in these areas. There are tools, methods, and strategies that must be applied in order to successfully design and deliver team training.
