Question

Which team processes do you believe are most important to a crew of astronauts working for NASA who are traveling to Mars? Are there any team processes you feel are unimportant in that situation?

Discribe additional types of information that could be collectes in order to help NASA shuttle crew members better understand how they interact as a team? How could they influence crew effectiveness?

Discuss how team training could be used to create a better training program for NASA crew members who were planning to go on a voyage to Mars?

Answer 1

Almost every organisation is presently making extensive and effective use of team structures for achievement of targets and completing projects. To ensure that the team operates as a cohesive unit with perfect communication, cooperation and coordination with each other, a set of processes is defined to achieve this and hence ensure success of the team with timely and successful completion of the project. Interpersonal processes especially form a very crucial part of the team processes especially when the team is required to function in high risk and high stress situations such as a space mission. The very nature of the project at hand is such that the highly stressful and confined environment that a team has to operate within becomes a major hurdle to be overcome through ensuring perfect coordination, cooperation, communication and psychological adaptation between team members, as any kind of extensive conflict could potentially harm the entire project. Other project processes and action processes which would become very important and require constant monitoring through analysing the progress towards the goal the resources available the sequence of required activities is perfectly coordinated and assistance is available for every member where and when required. Transition processes would be unimportant in the situation as it is more of a sealed project with the beginning and an end and no scope for interference once the project is initiated.

Effective team cognition should be implemented effectively as this consists of a decision making process which is cooperative and at the same time and shows that the team has similar mental models. This would ensure perfect exchange of knowledge within the team the stable knowledge of the project and the dynamic knowledge of the situation at hand. As the roles and responsibilities are clear it promotes interaction and implements coordination within the processes at the same time understanding individual needs. The aim of this is to maximize the main thing overlap to ensure shared knowledge within the team for working towards shared goals. It needs to be understood that for a process such as this the strategy for achievement of the goal cannot be entirely pre planned because the situation and the obstacles encountered are relatively unknown and unpredictable, requiring change in the goals itself at times. Due to this a lot of on the spot decision making is required. Akola operative decision making becomes mandatory as the situations are high risk and require to be assessed and analysed from different angles before consensus is reached on the required course of action. Recognition primed decisions need to be encouraged which are based on knowledge, who is good in case of time shortages and offer a good comparison of options. This also ensures effective assessment of risk. Risk perception is another valuable quality that needs to be inculcated within the team. How the team perceives a given situation in highly stressful and risky situations can greatly effect the course of action taken and the final outcome of the project. The aim should be to keep the focus positive and the action based on this at the same time minimising loss while achieving goals. What needs to be avoided and absolutely mitigated is risk of safety. The Meta cognitive processes encourage and absolute Awareness of a situation and what is demand including the resources available and how they can be utilised in the most optimal manner. This comes in useful for situations which tend to have an excess of workload, are unfamiliar with incomplete information and where the outcome may be uncertain or risky. Therefore therefore the type of information SBI regarding the personality of each crew member and compatibility with all the other crew members we should include the mental makeup and thought process of every member to ensure that it is highly compatible and overlapping, I'm not conflicting. As listed above this becomes the most essential focal point for ensuring the effectiveness of a space crew as a team.

Team training for NASA crew becomes an essential part of the mission and project given that it is high risk and highly stressful project without come depends entirely on effective teamwork of the entire crew. Collaborative communication processes which ensure sharing and flow of communication for every task. It also ensures that the flu is trained to work as a team and all required methods or put into use such as the briefing error corrections relational communication it is very important to cohesion and indirect techniques for assessment of continued progress towards goals. Unified team vs Team which tends to polarise can usually impact the outcome of any project. Effective team cognition is very essential and it is it raining which enables the team to rule out various kinds of conflict such as an informational conflict and cognitive conflict which can result in operational conflict and sabotage the success of the project. It is required to maintain effective team coordination through control of stresses within individuals which can be caused due to the highly confined environment of a spacecraft and and do you change in the routine and living conditions finally leading to loss of cognitive resource and prioritising the self instead of the team. Another major cause is sleep deprivation which leads to all related behavioral changes such as inability to optimise output and impaired analytical skills with mood changes. This may result in abstracting flow of information and create rigidity within the team. This in turn results in interpersonal stress and consequent conflict and the entire team orientation is lost. Effective team collaboration should be supported through training which converts a team of experts into an expert team. The team should be highly adaptive flexible and able to manage themselves. The teamwork should be integrated with technical training to ensure perfect management of risks and threats and correction of errors. Cross training is a highly valued still within such a team each member is able to perfectly support to the other. Are stressed about interpersonal training is the major requirement as it is what in first position of the team at all times and this is it the ability to handle all the highly stressful conditions and situations successfully.