Decision making, planning, and teams

The RAF have started to train air crew in cockpit and crew resource management (CRM) to ensure maximum levels of safety during training and to encourage effective performance in operational engagements. The RAF´s CRM courses place emphasis on a cyclic system of processes where decision making is part of a loop. The remainder of the loop contains inquiry, advocacy, conflict resolution prior to decision making, and critiquing, feedback and further inquiry after plan formulation. Technological advances and operational circumstances are likely to make in-flight planning more commonplace. Indeed, many advanced aircraft contain very sophisticated mission management systems which can be re-programmed using secure data transmission in flight. Thus, decision making under high workload, stress and across distributed teams needs to be considered in relation to future systems. The RAF recognize the importance of certain factors in terms of their effect on decision making and they have instructed their own pilots to be aware of a pyramid of results. This paper explores the topic of decision making, the ways in which decision making relate to performance and the ways in which performance and decision making, particularly in groups, might be affected by the introduction of technology