Main Project Capabilities & Focus Areas
Challenge
Marine small unit leaders operate in complex environments under continuously changing conditions. To be effective, they must recognize and rapidly adapt to new circumstances. Despite decades of research on adaptability, neither a common operational definition nor sustainable measurement capability exists. The Office of Naval Research and Marine Corps require an affordable means of assessing small unit leader adaptability and a diagnostic tool to identify the components of the adaptability process to target with training.
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Solution
CPG, partnered with Charles River Analytics and Covan Group LLC, has defined and validated the steps in the cognitive process of adaptability for Marine small unit leaders, and developed a tactical, simulation-based adaptability assessment tool.
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Result
ATLAS is a Unity-based tool in which Marines execute missions while being assessed on four specific components of a validated cognitive framework of adaptability: (1) perceiving a change or anomaly, (2) recognizing its impact on the mission, (3) updating the situational assessment, and (4) making an adaptation decision. Measurement occurs using time and quality measures that do not require a human rater. At the end of the assessment, the Marine and his commander receive an outcome report detailing performance in each of the cognitive processes of adaptability and recommending training to address the gaps in performance.
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This effort was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research.
