Modeling of a team's decision-making process

This paper is concerned with a model to simulate a team's decision-making process, named the disagreement solution model which composes ''SYBORG; Simulation System for the Behavior of an Operating Group''. SYBORG simulates the behavior of an operator team coping with abnormal occurrences or events during power plant operations. The disagreement solution model takes into consideration several factors including: the arousal level, confidence, experience, rank, as well as other human characteristics (ascendancy, credibility, etc.) which seem to influence a team's decision-making process. In comparing simulation results produced with this model with actual experimental results, it was determined that the disagreement solution model successfully simulates the decision-making process of a control team under instances or situations of tension. In addition, this research also proposes that errors made within the team's decision-making process can be generally defined as the inability to find a fault in a wrong decision, to indicate errors, or the inability to select the best from many ideas struck upon by the members. Based on this definition, an operating teams' decision-making process, where errors in decisions can be made, may also be simulated by this model. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd