A Task Process Pre-Experimental Model

The Adaptive Architectures for Command and Control (A2C2) program is a multidisciplinary program that employs a scientific basis for designing and analyzing adaptive and reconfigurable organizational structures at the Joint Task Force level. As part of its unique model-driven experimentation method, a pre-experimental model is created to support the formulation of hypotheses, the determination of key variables and parameter values, and the prediction of organizational performance. The pre-experimental model is used to explore the parameters of the experimental design in order to determine the appropriate region to conduct officer-in-the-loop experiments at the Naval Postgraduate School. A pre-experimental model based on the task process was created for an upcoming A2C2 subject experiment, which will examine the congruence between organizational structure and mission requirements. The pre-experimental model is a dynamic model created with Colored Petri nets, which can represent the changes in the task environment over time by implementing the stages of the tasks (i.e., detection, identification, attack, destroy, and disappear). The simulator used in the subject experiments, Distributed Dynamic Decision-Making (DDD), records timing information over the life of each task. Therefore, timing information regarding the tasks can be extracted from the output files of the trial experimental runs and included in the model before the final experimental simulations. In this way the model can be validated at the pre-experimental stage