Comparison of Distributed Versus Collocated Command Group Collaboration Performance

The transformation of the United States Army to a combat force capable of operating successfully on future battlefields requires the leveraging of digital communication capabilities to support distributed battle command. The purpose of this study is to investigate collaborative command group planning performance in traditional face-to-face (collocated) and geographically dispersed group (distributed) conditions. The Reactive Planning Strategies Simulation (REPSS) system was developed to provide a realistic group planning task supporting empirical estimates of planning process and performance outcome success, measured in this context as delivery rate of humanitarian supplies. Results indicate that synchronization scores were not significantly different between conditions; however, they were highly correlated with command group humanitarian supply delivery rates when collapsed across both collocated and distributed\u27 conditions. Furthermore, collocated command groups delivered humanitarian supplies at a higher rate than did distributed command groups. This difference was primarily due to the cumulative effect of poor decision making across the multiple decision points required of the command groups during the exercise