DuoWOMBAT (tm) addresses
the abilities of teams
to manage their collective resources
under high operational stress.
The solo WOMBAT-CS Situational Awareness and
Stress Tolerance Test was designed to assess the inherent aptitude
of individuals to operate complex systems without regard to their interactions
with other individuals in a team or crew relationship. Teamwork calls
for additional personal attributes, primarily social in nature but also
with a cognitive component. The importance of social as well as cognitive
factors in the cockpit of an airplane, for example, has gained the attention
of airline management and government regulators, leading to worldwide formal
training in crew resource management.
Although certain so-called personality tests are believed by some to reflect
traits conducive to effective and harmonious interactions with other team
or crew members, until recently there was no test, other than simulated
"acting" exercises, specifically designed to call for the application
of those traits. To measure how well crew resources are managed, the WOMBAT-CS
was expanded into the DuoWOMBAT Crew Resource Management
Test, as illustrated in the figure below.
Sitting side-by-side at two linked WOMBATs, testees work out their strategies
for trading off duties to maximize the team's combined score. Duet
versions of the primary tracking task and of each of the three
secondary bonus tasks are presented to candidates to demand effective teamwork
under heavy operational stress. Although controlled by the operator,
the 90-minute test normally consists of two 30-minute phases of dual performance
sandwiched between three 10-minute solo phases (as illustrated in the figure
below.) The three solo phases provide a learning curve for each individual
to serve as a basis against which the team's CRM performance is evaluated.
A CRM Laboratory
Few would deny that objective evaluation of crew members is vital to operational safety. In aviation, monitoring crew behavior via cockpit voice recording, in conjunction with flight data recording, has made major contributions to the high technical standards attained in commercial aviation. However, such contributions for the most part depend on the occurrence of accidents. Fortunately accidents are extremely rare, but as a consequence the lessons learned from them are also infrequent.
The DuoWOMBAT provides a method for evaluating routine, non catastrophic interactions of flight crews, thereby completing the instructional cycle of Line-Oriented Flight Training and Crew Resource Management enhancement. DuoWOMBAT is now in use by some WOMBAT operators in experiments that offer the first objective evaluation of CRM training and testing. Psychologists at the Service d'exploitation de la formation aéronautique (Toulouse, France) report that behavioral deficiencies observed during DuoWOMBAT sessions are carried over to flight simulator performance and later to actual flight. When the deficiencies are addressed at the DuoWOMBAT level using standard CRM techniques or custom-designed training, team performances not only improve in DuoWOMBAT but also in the simulator. Continued practice on the DuoWOMBAT develops positive team behavioral attitudes and strategies that readily transfer to the operational situation.
Before & After Assessment of Traditional CRM Training
Because DuoWOMBAT objectively records each pilot's contribution to the team and the overall performance of two pilots as a team, CRM developers can assess the effectiveness of their training programs by administering DuoWOMBAT before and after initial training and any subsequent refresher or remedial training. By this process they can monitor the progress of a given population of crews and at the same time the annual or semiannual performances of individual crew members who may reveal a need for remedial training. By administering DuoWOMBAT at different times and places from the training sessions, the test remains apart from the training context. The operator has full control via the scripting features of DuoWOMBAT.
Used as a Replacement for Traditional Acting Scenarios
Another way to maximize DuoWOMBAT's
use and cost effectiveness is to bring it inside the CRM training context
as a "virtual cockpit." Most CRM courses call for the role-playing
of preassigned flight scenarios before a class of peers. The limited success
of such training is often attributed in part to the difference between the
stress of acting before an audience and actual operational stress. However,
an airplane-free DuoWOMBAT "cockpit" presents a quite different
training environment for role playing before an audience. It provides
the vehicle for a face-to-face crew to develop effective behavioral styles
and attitudes while working out ways of cooperating to maximize their
team scores under high operational stress.
Have no doubt that performing DuoWOMBAT is stressful; the cognitive and social demands are not unlike those in flying an airplane. It is not uncommon for two DuoWOMBAT "pilot actors" to forget their assigned play roles and become "themselves" with everything that this includes! But, to earn a high overall team score, egotistic, competitive, authoritarian attitudes must give way to efficient teamwork. And, of course, when remedial training is called for to promote desired behavior and attitudes, it can be conducted with no audience and for the most part with no instructor present.
Non-Threatening Environment
Being a genuine WOMBAT product, DuoWOMBAT subtasks do
not look or feel like any real-world tasks including those encountered flying
an aircraft. The intentional design constraint is crucial to avoid cultural
and experience biases in the crew's evaluation. Additionally, this culture-free
approach offers a non-threatening environment to crews when facing remedial
team-behavioral training since "cockpit" language is avoided by
instructors and psychologists while a specific DuoWOMBAT language is adopted.
Because the transfer of learning is so direct from the station to the cockpit, training issues can be focused solely on DuoWOMBAT, thereby making the crews far more receptive to comments and suggestions. The operator can even match flight crews with non-flying colleagues such as airline dispatchers, air traffic controllers or flight attendants, making DuoWOMBAT sessions multidisciplinary, communication-oriented training exercises, either as a stand alone environment or a "before and after CRM" evaluation bench.
More good news:
DuoWOMBAT comes absolutely free of charge and totally royalty-free, period. Two WOMBAT stations are required to run DuoWOMBAT, and the additional software is provided with no added cost. Download the Candidate Manual for free (PDF format).
