 |
Future Force Warrior Training (Part of STO IV.SP.2003.06)
Future Force Warrior (FFW)-equipped small unit leaders will operate in highly complex decision environments with technological tools and information capabilities never before available. The technologies in development promise to provide revolutionary advances in small unit effectiveness, but their potential will only be realized if leaders and soldiers can be trained to take full advantage of the new capabilities and operational concepts. FFW decisions will be based on increasing amounts of information from a wider variety of information sources. Leaders must develop the thinking skills necessary to make rapid, appropriate decisions based on the increasing and varied levels of available battlefield information and commander's intent.
This R&D unit will demonstrate selected training methods that allow small unit leaders and teams to leverage new FFW technologies, operational concepts, and tactics, techniques, and procedures. It will develop guidelines for efficient, effective thinking skills training to facilitate rapid, accurate decision making, and develop and validate tools to assess leader decision making and information utilization.
The research will identify successful training methods and technologies currently being used by high performing teams in the private sector and DoD and adapt those to training FFW soldier and leader skills, or develop new ones as appropriate. We will begin by identifying state-of-the-art training technologies that address generic small unit technology-related training requirements in the areas of mobility, lethality, survivability, sustainability, and situation awareness. As decisions are made regarding the selection of specific FFW technologies and subsystems, we will adapt the training methods and measures to the specifics of the selected FFW technologies.
In general, the research will leverage advances in situation awareness training and measurement, tailorable training, computer gaming, and intelligent tutoring. When necessary we will replicate FFW capabilities and information technologies as a means to assess the effectiveness of the new training methods. We will also develop and validate tools to assess decision quality and use of information. To the extent possible, we will work with the FFW Lead Technical Integrator and will provide initial guidelines on what to train and how to train small unit leaders and teams to effectively prepare for an Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD). We will later refine the FFW training guidelines following assessment of the ATD train-up and execution.
In FY2004, we will:
- Develop measures for evaluating leader decision making and information utilization
- Conduct analysis of unique FFW small unit leader decision tasks and decision dynamics
- Develop prototype thinking-skills training methods for adaptive thinking and visualization
Proponent: U.S. Army Infantry School
ARI Unit: Infantry Forces Research Unit
Related articles and publications:
|
