Investigating the Use and Effectiveness of Virtual Collaboration Desks for Collaborative Military Planning Panos Louvieris University of Surrey Panos.Louvieris@surrey.ac.uk Catherine Collins University of Surrey c.collins@surrey.ac.uk Natasha Mashanovich University of Surrey n.mashanovich@surrey.ac.uk Abstract This paper focuses on the use of a Virtual Collaborative Working and Visualisation Environment (VCWVE), i.e. using virtual collaborative desks (VCDs), for the development of shared situational awareness using a common operational picture to support collaborative military planning in joint command and control situations. Joint usability, critical task and situational awareness assessment methods are employed to determine the effectiveness of this VCWVE in supporting commanders’ joint decision making. With reference to the British Army’s seven questions (7Qs) estimate process and intelligence preparation of the battlefield along with a small military judgement panel (MJP) used for the simulation experiment, the research focused on how effectively networked VCDs highlighted commander’s critical information requirements and their evolving requests for information during the planning process. The research also highlighted how collaborative technologies can not only help to improve joint decision making in a distributed HQ environment but also how an effective plan and its products can be delivered such as: the decision support overlay, the decision support matrix and the synchronisation matrix. As a result of this research a joint usability framework has been developed. This research has military significance in terms of enabling synchronised joint decision making in resilient agile distributed HQ groups and thereby reducing security risk of commander and staff. 1. Introduction Many of the challenges of the Command and Control process are related to or will be compounded by the requirements for future army forces to participate in distributed collaborations. According to the US Army (2001), distribution of task forces will have a serious impact on the collaborative planning process and collaborative problem solving. This statement illustrates that there is a need for collaborative tools, like VCDs, to provide mechanisms that retain the integrity of the interactive collaborative planning process, synchronization matrix, operation orders, etc. and support effective distributed planning and decision making. Therefore, exploiting information and communication technologies for collaborative working has attracted attention from many industry sectors including the military. The benefits that may be derived through virtual collaborative working are many, whilst being cognisant of any the limitations which may inhibit adoption. With the reference to the above statement the research objectives of this study were to: 1. Investigate the usability and effectiveness of VCDs for Military Planning in a virtual collaborative working environment; 2. Inform the development of VCD design as an enabling tool for collaborative military planning in a distributed environment; 3. Develop a theoretical framework to inform the product development of a VCD as a tool for military planning in a virtual collaborative working environment. In accordance with the research objectives, the main purpose of the literature review was to (i) frame the research; (ii) identify the relevant concepts, methods, facts and variables necessary to underpin a qualitative survey framework and research instrument. Hence, this will be used to assess system usability, interface quality and design of the VCD for collaborative military planning effectiveness. Following the literature review section the remaining sections will: (i) present the research methodology which includes a hypothesised framework and research instrument; (ii) give the basic set of VCDs features; (iii) describe the experimental procedure; (iv) provide a detailed data analysis; and (v) present the theoretical model developed as a result of the analysis, and research findings drawn from the experimental results. Finally, the concluding statement will highlight what has been achieved from the experiment. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2009 1 978-0-7695-3450-3/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE