de Koning et al. Improving Mmultidisciplinary Cooperation in CrisisMmanagement Teams Multidisciplinary Cooperation in Crisis Management Teams: a Tool to Improve Team Situation Awareness Lisette de Koning TNO lisette.dekoning@tno.nl Lottie Kuijt-Evers TNO lottie.kuijt@tno.nl Nicolet Theunissen TNO nicolet@ntheunissen.nl Richelle van Rijk TNO richelle.vanrijk@tno.nl Mirjam Huis in ‘t Veld TNO mirjam.huisintveld@tno.nl ABSTRACT When a crisis occurs, people from different organizations, on different hierarchical levels have to deal with unexpected situations that require coordinated effort. The goal of this research is to improve multidisciplinary cooperation for crisis management teams. We developed a tool, the Multi-mono guide, which helps team members to share information at the right time, with the right person, in the right way. A pre-test post-test intervention experiment was conducted with 8 professional teams to evaluate the effect of the tool on individual competencies, team situation awareness and process satisfaction. The experimental group was more satisfied with the meetings and about the way they shared information. Participants reported that the Multi-mono guide makes them aware of sharing information. We didn’t find significant differences for individual competencies and team situation awareness. This is may be because the teams that participated were very experienced. Participants did find the Multi-mono guide useful for trainees. Keywords Team situation awareness, crisis management teams, multidisciplinary teams, cooperation, Network Centric Organization, competencies INTRODUCTION Nowadays, organizations are operating in a turbulent and ever changing environment, which requires quick and adaptive responses of organizations. This holds for commercial companies, to react to market demands (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1998) as well as crisis management organizations, to respond quickly and effectively to unexpected calamities (Quarantelli, 1988). In recent years, new organizational structures have been adopted to react quickly to the changing environment. Decentralized, team based, and distributed structures enable organizations to achieve a quick response (DeSanctis & Jackson, 1994; Drucker, 1988; Lipnack & Stamps, 2000; Martins, Gilson, & Maynard, 2004; Priest, Stagl, Klein, & Salas, 2006). The organizational structure of crisis management organizations is also changing; from a hierarchical organization to a more netcentric organization, a so-called Network Centric Organization (NCO), a development which will be described in this paper. When there is a crisis or calamity, people from different organizations, on different hierarchical levels have to work together. Units are assembled from, for example, the police force, the fire departments, and the paramedics, to deal with unexpected situations that require coordinated effort for a limited time span. Currently, the Dutch crisis management organization consists of four different levels: the policy, operational, tactical, and field levels (van Rijk, Post, & Verseveld, 2001). Sharing information among these different levels takes time. In a hierarchical structure, by the time information has reached its destination, information is often outdated. In an NCO, information can be easily shared between people from different organizations, horizontally and vertically Reviewing Statement: This full paper has been fully double-blind peer reviewed for clarity, relevance, significance, validity and originality. Proceedings of the 8 th International ISCRAM Conference – Lisbon, Portugal, May 2011 1