Improving the Measurement of Team Performance: The TARGETs Methodology

Abstract

This article describes a study evaluating a team performance measurement methodology that has application to the military. The development of the methodology was driven by team performance measurement requirements that encompassed theoretical, psychometric, and operational issues. It is a form of structured observation in which (a) task events are introduced to provide opportunities for teams to demonstrate specific team-related behaviors; (b) acceptable team responses to each of the events are determined a priori by utilizing team task analyses, subject-matter experts, and so forth; and (c) the appropriate responses to events are scored as either present or absent. The strength of this approach is that it is operationally relevant, minimizes judg- ments required by observer scorers, and permits controlled observation of teams across a variety of specific team behaviors. In the application described in this article, reliable and sensitive performance scores were obtained from six military aircrews. The implications of the results for the measurement of team performance are discussed.