Decision Matrices and Time in Tactical Course of Action Analysis

Tactical decision-making doctrine incorporates rules that conform to a classical additive weighting model. However, decision-making research has increasingly focused on naturalistic strategies. An experiment was conducted to investigate classical and natural approaches to tactical analysis. Teams of U.S. Army officers used either unspecified or structured procedures to analyze courses of action. Structure was imposed by providing workbooks for individual task steps. Completion times and additive weighted matrices were included. Paper-and-pencil and computer versions of materials were used. Teams from both structured groups had better justification scores than those with unspecified procedures. Computer support provided no additional advantage. The more detailed consideration of battle events provided the desired influence, whereas the classical decision rules did not seem to. Early conclusions did not result in better or poorer performance. The findings suggest modified rules for tactical analysis that emphasize detailed consideration of events and flexibility in the timing of decisions.