Cognitive States

• Overview:
  • shared interaction mental models = shared understanding of how teams should interact normally (Rentsch & Staniewicz, 2012)
  • transactive memory = shared knowledge of the capabilities of other teams (Moreland 1999)
    • tech_helps Wiki, accessible anywhere, searchable?
  • strategic models = shared understanding of MTS mission, and links between what the teams are capable of and accomplishing the distal goal (Mathieu et al. 2001)
• Detail:
  • Shared interaction mental models are important for all types of MTSs. Examples:
    • Internal, low CTD, physical MTSs:
      • "multiteam interaction shared mental model" --> between-team coordination --> MTS performance (Murase et al. 2014)
      • shared understanding of MTS task --> more open, unique info sharing --> MTS effectiveness (Jinenez-Rodriguez, 2012)
      • frame of reference training --> understanding of MTS problem --> between-team coordination --> MTS performance (Firth et al. 2015)
    • External, physical MTSs:
      • Lack of shared consensus on work objectives --> HURTS MTS coordination (Wijnmaalen et al. 2018) (both internal and external MTS)
        • tech_helps PM software may make these more explicit and visible to all team members - not just leaders who have the whole picture in their minds.
          • Related to [strategic models]
    • External, high CTD MTS
      • MTS cognitive models should have accurate problem models, and shared understanding of how teams are connected and respond to different situations (Anania et al. 2017)
        • sounds like a mix of strategic models and shared interaction mental models
      • May have difficulty with overlapping lexicons, unfamiliar languages. Should try to adopt common frames for interpreting words (Waring et al. 2018).
        • Shared lexicons are a bigger issue in external, and in high CTD, MTSs.
        • tech_helps Tech could mediate this:
          • Could build a library of potential disconnects, perhaps even in direct communication between people coming from different functional backgrounds, so that the tech (AI here, really) can predict when something might get misinterpreted, and highlight that and give what the term means to the person sending the message.
          • In a group meeting, it can listen in and pop up the meaning of difficult words or acronyms, or yin-yang words that could mean different things to different people there
      • Likely to be more important to have transactive memory systems in external MTSs, especially those with high CTD, where are likely to have different org knowledge, functional expertise, disciplinary expertise
        • (Studies where TMS were important were almost all external and moderate to high CTD: Caldwell 2005, Healey et al. 2009, Henry et al. 2016, Liang & Jin 2010)
  • Physical vs. intellectual MTSs - will need different cognitive models:
    • physical, more important to focus on behavioral models of both strategy and interaction (strategic models and shared interaction mental models)
    • Intellectual, these strategic models are about a shared understanding of the abstract problem space and its idea elements (they're problem models); and the shared interaction mental models are about which team works on which part of the problem, and the processes used to combine information. (Plus obv. the transactive memory of who is expert in what.)
      • So the tech to support shared mental models would need to be very different for physical and intellectual MTSs. Obv.