"Interpretation and evaluation of the team's mission, including identification of its main tasks as well as the operative environmental conditions and team resources available for mission execution" (p. 363 table, 365 text) definition

• Would happen during staff meetings, retreats, AARs
• Each team member thinks about their charge within the parameters of "team abilities, resources, and time constraints" (p. 365)
• Verbal discussions to get shared vision of purpose and objectives
• Includes both backward evaluation (AAR) and forward visioning
  • Backward, we know that better they understand causes of previous performance, better can plan for future (Blickensderfer, Cannon-Bowers, & Salas, 1997)
  • Forwards, interpreting future mission in context of environment
• If don't do this step, will work totally reactively, and will be undermined by changing circumstances; and their efforts may be misguided until too late (Gersick, 1988)
• me This sounds like a stage where teams would build shared interaction mental models and strategic models? Also, including AARs here means this includes the process of adaptation
  • Edit - Not really. Seems to be more an overall first step - what are we dealing with, what have past successes looked like in a similar space (note, AI can inform this), how does that inform our plans for this. And the very specifics of how we'll get there are more part of strategy formulation.