Design and Implementation of High Reliability Organizing Based Performance Metrics in the Context of the EU H2020 Research Project TARGET, Aiming at Developing VR/AR Training Environment for Security Critical Agents

Abstract

Training teams to respond to unexpected situations differs from traditional trainings in the sense that it is not just about following prescribed steps or procedures, simply because the situation at hand has never been imagined or has already occurred but is developing in unexpected ways. As a result, a specific solution has been developed to assess teams’ performance, based on the High Reliability Organizing (HRO) theoretical framework, in the context of VR/AR training environment for security critical agents. Specifically, the solution operationalizes HRO principles such as reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, deference to expertise and commitment to resilience, by providing real time metrics. Innovative aspects include the fact that the metrics capture systemic phenomenon that would otherwise be missed by a single trainer. Moreover, they provide unobtrusive measures, i.e. they don’t influence the trainees. Real time feedbacks can also help trainers manage scenarios by giving them information to adjust the intensity of the exercise. It is not job or language specific. Finally this enables the assessment of trainees’ progress by comparing the metrics for the same exercise at two different times or trainees’ areas for progress by comparing the metrics of a given team to the best performing team on the same exercise.