A Contextual Methodology for Modelling Real-Time Decision-Making Support

Abstract

Human behaviour must be described on the four levels known as policy strategy tactic and operation From the upper level (policy) to the lower (operation) the corresponding decision making process goes through two successive contextualisations At the first level decision making has a fixed part (policy and strategy) and a dynamic part (tactic and operation) at the second level Real time aspects of decision making are on the dynamic part i e strong connection with the context in which an actor makes a real time decision We propose a modelling of real time decision making by a contextual methodology that is composed of a series of 10 steps crossing the four levels The aim is to support the self training of actors to modify weaknesses of their behaviour during task realisation The contextual methodology here proposes a unified framework on aspects that are generally contrasted procedure versus practice task versus activity logic of functioning versus logic of use - and explains the two types of contextualisation in a context oriented model with three layers The contextual methodology has been applied in a road safety domain (in which the car driver is continuously in a situation of real time decision making) and is now used in another application in Open Source domain