Building Resilience: Naval Expeditionary Command and Control

This chapter describes an 18-month project to demonstrate how to incorporate human centered design into the Navy's systems acquisition process. The project provides a common language for the chief of Naval operations and the Naval sea systems command staff to use in the acquisition of systems that are intended to support decision-making. Navy expeditionary combat command (NECC) forces are routinely configured differently to serve a range of different and novel missions across multiple theatres of operation. The chapter discusses the inclusion of human performance research in system development, the transition from qualitative research to design, and resilience engineering. Qualitative methods such as the interviews and observations that are described in the chapter are powerful means to study how individuals and teams perform cognitive work. As a result, future systems that are acquired are more likely to reflect and support cognitive and macrocognitive functions and thereby improve expeditionary force resilience.