Network measures for characterising team adaptation processes

Abstract

The aim of this study was to advance the conceptualisation of team adaptation by applying social network analysis (SNA) measures in a field study of a paediatric cardiac surgical team adapting to changes in task complexity and ongoing dynamic complexity. Forty surgical procedures were observed by trained human factors researchers, and communication processes amongst team members were recorded. Focusing on who talked to whom, team communication structures, in response to changing task demands, were characterised by various network measures. Results showed that in complex procedures, the communication patterns were more decentralised and flatter. Also, in critical transition phases of the procedure, communication was characterised by higher information sharing and participation. We discuss implications for team adaptation theory and teamwork observation methods.

Abstract

Practitioner Summary: The reasons for this study were to advance our conceptualisation of team adaptation processes and to further quantify team observation methods. We found that the surgical team studied adapted to complexity of surgical procedures by adopting flatter communication patterns. We quantified team observation methods by applying SNA techniques.

Keywords::

• teamwork
• adaptability
• social network analysis
• surgery
• task complexity

Acknowledgements

The authors express their sincere gratitude to the paediatric cardiac surgical team involved for their openness to be observed. In particular, thanks to Ton Schouten, anaesthesiologist, and Felix Haas, surgeon, for their numerous contributions. Thanks also to the TNO observers Josine van de Ven and Dolf van der Beek. We gratefully acknowledge the comments by two anonymous reviewers. This study is based on the first author's Master thesis in partial fulfilment of the degree of Master of Psychology.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Email: [email protected]

^2. Email: [email protected]

^3. Formally, centralisation is a collective term for various measures on social network structure. The statement made, as well as Figure 1, refers to degree centralisation, strictly. See Table 1 for an overview of centralisation measures.

^4. A further attempt to use the single Aristotle® score as a scale weight variable revealed no differences compared to the split half method and was therefore omitted for this study.

^5. COPYRIGHT (c) 2001–2013 Kathleen M. Carley – Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organisational Systems (CASOS), Institute for Software Research International (ISRI), School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue – Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by TNO under the programmes ‘Human Factors in Patient Safety’ (data collection) and the Enabling Technology Program ‘Behaviour and Innovation’ (SNA).