Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
limit of three to six steps is to ensure that time is not wasted on minute details during this
surface-level interview. The details will be filled in at a later stage (Militello and Hutton,
1998).
FIGURE 15.8
Task diagram for a fire
commander (Militello and Hutton,
1998).
The SME is then asked to decompose and articulate the three to six tasks into steps or
subtasks. The investigator prompts the SME:
• Think about what you do when you (task of interest).
• Identify which of the steps require cognitive skill. Cognitive skills refer to judgments,
assessments, and problem solving and thinking skills.
• Of the steps you have just identified, which types of cognitive skills are necessary?
The results of the task analysis are then presented in a task diagram. This diagram is a for
future interviews. Figure 15.8 presents an example of a task diagram for a fire
commander.
KNOWLEDGE AUDIT
The purpose of the knowledge audit (KA) is to convey what types of expertise are
required to perform a specific task. The KA is developed to capture the most important
aspects of expertise. It is organized around knowledge categories that characterize
expertise, such as diagnosing and predicting, compensating for equipment limitations,
situation awareness, perceptual skills, applying tricks of the trade, and knowing how to
improvise. Several questions are used in order to solicit detailed information (Militello
and Hutton, 1998):
• Is there a time when you walked into the middle of a situation and knew exactly how
things got there and where they were headed?
• Can you give me an example of what is important about the big picture for this task?
• Have you had experiences where details of a situation just popped out at you, where you
noticed things going on that others didn't catch? What is an example?
• Are there ways of working smart, or accomplishing more with less, that you have found
particularly useful?
• Can you think of an example when you have improvised in this task?
• Can you think of a time when you realized that you would need to change the way you
were performing the task in order to get the job done?
