What is a Good Plan? Cultural Variations in Expert Planners'Concepts of Plan Quality

Abstract

This article presents the results of a field research study examining commonalities and differences between American and British operational planners' mental models of planning. We conducted cultural network analysis interviews with 14 experienced operational planners in the United States and the United Kingdom. Our results demonstrate the existence of fundamental differences between the ways American and British expert planners conceive of a high-quality plan. Our results revealed that the American planners' model focused on specification of action to achieve synchronization, providing little autonomy at the level of execution, and included the belief that increasing contingencies reduces risk. The British planners' model stressed the internal coherence of the plan to support shared situational awareness and thereby flexibility at the level of execution. The British model also emphasized the belief that reducing the number of assumptions decreases risk. Overall, the American ideal plan serves a controlling function, whereas the British ideal plan supports an enabling function. Interestingly, both the U.S. and UK planners viewed the other's ideal plan as riskier than their own. The implications of cultural models of plans and planning are described for establishing performance measures and designing systems to support multinational planning teams.

Leading Global Teams

“…However, team members of highly virtual teams who are distributed geographically lack a shared context, jeopardizing team identity and making it diffi cult for teams to align perspectives and agree on a plan of action. Given that members in global virtual teams may hail from different national or cultural backgrounds, members' perceptions of what constitutes a valid strategy or plan may differ dramatically (Rasmussen, Sieck, & Smart, 2009 ). The likely disparity among members' perceptions highlights the need for enhanced member interaction in virtual settings to facilitate shared understanding during planning.…”

Conducting Cross National Research

“…Evidence suggests that across many operational contexts, cultural groups viewed as similar, or whom frequently work together often "experience the repercussions of substantive differences," (Rasmussen et al, 2009, p. 228). Rasmussen et al (2009) explore the processes of planning in U.S. and U.K. teams, finding that while U.S. and U.K. perspectives and goals of planning may be the same, the processes of carrying out the planning process are dramatically different, so that when multinational or coalition teams are used, team conflict can emerge . Conflict in team cognition in cooperative systems has been identified as a threat to mutual learning, a potential cause of operational breakdowns, and a lack of knowledge integration (Synder & McNeese, 1987).…”

“…As suggested by many recent publications and panels cited in the Human Factors Proceedings in areas of healthcare (Montague, Winchester, Valdez, Vaughn-Cooke, & Perchonok, 2013), and teams (Strauch, 2010), culture has become an important area of exploration. While researchers have carried out cross-cultural studies highlighting the importance and relevance of this work (Altman-Klein & Kuperman, 2008;Altman-Klein & McHugh, 2005;Rasmussen et al, 2009;, little advice on how to carry out these kinds studies seems to exist Still other researchers (Salas et al, 2008) have called for the necessity to carry out cross-cultural research in teams. Team research offers its own challenges and focusing on the influence of cultural background presents additional complexity to experimental research.…”