default Structured expert elicitation to support the development of Maritime Situation Awareness capability

Structured expert elicitation to support the development of Maritime Situation Awareness capability. Locke, Jonathan; Jousselme, Anne-Laure; De Rosa, Francesca. CMRE-MR-2017-012. August 2020.

During 15-18 May 2017, NATO STO CMRE held a table-top-exercise (TTX) in support of Maritime Situation Awareness (MSA). In order to explore the breadth and depth of MSA, participants contributed to a number of games. This study reports findings from the Matrix Game, which took a wide ranging look at MSA from its basic definition to scenario based use-cases. A key objective for the TTX was to provide user based guidance for the development of MSA information systems and support research into decision making under uncertainty. In response, objectives for the Matrix Game were (1) to provide user based guidance for the development of MSA information systems, (2) to inform S&T staff of military decision making, and (3) to assess the Matrix Game methodology. Around 20 staff participated in the event including many serving officers who have direct responsibility for MSA in nation or within NATO. Two concurrent Matrix Games, each consisting 10 participants, ran for the duration of the exercise. An analysis of the outputs from these games has delivered a set of goals, relevant to the development of MSA capability, under the headings: Definition of MSA, Assessment of MSA, Sharing of MSA, Pattern-of-Life for MSA, Information and Sources for MSA and Ways-of-working for MSA. It is recommended that the complex wide-ranging nature of MSA demands a comprehensive international approach that engages end-users and S&T staff alike; that the next step should be to establish a set of forums to support an escalation of collaborative effort with regard to MSA. That is, the NATO Nations should work together to develop a common approach to MSA based on agreed standards and shared frameworks in particular. In this way individual groups, regardless of capacity, should be able to make contribution without being burdened by the full complexity of the MSA problem. Such an approach requires direction setting and orchestration.