This paper describes the basic learning aspects of crises management training in a computer simulated environment. A total of 108 professionals, 18 teams, contributed to the study where the impact of a GPS on C2 work was investigated. A comparison between professional groups on performance and learning show that the GPS has an impact that differed depending on the teams professional composition.

This paper describes the basic communication analysis performed in a research project with an ambition to investigate the impact of geographical information system (GIS) on crisis management organizations. The goal is to compare the communication between command and control teams that have access to a GIS with geographical position information (GPS) capability in its command post with teams that only have access to paper maps. The method used is controlled experiments using the C3Fire micro-world. A total of 108 professionals, forming 18 teams, participated in the study. The participating professionals were members of Swedish municipal crisis management organizations. The result shows that the communication pattern connected to giving orders have a different distribution depending on if the teams used GIS or paper maps. The result also shows that the communication volume is reduced if the teams use GIS.

Modern decision-support systems for command and control may lead to radical organizational and technological changes. This paper describes a methodology to support designers and developers of such system in order to identify this type of changes in the design process. The methodology is based on a shorter series of low-fidelity simulations. The analyses do not focus on individual actions of the decision-support system operators, but instead on impacts of the systems on situated and joint actions of the command and control teams in terms of communication and coordination. The simulation series presented in the paper shows how the use of a decision-support system combining real-time data from various sensors led to changes in the content and structure of the communication as well as the resource coordination. Findings from the discussed simulations suggest that more attention should be given to possible impacts of decision-support systems on the joint actions of the command and control teams, as well as how these teams- actions are situated within the larger command and control system.