Methodological aspects of development and evaluation of military command and control systems

Due to the rapid development of technology and political changes, most defence forces are currently reorganising their tactics, tools and methods. Changes in thinking and practice in military command and control (C2) systems do not only include technical aspects but also terminology, culture, planning processes etc. These organisational changes are fast and thus methods and techniques for rapid evaluation are essential. Time is a crucial factor and the evaluation methods have to keep pace with the time cycle of the practical project. However, there is still the demand for reliable and valid results. Within the F0I-project Evolva, methodological principles and procedures for development and evaluation of military C2 systems are being developed and tested in cooperation with the Swedish Armed Forces. The work focuses on four essential parts of the test cycle: modelling as a tool for defining evaluation measures; environments for testing C2 concepts; tools, techniques and methods for data collection and tools, techniques and methods for instant feedback of test results. In this report, experiences from evaluation of military C2 systems are presented together with a number of cases to illustrate the results. The report also includes a presentation of some lines of future work.