Finding Information Needs in Military Command and Control Systems Using Exploratory Tools for Communication Analysis

Communication is a rich source for analysis of complex socio-technical systems such as command and control. Although observable, often accessible, and multidimensional, communication data give rise to demanding analyses. In addition, these analyses must support keeping the context available, considering the situated nature of command and control activities. This paper presents methods and tools for exploratory analysis of communication. We report communication analysis results from military exercises, where the tools were used to explore commanders' information needs as a step in an ongoing development of a command and control support system.