Communication and shared models influence performance mainly through coordination Interesting results were the interactions predicting coordination: Shared models and communication substitute. Using both may hurt performance since too much effort is going into communication. Shared models about the internals of the team and within-group communication are important early in the team’s history We’d expect team functioning will become routinized with time Models about and communication with the external world will probably become more important after routinization Shared models have unexplained, direct negative association with declines in stock price

1. Communication, Shared Mental Models
and Team Performance
Robert Kraut
Susan Fussell
Javier Lerch
Carnegie Mellon University

2. Coordination is the Glue for Teamwork
• Coordination = Extra effort multiple agents must provide
to achieve a goal, above what they would need if they were
working independently
• Techniques for coordinating
– Division of labor
– Communication
– Shared models

3. What Roles Do Mental Models
Play in Coordinating?
• Mental model
– Mental representation of some dynamic process or system
– One type is knowledge of teammate’s competencies =
transactive memory
• Mental models can improve coordination by:
– Substituting for direct communication
– Allowing effective task assignment
– Providing common ground for communication efficiency
– Improving project planning and execution
• May lead to improved performance

4. Secondary question:
What leads to shared mental models?
• History together => opportunities to observe
• Communication
– More communication
– Evenness of communication
• Division of labor
– Read expertise from roles

5. Method
• Setting: Management game
– 50 teams manage a simulated consumer products company over
14 weeks & 2 simulated years
• Data collection
– 3 waves of questionnaire administration
– Evaluations by external “board of directors”, based on plans and
performance
– Firm price based on stock market
• Analysis
– Predicting changes in coordination & outcomes
– Panel design, using mixed model
• Team as a random factor
• Auto-regressive error structure

6. Model and Hypotheses
• Predictions:
Experience together, more communication, and more even communication will enhance
development shared models
Communication and consensus will influence performance through coordination
Communication and consensus will have their beneficial effects early
Communication and consensus will substitute for one another
Communication
& structure
Shared
models
Task
process
Outcomes
History
Communication
Amount (mean)
Evenness
(reversed gini)
Functional expertise
Amount (mean)
Distribution
(reversed gini)
Agreement
about who
knows what
(mean r)
Coordination
Board
evaluation
Stock
price

7. Important Measures
• Communication
– Volume = Mean amount of pairwise communication
– Evenness = Reverse gini coefficient on volume of communication
• Shared mental models = Consensus on who knows what
– Mean correlation of members’ assessment of each others knowledge
of marketing, finance and production
• Coordination = Multi-item, self report scale
– E.g., Each member of my team had a clear idea of the team's goals.
– E.g., Tasks were clearly assigned. I knew what I was supposed to do
• Performance
– Stock price
– Evaluations by boards of directors after review

8. Summary of Results
Amount
Communication
Shared
Model
Coordination
Stock
Price
Board
Evaluations
Division of
Labor
History
Group
Expertise
Evenness of
Communication
.48
-.33
.62 .05
.11
.41
.38
-.32
.14
-.38
.31
.78
 Standardized beta weights
 All dependent variables control for lags => measurement of change
 Only relationships p < .06 have been retain
-.14

9. Predicting shared mental models
• Shared mental model= Shared person perception
• Average correlation among team members about how much
each person knows about finance, marketing, production
• Predictors:
• Passage of time - No
• Communication
– Amount - No
– Evenness - Yes
• Division of expertise- Yes

10. Do communication & consensus make a
difference in performance?
• Only through their influence on coordination
• What is associated with improvements in coordination?
– History
– Evenness of communication, but not amount
– Level of functional knowledge
– Shared models of who knows what

11. Interactions
• Shared models have greater benefits early
• Even communication has greater benefits early
• Models and communication volume substitute

12. Summary
• Communication and shared models influence performance
mainly through coordination
• Interesting results were the interactions predicting
coordination:
– Shared models and communication substitute. Using both may hurt
performance since too much effort is going into communication.
– Shared models about the internals of the team and within-group
communication are important early in the team’s history
– We’d expect team functioning will become routinized with time
– Models about and communication with the external world will
probably become more important after routinization
• Shared models have unexplained, direct negative association
with declines in stock price

13. Limitations and plans
• Data problems
– Measures of accuracy, consensus, and dispersion were constrained by low
variation within a team
– Common input to measures of level and evenness
• Weak causal claims
– Panel design examined changes in process and outcomes, but grossness of
time granularity limits causal ordering
– Currently running lab experiments to manipulate communication and
recursors of shared models
• Scope
– Examined only small teams whose members had history
– Examined only shared models of who knows what
• Current work
– Current data collection is examining models of internal (e.g., who knows
what) and external (e.g., competitive enviroment).
– Current data collection adds objective accuracy measures