Innovation Fundamentals: Quantitative and Qualitative Techniques by Adedeji B. Badiru & Gary Lamont

Author:Adedeji B. Badiru & Gary Lamont
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 2021-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

Goals

SA is not generally thought of as a construct that exists solely for its own sake. SA is important as needed for decision-making regarding some system or task. As such, it is integrally linked with both the context and the decisions for which the SA is being sought: it is fundamentally linked with a person's goals. Goals form the basis for most decision-making in dynamic environments. Furthermore, more than one goal may be operating simultaneously, and these goals may sometimes conflict (e.g., “stay alive” and “kill enemies”). In most systems, people are not helpless recipients of data from the environment but are active seekers of data in light of their goals.

In what Casson (1983) has termed a top-down decision process, a person's goals and plans direct which aspects of the environment are attended to in the development of SA. That information is then integrated and interpreted in light of these goals to form Level 2 SA. The observation of each of three parameters of a system is not in itself meaningful. When integrated and viewed in the context of what they indicate about the goal of operating the system in a given manner, however, they become meaningful. The decision-maker then selects activities that will bring the perceived environment into line with his or her plans and goals based on that understanding.

Simultaneously with this top-down process, bottom-up processing will occur. Patterns in the environment may be recognized that will indicate that new plans are necessary to meet active goals or that different goals should be activated. In this way a person's current goals and plans may change to be responsive to events in the environment. The alternating of top-down and bottom-up processing allows a person to process effectively in a dynamic environment.

This process also relates to the role of mental models and schemata. Mental models of systems can be seen to exist as set (although slowly evolving) memory structures. Independently, individuals form a set of goals that relate to some system. These goals can be thought of as ideal states of the system that they wish to achieve. The same set of goals may exist frequently for a given system or may change often. Conversely, a set of goals may relate to more than one system model. A person's current goal(s), selected as the most important among competing goals, will act to direct the selection of a mental model. The selected goals will also determine the frame (Casson, 1983), or focus, on the model that is adopted.

Plans are then devised for reaching the goal using the projection capabilities of the model. A plan will be selected whose projected state best matches the goal state. When scripts are available for executing the selected plan, they will be employed (Schank and Abelson, 1977). When scripts are not available, actions will have to be devised to allow for plan completion. Again, the projection capabilities of the system model will be used to accomplish this.

As an ongoing process, an individual observes the current state of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.