Training Collaboration in Interagency SSTR (TraCIS)

There are numerous challenges associated with maintaining high quality performance in complex operational environments. In Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) operations, personnel from different agencies must effectively collaborate despite having different agendas, standard operating procedures, and desired outcomes. Hence, even in SSTR operations, which are fundamentally collaborative, experts in one particular field often have only rudimentary understandings of other fields. As such, they are unaware of what the right questions to ask are, and have little experience finding answers to their questions. What is needed is a common training resource that promotes knowledge-sharing and perspective-taking between multiple agencies involved in SSTR operations. Such a resource could provide scenario-based training based on important historical lessons learned, and allow a diverse group of trainees to explore how these events might have produced different results if handled in different ways. To meet these challenges, we propose developing Training Collaboration in Interagency SSTR (TraCIS), a scenario-based training system that promotes interagency collaboration in SSTR operations. Such a tool goes beyond teaching trainees linear, static rules for behavior in given situations. Rather, the tool will promote a broader thinking process to facilitate interagency collaboration.