On Managing the Present Through Efficient Use of the Past 670620

Managers of complex human factors efforts have the problem of managing their management information. This requires tools for monitoring and assuring both the flow and application of current information to the solutions of technical problems. The challenge posed by the amount and diversity of both information and requirements for information has outstripped the capacity of current methods for handling and managing such information. Some core problems involve lack of between-persons agreement regarding the judgment, evaluation, and characterization of information. There is evidence that behavior-oriented experimental research of the human factors variety can help to solve such core problems. Three examples of such empirical study projects are described.