An Analysis of Team Adaptation Using Geospatial Coordination Measures of Combat Teams

Abstract

Adaptability is an essential component of effective teaming. Teams adapt to changing circumstances and novel challenges by reorganizing roles and strategies, coordinating heterogeneous knowledge, skills, and abilities. Many teams adapt through Geospatial Coordination (GC), which is the dynamic management of spatial relationships via strategic positioning and movement. Due to its dynamic nature, GC is often not fully understood under predominant team research paradigms, which focus on static or aggregate assessments. We address this gap by assessing the GC of combat teams through continuous analysis of spacing, speed, and spatial variability. This study employed Collective Systems Adaptation (CSA) analysis to quantify GC adaptation events using passively collected movement data, offering a data-driven approach to assessing team effectiveness from time series. Our findings suggest that strategic, infrequent adaptations in GC are linked to better performance, while excessive variability may hinder efficiency. This research offers a scalable method for tracking and interpreting spatial adaptations, with implications for training, decision making, and operational planning across high-stakes domains.