The Army's approach to task-based training includes the key instructional design activity of "packaging" collective tasks into logical groupings. These groupings of tasks form the basis for the design of instructional events that will be conducted using live, virtual and constructive training approaches. For the Future Combat Systems (FCS) equipped Brigade Combat Team (BCT), nearly 1000 collective and leader and battle staff tasks have been identified. Grouping a large number of tasks into training activities such that all critical tasks and skills are practiced with appropriate sequencing and repetition is an instructional design problem encountered in many training programs, but particularly critical for the FCS program as it prepares to train Soldiers to implement a new family of weapon systems.

This paper presents a new approach to this traditional instructional design challenge. The approach involves the use of a data visualization tool being used on the FCS program that allows a number of specific relationships between and among collective and individual tasks to be displayed graphically. The graphical display of task data permits rapid examination of task dependencies, hierarchical relationships, skill and knowledge commonality, and other linkages critical to support training design decisions. A small group tryout was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool for designing task-based training. The results were positive, yet less than desired. The shortcomings identified were primarily the result of incomplete functionality needed to fully implement the task-based training design approach that was targeted. However, glimpses of the tool's exceedingly rich potential for training design were evident in the tryout. The development of new functionality to meet the identified gaps is ongoing.