During a fast breaking crisis, a military command must accomplish a tremendous amount of planning and coordination in a very short period of time.
CATs face a severe training problem.
Because of the short term of many military assignments, many of the action officers who are assigned to the CAT have little experience in their current jobs, and, in the frantic atmosphere of a crisis, their co-workers do not always have time to give them much help. Much of this job requires interacting with a complex military planning system, and following up on questionable data by directly contacting people who can explain and verify it. Twenty-five experienced people, ranging from generals to noncommissioned officers, were interviewed. TransASK is designed with the officers' jobs in mind. The challenge in designing the human interface was to make it rich enough that a user could easily find the answers to specific questions, but simple enough that he would not be overwhelmed.