Identifying the team skills required by nuclear power plant operations personnel

The purpose of this study was to identify the team skills required by nuclear power plant operations team members. An initial domain familiarization consisted of a review of company documentation, observations in the control room, on-plant and in the simulator, and role interviews. In the second phase, critical incident technique (CIT) interviews were carried out with 38 operations team members on three British nuclear power plants. A total of 314 statements concerned with teamworking skills were identified from the interview data and used to develop the nuclear team skills taxonomy. The taxonomy had five categories: shared situation awareness, team focused decision making, communication, co-ordination, and influence, with 16 component elements. Relevance to industry: Effective teamworking in high-risk industries is crucial for both safety and productivity. The methods described in this paper could be applied to identifying team skills required by personnel in other domains. The taxonomy of team skills can then be used to develop a behavioral rating system to evaluate or assess team skills, identify team training requirements, and to aid in mishap investigation.