Data processing: artificial intelligence – Neural network – Learning task
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-13
2002-12-17
Black, Thomas (Department: 2121)
Data processing: artificial intelligence
Neural network
Learning task
C706S015000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06496812
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND—FIELD OF INVENTION
This invention relates to groups of humans or groups of artificially intelligent machines, specifically to improving their efficiency in attaining group goals.
BACKGROUND—Discussion of Prior Art
As we enter the twenty-first century increasingly more of the problems that must be solved by humans are complex in nature. Their solutions require the cooperative effort of group members with different but complementary skills and experience who must interact quickly and efficiently to craft a solution. Groups of humans, when functioning as intended are commonly characterized as teams. Webster defines a ‘team’ as “a number of people working together on a common task”
1
. The literature refines this definition as follows: “A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable”
2
.
1
Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, 1992; Lexicon Publications.
2
The Wisdom of Teams; creating the high-performance organization; Jon R. Katzenbach, Douglas K. Smith; Harvard Business School Press, 1993 Boston Mass.
Although reliance by humans on group effort predates recorded history, a high performance team effort is a rare occurrence. This is because as the literature states, “Individuality and self preservation remain the rule, shared responsibility based on trusting others is the exception. A reluctance to take a risk and submit one's fate to the performance of a team, therefore, is almost inbred”
3
. When high performance teams do occur they have the following characteristics:
“Participative Leadership—create inter-dependency by empowering, serving others;
Shared Leadership—all members feel responsible for performance of work unit;
Aligned on Purpose—common purpose;
High Communication—trust, open honest communication;
Future Focused—change is opportunity;
Focused on Task—focus on results;
Creative Talents—applying individual talents and creativity;
Rapid Response—identifying and acting on opportunity.”
4
3
The Wisdom of Teams; creating the high-performance organization; Jon R. Katzenbach, Douglas K. Smith; Harvard Business School Press, 1993 Boston, Mass.
4
Creating the high-performance team; Steve Buchholz, Thomas Roth; Wiley, 1987.
Maximizing a team's efficiency requires that all members' actions add to team synergy. Given the natural reluctance to team orientation, only a supportive value/reward system can encourage team-oriented action. An old business adage comes into play, “you get what you ‘inspect’ not what you ‘expect’”. By this axiom a team member will be motivated to maximize his or her performance as measured, because the value/reward system is based on what is measured. When the team-member measurement criteria is not directly aligned with team goals, the value/reward system motivates team members to act in ways that are counter-productive to a team winning effort.
Team value/reward methods have not changed significantly since pre-historic times. There are two basic team value/reward methods. Either team members are valued for team membership, or team members are valued for their individual skills. In the first case, the hunting party that killed the saber-toothed tiger all shared its meat. In the second case, individual members of the hunting party who created the weapons, possessed the cunning to trap the prey, and demonstrated the bravery, strength and foot speed to accurately plunged the spear into the beast, were rewarded individually for their valued skills. However, neither of these methods, separately or in combination, measures or instills all of the high performance team characteristics listed above.
The deficiencies of these methods are as follows:
a) Provide no means to establish a direct cause/effect relationship between individual team-member actions or collaborations, and team goal achievement:
either, they value and measure team-members' individual accomplishments regardless of their effect on team achievement, which re-enforces the individual's self-centered focus instead of a focus on team results, i.e. reward excellence in spear-making and spear-throwing;
or, they value all team members for team achievement regardless of their contribution to team results, i.e. all share the saber-tooth tiger meat;
b) Provide no means to identify and expose for analysis and reward, the critical few team-member actions and collaborations that are causal to team achievement; provide no direction to team members on how to apply individual talents and creativity to the achievement of a common task;
c) Provide no means to establish a common understanding of the value of different roles played by team members and thereby enable all team members to be accountable for team performance; provide no mechanism that directly relates the value of different functional types of team-member actions, to the achievement of a team goal, i.e., provide no means to compare the relative importance of making the deadly weapon, to creating the deadly trap, or to killing the beast;
d) Provide no means for a group to integrate its activities in pursuit of a group goal, when given only partial knowledge of how to achieve it; furthermore, provides no means for valuing and measuring collaborations between two or more team members, that directly result in team goal achievement i.e. provide no means to determine the spear-thrower/trap-layer collaborations which have the best chance of achieving a kill;
e) Provide no means to encourage trust or open, honest communications to enable a team to rapidly identify and act on opportunities; i.e. provide no protocol for interaction between spear-throwers and trap-layers to enable them to rapidly identify and act on opportunities and thereby increase the chance of a kill; provide no method or mechanism to fairly and objectively measure and record team-member activities;
SUMMARY
This invention defines a method and performance feedback system to enable group members to interact quickly and efficiently with their peers to craft a solution to a group goal without external intervention. Using the common understanding provided by this performance feedback system, team members effectively collaborate to achieve a common goal while possessing only partial understanding of how to achieve it. This method and system enables the group to progress towards its common goal by incorporating internal creativity and group intuition as modes of behavior, rather than internal conflict and internal competition.
The present invention achieves the following desirable features:
a) means to provide understanding of individual team-members' performance by exposing the direct cause/effect relationship between individual team-member actions and team goal achievement; thus enabling team members to adjust their actions and inter-actions with other team members, to enhance future team performance; furthermore, the values and measurements produced using this method and system can be used to gratify the team-members' individual needs in direct proportion to their measured value to team achievement; furthermore, this fair reward and recognition for effective team activity works to reduce team-members' conflict between the natural tendency toward individuality and self-preservation, and the counter-intuitive human contrivance of team orientation;
b) means to expose for analysis and reward, the critical few team-member actions and collaborations that are causal to team achievement; furthermore, this invention only values individual team-member actions that are part of an action sequence that directly results in the achievement of a valued team goal; examples from past successes enable team members to learn how to apply individual talents and creativity to improve future team performance;
c) means to compare the values of different functional roles team-members play when contributing to team achievement, and to enable all team members to be accountable for team performance; a method a
Campaigne Crystal
Campaigne Philip James
Hirl Joseph P.
Object Power, Inc.
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