Team coordination and decision-making

Chapter 7 discusses sport coaching as a team coordination and decision-making process. Decisions may involve planning training; selection of team members; deployment of various strategies, practice and competition schedules; and other serious and simple matters. In fact, every act of the coach dealing with the team or athletes requires careful thought as examples demonstrate the profound impact on the team and the members. At the elite level, coaches appear to consistently coordinate their teams in situations that are highly temporally constrained. The notion of a shared mental model is well known in teamwork amongst humans and has been used to explain team functioning. The idea is that team performance improves if team members have a shared understanding of the task that is to be performed and of the involved teamwork.