Glossary · 3 · Tasks and minimalism
Team task analysis (TTA)
Also known as: TTA, Team job analysis, Collaborative task analysis
German: Team-Aufgabenanalyse
In human factors and industrial-organizational psychology, team task analysis (TTA) identifies the parts of a task or job that cannot be done by one person alone — handovers, shared decisions, coordination and communication between roles — and the extent to which a task depends on teamwork.
- Technical documentation
- Task analysis
- Human factors
In one sentence
Team task analysis (TTA) finds the parts of a task that depend on several people: handovers, shared decisions, coordination and communication.
Example
Analyzing a robot cell restart shows three roles: the operator clears the cell, the shift lead confirms nobody is inside, the maintenance technician resets the safety controller — and the handover between the first two was nowhere written down.
The informal label "collaborative task analysis" is sometimes used for this lens in documentation practice; it is not a separate method.
How it applies
- Team relatedness and workflow: Arthur and colleagues developed scales that rate how team-related a task is and which team workflow pattern it follows, from work passed along in sequence to fully interdependent work; job-level ratings of team workflow were more strongly related to team performance than aggregated task ratings.
- Handovers in documentation: Every point where responsibility passes from one role to another is a place where information gets lost: shift changes, maintenance handovers, permits, restarts. Instructions should name who does what and what the next role must receive.
- Responsibility tools: A RACI matrix, a work breakdown structure or a task allocation can use TTA results, but they assign responsibility; they do not analyze how the work is coordinated.
- Limits: Task analysis results never prove that a product or a document is safe or compliant.
TTA vs. hierarchical task analysis
Hierarchical task analysis describes the task as if one person performed it; team task analysis adds the second and third person — who waits for whom, who decides together, who must be told.