Teamwork in the Main Control Room

Abstract

This chapter is about the characteristics of main control room’s teams. In a hazardous working environment, human factors play a key role. The quality of teamwork affects people’s psychological well-being, which has an impact on the quality of their work and their ability to work safely. In Hungary, at Paks Nuclear Power Plant, we have developed a questionnaire that is able to measure the main control room’s teamwork. In our paper, we present the structure of this questionnaire and define the scales created. We also base the development of teamwork on the analysis of video footage of a simulator exercise, which also highlights the characteristics of successful teamwork. Both tools can be used to understand, analyze, and then improve control rooms’ teamwork for more effective collaboration and performance.

1. Introduction

The four units of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant are operated by six-shift teams/crews in three eight-hour shifts per day. In one shift approx. 90–100 employees work together in the operation, which requires significant coordination and teamwork from them. Plant control is operated by five people working in the main control rooms per unit. A total of 24 main control room’s teams work for safe operation. With our work, we aim to set up an operational model in the unit controller of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant and to identify the human aspects of teamwork. Based on the operational characteristics of main control room’s teamwork we can support and develop them in their work.

Incident investigations revealed that there were “deficiencies in the effectiveness of the teamwork of the personnel cooperating in the execution of the activity.” But what does all this mean in this unit commander work environment? In this chapter, we examine the criteria by which teams can be distinguished based on their performance, efficiency, and overall success.

2. Criteria for successful teamwork

We started our research by conducting interviews with operating director, heads of various departments, and heads of sections and “operational” managers such as unit shift supervisors and plant shift supervisors in the organization (N = 35). In the interview, they had to characterize the 24 main control room’s teams based on their own thinking and insight. We analyzed this “thinking out loud” and collected the criteria behind the characterization. Since the leaders and managers participating in the interview represent the organization itself, they have a significant impact on the organizational culture formed by managers and subordinates [1, 2, 3].

Analyzing the interviews, we grouped the success criteria of unit commander teamwork into three characteristic categories: 1) characteristics related to the execution of tasks and work; 2) relationship characteristics between team members; 3) characteristics related to the team leader (Unit Shift Supervisor, USS).

2.1 Teamwork characteristics related to the tasks

In high-risk environment, production is typically based on teamwork. It is important that team members have a similar attitude to work and respect the rules. In order to be aware of what is going on at any given moment, it is important to keep each other informed and to share information in a coordinated way [4]. It is important that the team establishes a working pattern (norm) that allows them to work in a unified way.

• If someone makes a mistake during the exercises on the simulator, they draw each other’s attention to the mistakes as a way of learning.

• If a mistake occurs, it is handled well: they take responsibility, admit it and stand up for each other.

• The tasks are carried out in good quality, there are no large amplitudes in their performance.

• Before starting work, they discuss the tasks: they consider, talk through the steps, prioritize, and only then start the task.

• They discuss the events together after the shift, learning the lessons.

• The knowledge of the team is constantly developing and is formed together.

• Team members share the information they have with each other.

• Team members are motivated to solve the tasks in front of them.

• There is open communication within the team regarding gaps and performance.

• Each member of the team is aware of their role, tasks, and responsibilities in the team.

2.2 Relationship characteristics in teamwork

Failures can also occur because of poor relations between team members, and a bad atmosphere in the team. A good team atmosphere means that members dare to ask questions and dare to share their doubts. A good atmosphere in the team gives a sense of psychological safety and that trust is working. The feeling of group efficacy, which is the belief of the members that the team can perform well in a specific task. The more members feel this, the more motivated they are to work hard as a team to achieve goals [5, 6].

• Team members know each other well and are aware of each other’s skills.

• They are aware of each other’s weaknesses and accept each other accordingly.

• They accept each other’s values.

• They are not each other’s friends, but they treat each other fairly and have respect for each other.

• There is continuous back-and-forth communication between team members both vertically and horizontally.

2.3 Characteristics related to the team leader

The success or failure of a team depends not only on the skills and competencies of individuals but also on how they can synchronize and coordinate them. The “interface” between the leadership and the team process forms an inseparable integrity and together they influence team performance [7, 8].

The leader obtains, organizes, and evaluates the necessary information for the team by continuously monitoring and observing the team’s external environment. With the information obtained, the leader identifies the steps needed to accomplish the task and uses this information in problem-solving. The leader communicates his/her plan to accomplish the task, while team members formulate and share an accurate model of appropriate behavior. Leader briefing has a major impact on the way the team thinks and reacts to unexpected events. The sharing of information by the leader provides the team with a knowledge structure that facilitates task solution and team adaptation to the novel, unexpected event. The leader’s communication shapes the accurate model in the team members and the more specific the information conveyed, the more shared and accurate the shared mental model will be in the team, which indirectly influences team performance [1, 3, 9].

• “Every team is like its team leader.”

• In a normal situation, he or she explains to the members what the objective is for a potential breakdown and discusses the operational strategy;

• The USS stimulates dialog between disciplines;

• USS initiates discussion on how to work together in the unit control room;

• The USS initiates a discussion of the events and lessons are learned together;

• At the end of a successful day, the USS provides feedback on teamwork;

• USS encourages members to learn from each other;

• USS gives positive feedback to members with the aim of improvement.

2.4 Not every group is a team, but every team is a group

We often use the terms group and team as synonyms (crew, brigade). A group is usually formed from the bottom up, held together by similarities, values, and sympathy between members, while a team is often discussed in a workplace context, and therefore typically formed from the top down, with everyone having their own functional roles, responsibilities, and a common purpose holding the team together.

Rapid technological change and the increase in the complexity of organizations have resulted in a shift from individual work toward teamwork, as the expert teams that ensure operation are made up of specialists who are trained and socialized for several years to solve the set tasks to the best of their ability. However, the knowledge required to solve the tasks alone is not sufficient for the safe operation. Teams must coordinate their knowledge gained at the individual level in order to make effective decisions and adapt to dynamically changing environmental conditions. For coordinated cooperation, they must also be able to manage social processes such as leadership, communication, and coordination. The organizational culture prepares these teams to respond adequately to unexpected events and complex problems [10, 11]. In such situations, it is almost a matter of “life and death” how team members can cooperate, how they share information among themselves, how they coordinate the pieces of information available to them, how they communicate with each other, how much they understand each other’s communication, how much they trust each other, and how much they accept each other each other’s point of view or each other’s personality. These unexpectedly appearing, often ambiguous, information-deficient situations have a significant impact on the functioning of teams, which can be observed mostly in the behavior and communication of the members [12, 13, 14].

3. What is teamwork in high-risk environment?

In a high-risk working environment, not only the wider national culture but also the organizational culture itself expects a lot from teams, and therefore puts a lot of pressure and responsibility on the people working in the teams. A high-risk work environment is one in which employees work with dangerous technology and have a higher-than-average chance of endangering their own lives and/or the lives of others or causing significant material damage. The sources of danger can come from outside, from the environment, from the team itself, and from dysfunctional team functioning.

External sources of danger: an event that occurs unexpectedly during normal operation, which is ambiguous, possibly complex; events running in parallel; decision making under time pressure; ambiguous or conflicting information or even a lack of information; dynamically varying -often very low (monotony) or very high- task load; task load (e.g. working hours, shifts), and individual perception of workload, influenced by subjectivity (e.g. perceived workload as being greater than realistic due to fatigue or exhaustion); or the regulated, protocol-based operating mechanisms, standardized processes, resulting in low work autonomy and low potential for creativity [15, 16, 17, 18].

Internal threats from within the team itself: in a team, members are interdependent and can only operate cooperatively, which can be tiring because some people have little willingness and ability to cooperate, so expecting them to cooperate requires a lot of energy. Sometimes the goal is not clear to all members, which leads to misunderstanding or disagreement, or even conflict. In teamwork, task conflicts may arise from a lack of agreement on how to solve a given task, and how to prioritize the steps of task execution. If a culture of conflict resolution is not developed in the team, task conflict can easily slide into the more difficult-to-manage relational conflict. Dysfunctional leadership is when the leader does not fit into the team, for example, members are afraid of an authoritarian leader, afraid to express themselves, afraid to ask questions, and unable to communicate assertively. The hierarchical structure can also generate sources of danger when a member does not dare to express disagreement with his/her leader, even when it is clear to him/her that he/she is making a mistake [19, 20].

Teams working in high-risk environments and teams carrying out highly responsible tasks and activities work in a highly regulated, protocol-based working environment, to which the internal structure of the team is adapted. Medical teams tend to be hierarchical, with face-to-face interaction and communication processes that are not well defined, and with a very divided attention between team members. Pilots also have a highly hierarchical team structure, with face-to-face interaction and a very controlled communication process. Power plant operator teams are less internally hierarchical, with everyone being an equal member of the team representing a particular area of expertise, but communication between them is also very regulated [21]. Hierarchy is defined as a legitimized power distance between the leader and the subordinates, in which the leader at the top of the hierarchy has more privileges because of his power, which the subordinates accept and maintain through their behavior [10]. In such a structure, subordinates are dependent on managers, and less autonomous, because all decisions are expected from above, so in this system, the individual learns “learned helplessness,” that he is taken care of by managers. Consequently, over time, it undermines questioning, independent thinking and creativity, and undermines proactive, initiative behavior.

If we consider the worst-case outcomes of the various expert teams, the damage caused by the disorganization of the surgeon teams is relatively moderate, as “at most” is responsible for the death of the patient, but not for a national disaster. More damaging are the pilots of passenger planes when their internal functioning is disrupted and they fail to understand each other in an emergency and communication fails, as the plane could crash with the crew and hundreds of passengers on board. In comparison, the operator teams of nuclear power plants can cause the greatest catastrophic disaster, as the occurrence of such a disaster can pose a major threat to human life and the ecological balance of our environment, and our country.

3.1 Team mental model (the role of the team mental model)

Sexton’s saying that “Better the Team Safer the World” is very true for the nuclear environment [19]. For main control room’s teams to work in a coordinated way, they need to address social processes such as leadership, communication, and coordination, in addition to the professional knowledge that the members possess individually, because these social processes allow them to shape their functioning and adapt to different environmental factors. The situational factors for teams in a power plant are typically normal operation, emergency events, and major repairs [22, 23].

In the main control room teams, as “expert teams,“members represent an individual area of their professional field and in order to achieve a common goal they are performing complex activities while making a significant cognitive effort, constantly monitoring the display, sensing emerging stimuli and changes, anticipating possible situations, thinking in “if..., then...” contexts. Successful teams are able to align the knowledge held by their members, the information they hold, and their focus of attention, thst is, their cognitive processes, and thus create a platform, for example, “being on the same page,” [24] and common ground [25]. In this way, members have an individual-level mental model, which contains long-term, stable elements of declarative, procedural, and strategic knowledge about the task and the team, and their semantic organization, which converge into a team-level mental model during interactions between members and during the various team processes [26, 27].

The team mental model is a characteristic of well-functioning, effective teams that have an organized understanding, a shared understanding, a mental representation of the task (task-related mental model), and of themselves as a team (team-related mental model). The task-related mental model includes knowledge elements such as the characteristics of the task to be performed, for example, its structure; knowledge of the goal to be achieved, clarity; the way, order, and priority of its execution; the necessary tools, information required; knowledge of who has the relevant information [28]. A mental model of teamwork includes elements such as the roles and responsibilities of the members; the depth of knowledge, skills, training, and experience of the other; the typical response of the other in normal operational situations and in emergencies; the typical behavior patterns, communication, and motivation of the other [12, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34].

Teamwork strategy meetings, exchanging information with each other, and discussing points of view, are all situations that serve to help members get to know each other, and each other’s reactions and develop a common knowledge of each other (team-related team mental model). The same happens in relation to the task, when every single team member develops a mental representation of the elements of the task, of the solution to the problem, which they share with each other through a team process such as communication, as their knowledge converges and a team-specific way of solving the task emerges. These team processes serve to bring together individual-level representations and integrate them into a team-level representation (task-related team mental model) [26]. If a team is prevented from discussing their operating strategy, or if they themselves do not practice it, the mental model is damaged, which may lead to overload and loss of energy in the team’s functioning, which may eventually lead to failure.

3.2 Explicit and implicit communication

In the development of the mental model of the team, explicit communication and coordination is a direct communication with a clear purpose, and therefore leaves no doubt in the minds of the members: everyone has a clear picture of the intention and motivation behind the other’s communication. This is especially necessary in new tasks, in new situations, where the mental model is not yet established, not precise enough, or not shared enough among the members, so they need to build consensus in order to organize their activities. This explicit communication requires an extra effort on the part of the team that lasts until a stable mental model is established between team members [10, 28, 35]. The team leader plays a crucial role in explicit coordination, acting as a “conductor” to coordinate team members and the information they share. This explicit communication, which requires extra energy, is possible under lower task loads, such as normal operations, when the team can devote time and attention to each other and to discussing strategy. This is a good way to prepare for a possible emergency when they have to work under more pressure in a focused, energy-saving mode. Knowing the rules and following them also stimulates collective thinking among team members. This is impersonal coordination, such as rules, protocols, standardized processes, procedures, policies, manuals, etc. at organizational level.

In an efficient, i.e. well-coordinated team in the emergency/abnormal situations that implicit communication can be observed, when everyone knows their job, their tasks and actions are well harmonized, with smooth and seamless overall work. These are barely noticeable behavioral and communication manifestations in the team, which operate with relatively low effort. This requires that members know and understand each other, and that goals and roles are clear and unambiguous, that is,. that there is a common understanding of the task, the situation, and each other, of each other’s knowledge and skills.

Implicit coordination occurs when the team already has a shared mental model and can rely on it to coordinate its activities with relatively little effort. Teams that are able to coordinate their work in a resource-efficient mode are more effective in dealing with unexpected events. When the team has a shared mental model of the task, themselves, and their schedule, there is less need for explicit communication, because the model allows them to anticipate each other’s needs, to know who is going to do what at a given moment without explicitly discussing it [34, 36, 37]. In implicit coordination, team members spontaneously and voluntarily inform each other and the leader of an event that is about to happen, without being directly asked to do so. The anticipation rate (AR), developed through observation and analysis of teams, is the ratio of the amount of information volunteered to the amount of information requested [10].

High-performing teams are characterized by their ability to adapt their structure, decision making, and coordination strategies to change, and thus to adapt flexibly to stressful situations [2]. In these situations, teams need to make the best use of their knowledge while minimizing the risk to safety. The importance of all this makes sense in a sudden change of situation (e.g. crisis, emergency) when under high task load and time pressure, it is no longer possible discuss strategy, but when implicit communication based on the shared mental model is needed, which is an energy-saving mode. In effective teams, implicit coordination and communication are observed to be the most effective way of dealing with unexpected/abnormal events, because it reduces overt communication, reduces effort, and allows the energy released to focus on the task at hand [10, 19, 28, 38, 39, 40]. Table 1 below shows examples of explicit and implicit communication.

Characteristics of explicit communication

Characteristics of implicit communication

Before starting the task, discuss and prioritize the steps.; Ask for and give information openly and explicitly.; Specific issues to be discussed.; Information summarized by someone on the team.; Issuing an instruction, acknowledging receipt of the instruction, and giving feedback on the execution of the instruction (3-way communication).; Open request for assistance and help.; Discussion and processing of what has happened.; Establish predefined, standardized communication elements and rules.

Giving unsolicited information: if someone in the team feels that their partner needs more information, they can give it without being asked.; Unsolicited actions, actions to make things go more smoothly, for example, spontaneous assistance, spontaneous information.; Expression of intention to act (e.g. gesture, facial expression).; Silence: the work is going smoothly and members are participating.; Chat: a conversation not closely related to work, used to establish personal contact.; They can openly ask each other for help and are not ashamed to do so.

Table 1.

Explicit and implicit communication in the team.

4. Characteristics of teamwork at the Paks nuclear power plant

Above, we have described the role of the team mental model as one of the most important characteristics of expert teams, which is efficient coordination and problem-solving for the team. As most organizations in which production is based on teamwork define their teamwork model, the management of the operations division of Paks Nuclear Power Plant has developed the operational characteristics of the main control room’s teams, creating a culture-specific definition of teamwork.

4.1 Teamwork definition of the main control room’s crew

The main control room’s crew is an operational control team, led by the unit shift supervisor and consisting of the reactor operator, the senior turbine operator, the turbine operator, and the chief electrician operator. They perform their work in a physically defined location, the main unit control room. The teams work in continuous eight-hour shifts; they are not allowed to leave their workplaces until the shift has been completed and the shift has been handed over. The Figure 1 shows the team structure.

Figure 1.

Main control room’s team/shift personnel (plant shift supervisor, PSS; unit shift supervisor, USS; reactor operator, RO; senior turbine operator, STO; turbine operator, TO; chief electrician operator, CEO; field operator of primary circuit, FOPC; filed operator of secondary circuit, FOSC; field electrician operator, FEO).

Each team member represents one area of expertise and is also the leader of the team members working in their own professional fields, who carry out their duties for the whole unit in addition to the leader. The 2015 INPO (Institute of Nuclear Power Operations) considers each team member as a leader, not just the unit shift supervisor [41].

Each member needs to understand their own leadership role, which contributes to the success of teamwork. Main control room’s team, together with the other subteams they manage, form a “multiteam system” [42]. In this sense, they are able to perform both executive and supervisorial tasks coordinating specialized tasks.

Together, the team in the main control room and the teams that operate the nuclear power plant as shift operational staff, with the engineer on duty being the leader of the staff working a shift as plant shift supervisor. The members of a shift collectively create more value as a result of their work than the numerical sum of the results of the members’ work alone (the group is more than the numerical sum of the members).

4.2 Team mental model of the main control room’s crew

Main control room’s team members represent a specific field of expertise and have well-defined professional competencies. The knowledge possessed by each of them is unique and distinct, but complementary, that is, their knowledge is complementary to each other to form a coherent knowledge base, which is needed to operate the unit together.

The members are interdependent and interdependent on the information and knowledge available to them, but each is able to work independently in his own field.

Figure 2 shows the degree of overlap in the areas of competence represented by the members of the team. Overlapping areas vary greatly in size and characteristics. The unit shift supervisor’s knowledge is comprehensive across all disciplines, but the person in charge of each discipline carries out the tasks using his own professional competencies. However, in addition to the overlap between the specialized areas, there are also “white spots,” which may not be covered by any of the specialized areas and which appear as gaps or “contamination” in the functioning of the team. For example, if members do not know each other well enough, they do not know each other’s reactions, which can lead to various disturbances and anomalies in the teamwork.

Figure 2.

Team mental model of the main control room’s crew.

5. Teamwork development at the Paks nuclear power plant

At the Paks NPP, production depends on the control room’s teams, so it is very important that the internal, structural operation of the teams is not a potential source of failure. We pay particular attention to identify and monitor the functional characteristics of these teams and to develop and support teamwork. By identifying the cornerstones of teamwork, we have created a teamwork questionnaire that is able to measure teamwork in the control room along four broad areas: 1. the individual characteristics of the team members; 2. the task awareness of the team as a whole; 3. the group-atmosphere, psychological safety, and 4. the perception of the team leader’s leadership style.

In our current operating model, this questionnaire is completed online by the teams, team members every 2 years, and the results are then processed jointly.

The results are used to produce a written feedback report, including the aggregated results of all five participants, which is shared with the USS and the team members. We work with the teams each year, but the focus of the actual training is based on the results of this questionnaire, so each team has a different training content in agreement with the USS. Overall, the teamwork questionnaire scales are able to cover the characteristics of effective teamwork.

At the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, the development of the main control room’s teams is the result of interdisciplinary cooperation. The task of a work and organizational psychologist is to design the questionnaire, record the questionnaire, and then design a training program based on the results. As we have observed, the development training program is more accepted by the teams and results in a greater commitment to development and learning if, in addition to the work psychologist, an expert in the field is involved as a cotrainer. Therefore, another part of the development work for the teams is carried out on the simulator, where a well-considered scenario was selected and videotaped and the co-trainer cuts out scenes that give feedback on the teamwork. The selected scenarios were evaluated with every single team, together with the five team members. We cut out scenes where teamwork was more and more effective than individual professional performance or where, due to the lack of teamwork, individual professional performance was less effective than the performance of a well-functioning team. The aim of the video analysis is to reveal the success criteria (“cornerstones”) of main control room’s teams by identifying and highlighting good examples for the teams to become aware of. We believe that these positive examples will be more conscious and deepened through teamwork.

The scenarios were designed to require the team to perform normal operator tasks in compliance with the applicable procedures. The execution of the tasks does not produce the expected result due to programmed deviations, so based on the information available and shared, teamwork, the application of operator fundamentals and the operational decision-making plays an important role in the detection and management of the deviations.

In the next section, we present the design and structure of the teamwork questionnaire we created, as well as describe simulator exercises and highlight the parts that concerned the evaluation of teamwork.

5.1 Exploring teamwork of the main control room’s crew by questionnaire

At the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, we have created a teamwork questionnaire that specifically explores the characteristics of teamwork in the control room’s teams. The structure of the questionnaire is based on the scales, which are also the cornerstones of the teamwork characteristics that we have developed in advance. The questionnaire provides valid feedback to the team leader and to the team as a whole on the characteristics and features of teamwork. The questionnaire was taken twice with the staff (in 2020 and 2022) and the reliability indicators were developed accordingly and are reported in brackets next to the scales.

5.1.1 “Who am I …”

The first part of the questionnaire is entitled “Who am I?”. It is an introductory questionnaire that measures at an individual level the members’ “psychological capital,” a complex concept [43, 44, 45, 46]. The elements of psychological capital contribute to job performance, psychological well-being, and satisfaction in a mutually reinforcing way. As a psychological resource, it has an impact on the team [47, 48, 49] (Table 2).

Scale’ name (Cronbach Alfa)	Definition of the scale
Self-efficacy (.77)	Self-efficacy is an indicator of how confident and assertive you feel in your work and the team you work in.
Hope (.66)	Resourcefulness indicates how much you trust your own resources when you are stuck in your tasks.
Resilience (0.60)	Resilience indicates how you view your difficulties, perceiving them as temporary.
Optimism (.68)	Positive thinking means “realistic optimist.” It indicates the extent to which you expect a positive, “good” outcome in different situations that are unknown to you.
Autonomy (.64)	Autonomy means autonomy and a sense of empowerment. It indicates the extent to which you feel independent and autonomous in carrying out tasks and making decisions.
Ambition (.86)	Ambition indicates that you are keen to constantly improve your professionalism and strive to be judged well by others.

Table 2.

Scales and definition of scales of “Who am I” questionnaire.

5.1.2 “Towards the goal”

The second part of the questionnaire is called “Towards the goal” because it is about how each team member perceives the team as a whole when they are working on a task. It measures whether the member perceives the cohesiveness of the team while working, how smoothly they can work, and transition from normal work to sudden changes in work, such as a breakdown. The questionnaire also asks to what extent the individual perceives that there is a “common ground” on which they are building and which holds them together when working and helps them to work in a more “energy efficient” mode [10, 50]. The opposite of this is when the member perceives that they are uncoordinated when working and therefore lose energy (Table 3).

Scale’ name (Cronbach Alfa)	Definition of the scale
Positive team functioning (.85)	Indicates the extent to which you, as a team member, perceive that the team has developed habits that help the team to be more efficient and effective in carrying out tasks.
Cohesion (.85)	It indicates the extent to which you as a team member perceive team cohesion and team unity in different task situations.
Tas-awareness (.85)	It indicates the extent to which, as a member of the team, you perceive that you are working as a unit when you are at work.
Adaptability (.85)	It indicates how well you, as a team member, perceive that the team can adapt smoothly to sudden changes in situations without disruption or loss of energy.
Shares mental model (.77)	It indicates the extent to which, as a member of the team, you perceive a “common ground” between the members, a common mindset.

Table 3.

Scales and definition of scales of “Towards the goal” questionnaire.

5.1.3 “Connecting links”

The third part of the questionnaire is called “Connecting Links,” which measures how the team members perceive the relationship between them, and how they perceive the atmosphere in the group, which is very important for their daily mood [35, 51, 52]. The scales of the questionnaire measure how well members perceive a positive, accepting atmosphere in which there is trust between them; how fairly they treat each other, whether they can rely on each other for attention and help; and how committed they are to the team (Table 4).

Scale’ name (Cronbach Alfa)	Definition of the scale
Positive, accepting atmosphere (.95)	It indicates how much you feel accepted and emotionally safe as a member of the team.
Respectful communication (.83)	It indicates how respectfully team members communicate with each other.
Trust (.88)	It shows how much confidence you have as a member of the team in your colleagues’ professional knowledge, skills, and commitment to what they have agreed.
Helpfulness (.77)	It indicates how much you, as a member of the team, feel that your colleagues are looking out for you in a situation where you need help.
Commitment to the team (.85)	It shows how much you like being part of the team.
Commitment to organization (.92)	It indicates how satisfied you are as an employee with the organization and the management’s decisions.

Table 4.

Scales and definition of scales of “connecting links” questionnaire.

5.1.4 “My leader”

The last, fourth part of the questionnaire is entitled “My Leader is the Unit Shift Supervisor,” in which members rate on the basis of the supervisor’s leadership qualities [53, 54, 55, 56, 57]. The scales of the questionnaire measure how the members perceive the USS‘s leadership behavior, how much the supervisor deals with the members, and the members’ individual requests. As a supervisor, it is very important to inspire and encourage people before a task, to monitor the work of the members, to listen to each member of the team, and to set guidelines and standards for them. In addition, the USS also fills in the same questionnaire about himself, only in this case the questions are in the first person singular (Table 5).

Scale’ name (Cronbach Alfa)	Definition of the scale
Leading by example (.91)	It shows how much you, as a team member, consider the professionalism and behavior of your unit shif supervisor in everyday life to be exemplary and worth following.
Individual treatment (.82)	It indicates how much you, as a team member, feel that your unit shift supervisor is interested in following and supporting your work.
Inspiring, motivating (.87)	It indicates how much you, as a team member, feel that your unit shift supervisor involves you and asks for your opinion on issues that he or she knows you are competent in.
Monitoring-Developing (.81)	It is an indicator of how much you, as a team member, feel that your unit supervisor encourages and encourages you with positive feedback to improve and feel successful in your work.
Setting guidelines and norms in the team (.62)	It is an indication of how much you as a team member feel that your unit shift supervisor is striving to set operational guidelines by listening to and involving you in this process.

Table 5.

Scales and definition of scales of “my leader” questionnaire.

5.2 Observation of main control room’s teamwork on the simulator

The name of the simulator scenario, which we recorded on video: Taking the bleeding pump of the turbine low-pressure preheater into operation after overhaul.

In the simulator exercise, the turbine operator crew has to start up the bleeding pump of the low-pressure preheater two of the odd-numbered turbine of a VVER 440 nuclear power plant, and set the nominal pipe connection of the turbine for 100% power. In this exercise, a number of preprogrammed deviations have burdened the work of the staff. These deviations are as follows:

• the manual shut-off valve on the discharge line of the “bleeding” pump has failed (the valve seat is broken off, and the valve has no flow in the open position);

• the shut-off valve on the bypass line on the low-pressure preheater main condensate side is out of order, and cannot be opened;

• and also the level gauge of low-pressure preheater four will fail during the exercise, causing the preheater to close on interlock operation (due to the failed bypass valve, the turbine will lose main condensate water supply to the feedwater tank.)

5.2.1 Observed characteristics of well-functioning teams

5.2.1.1 Task awareness within the team

In case of teams that have developed a functional model that meets the operational requirements, the task in this simulator exercise is first evaluated by the turbine operation are involved in the implementation:

• As the first step, the administrative and technological conditions for taking the bleeding pump into operation are checked;

• The steps of the procedure for taking the “bleeding” pump into operation are reviewed and the sequence of operations is explained to the main control room personnel;

• When describing the steps of taking the pump into operation, the unit shift supervisor (USS) and the reactor operator (ROP) are getting involved in the discussion. During the overview of the specific steps, the USS inquires about the technological risks, while the reactor operator inquires about the expected changes in the primary-secondary interaction;

• As a result of the involvement, the control room peration (CRO) team works as a team to clarify the details of the task implementation, the steps to be taken in case of failure (to reset the cascade pipe connection), the impacts on the reactor and the targets for a successful implementation;

• The safety risk of starting a high-voltage electric motor is assessed by the CRO team before implementation. Here, the USS usually assesses the risk and, based on information from the senior electrician, takes into account the technological consumers that could be lost as a consequence of a failed pump start or electric short circuit protection.

• The USS determines the primary and secondary circuit equilibrium conditions for the degraded state and the reactor power required as a consequence of the expected protection operation; the target secondary circuit steam pressure; the different target power levels required for the turbines and the feedwater pump configuration required for the proper feedwater supply to the steam generators.

5.2.1.2 Task implementation with the initial deviations

Thanks to the preliminary assessment, the control of the technological conditions is fully implemented, the preheater precipitation path is switched over and when the required precipitation level is reached, and the “bleeding” pump is started with continuous communication (information) and peer-check.

The deviation detected as a consequence of the broken gate valve seat on the pipeline is quickly identified and, as the technological risks have been assessed during the prejob briefing, a quick operational decision is made to stop the pump and restore the cascade pipe connection of the precipitation path.

As a consequence of the confirming information received from the operating staff in the field (abnormal flow noise at the manually operated gate valve and hand operation without effort — assumed lost contact between the valve seat and the spindle), the USS makes an operative decision to shut off the low-pressure preheaters 2–3, which is the technological prerequisite for the repair of the broken gate valve.

5.2.1.3 Execute tasks 2–3 low-pressure preheater shutdown with additional faults

To deal with the detected malfunction, a new operational intervention (shutdown of the affected low-pressure preheaters) is required. The task is implemented as shown in the previous observation:

• As a first step, the administrative and technological conditions for the shutdown of the preheaters affected are checked and it is clarified whether or not the missing preheaters result in the turbine power output being subject to limitation;

• The complete review of the technological conditions and the implementation according to operating instructions is carried out by the secondary circuit staff, the CRO staff is informed about the degraded main condensate preheating, the change in the steam demand for the feedwater tank heating, and the consequential need to take steam from the fresh steam line through a reducer instead of turbine bleed;

• The unit shift supervisor will review the steps of implementation with the turbine operation staff, record the sequence of the steps, discuss how the turbine power limitation will be accomplished, and identify the risk that loss of additional preheaters will not permit the continued operation of the turbine.

After the prejob briefing, the reactor and turbine power regulators are adjusted accordingly (ensuring compliance with the limitation), and the heating path for the relevant feedwater tank is set from the main steam system. Subsequently, the turbine operating crew will begin to disconnect preheaters 2–3 according to the instructions. During the disconnection, the programmed fault is activated and preheater 4 becomes disconnected and the main condensate feed to the tank is also stopped due to valve fault on the bypass line at the odd-numbered turbine.

5.2.2 Observed characteristics of malfunctioning teams

5.2.2.1 Task awareness within the team

There are teams where the prejob briefing for the initial task is not complete. The functional area involved in the task prepares for the implementation as their private task. Preparation involving the whole team generally does not take place: the administrative and technological conditions of taking the bleeding pump into operation are not fully controlled, implementation comes with time pressure because there is no communication, and everyone is watching the representatives of the executing unit, so they jump into the implementation relatively quickly.

Dysfunctions:

• The turbine operator misses to ask for the pump to be energized and tries to start it;

• A failed start-up is unexpected for the staff, they are not prepared to deal with the abnormality and therefore try to deal with it on the basis of their individual knowledge.

Safety risks are assessed before the task implementation, but only formally.

Dysfunctions:

• The consumers affected by the failed power supply due to the risk of start-up is communicated by the unit shift supervisor, but no strategy is determined in advance to deal with the resulting abnormal situation;

• The USS does not define target values to help staff manage the deviation;

• The full involvement of staff is achieved during the preparation.

5.2.2.2 Task implementation with the initial deviations

Once the operations have started, the department involved in the implementation reacts to deviations at a constant step lag:

Dysfunctions:

• Sometimes the precipitation path is reset, but the pump started remains in operation for a long time without flow

• The evolving high level causes interlock operations as staff gets into time delay because they are not prepared for unexpected situations.

After the confirming information received from the operating staff in the field (abnormal flow noise at the manually operated gate valve and hand operation without effort — assumed lost contact between the valve seat and the spindle), the staff needs time to assess the situation and review the necessary actions, so the operative decision to disconnect is also delayed compared to that of well-performing teams.

5.2.2.3 Execute tasks 2-3 low-pressure preheater shutdown with additional faults

In order to deal with the detected fault, a new operative action is required (disconnection of the affected low-pressure preheaters). Even if there was some kind of prejob briefing during the previous task, the elevated situation that has developed now makes this preparation more superficial in comparison with the previous observation. The competency area involved in the implementation tends to be left on its own, increasing the pressure to perform.

Dysfunctions:

• They begin to assess the technological conditions while carrying out the technological steps to disconnect the low-pressure preheaters;

• Deviations that occur during implementation are not anticipated by the staff and require additional effort to deal with;

• When the low-pressure preheater 4 is disconnected, it is not always clear that the turbine cannot continue to operate in this way (generally the turbine is tripped due to the failed main condensate supply);

• After the turbine has been tripped, the staff is confronted with the fact that the balance between the main condensate supply to the feedwater tank and the amount of heating steam has been upset, resulting in large feedwater tank level fluctuations that the staff has to deal with;

• The situation and the time lag already evident in these cases has even resulted sometimes in the tripping of feedwater pumps on protection signals.

It is fair to say that in case of such control room operating teams, prejob briefing is observed obviously as a nonconscious activity. The risk assessment is not detailed and generally does not address technological deviations. The staff begins to put together a strategy to deal with the anomalies after their detection, so the use of documentation creates time lag. The transfer of information during task execution is not always straightforward. The feedback on the reception of information is not always provided, much information is lost and misses its purpose. Dealing with the abnormal conditions that develop requires considerably more energy from the staff, and it often depends only on individual performance as to the depth of the abnormalities that evolve from the errors and deviations. Staff activities are often not well coordinated, with mixing executive and managerial roles.

Of course, these cases also provided examples of operator interventions taking place in the right direction throughout the implementation and the handling of events was on track. However, it is clear that this takes much more energy from staff.

The appearance of error risks is significantly more frequent, with more cases of erroneous operator intervention, and sometimes higher parameter oscillations have resulted in the occurrence of protection operations.

6. Conclusions

During the evaluation of the exercises, we made joint observations with the staff on the parts of the event sequence where team performance and teamwork can be more powerful and effective than individual professional performance, or perhaps the lack of teamwork makes individual professional performance less effective than the performance of a properly functioning team.

For those teams where coordinated cooperation and effective leadership can be seen in simulator practice, it is typical that they are aware that in this combination the turbine cannot continue to operate, but the well-discussed process conditions allow for quick recognition: a higher energy heating steam on the feedwater tank, but the feedwater supply from the condenser is not available. As a consequence, while tripping the turbine, there is a sufficient amount of time for the crew to also manage the feedwater supply tank issue. Thus, despite the elevated situation due to the turbine trip, the level of the feedwater tanks remains under control throughout the event. The preheaters will be disconnected and the setting for a new equilibrium between the primary and secondary circuits will remain undisturbed. It can be seen that in these well-functioning teams, the prejob briefing is a conscious activity. The risk assessment is detailed and includes technological deviations. Thanks to their prior preparation, they have ready-made strategies to deal with any anomalies that may occur. Information transfer is consistently relevant and well-managed throughout the execution of the task. There is always feedback on the receipt of information. Team members’ activities are well coordinated.

In contrast, for poorly performing teams, prejob briefing is observed as an unconscious activity. The risk assessment is not detailed and generally does not address technological deviations. The staff begins to put together a strategy to deal with the anomalies after their detection, so the use of documentation creates time lag. The transfer of information during task execution is not always straightforward. The feedback on the reception of information is not always provided, much information is lost and misses its purpose. Dealing with the abnormal conditions that develop requires considerably more energy from the staff, and it often depends only on individual performance as to the depth of the abnormalities that evolve from the errors and deviations. Staff activities are often not well coordinated, with mixing executive and managerial roles. Of course, these cases also provided examples of operator interventions taking place in the right direction throughout the implementation and the handling of events was on track. However, it is clear that this takes much more energy from teams. The appearance of error risks is significantly more frequent, with more cases of erroneous operator intervention, and sometimes higher parameter oscillations have resulted in the occurrence of protection operations.

Overall, we can conclude from the video analysis that the briefing of the USS has a strong influence on the development of the team’s mental model in the team. The more detailed the briefing is, the smoother the team can work together [9, 58, 59].

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the management of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant for supporting our work and for contributing to the publication of this chapter. For their technical assistance, we thank Károly Vigh, Besenczi István, and László Venczel.