Capability-Based Blueprinting: Lessons Learned in Scaling Community-Based Health and Performance Needs Assessments

Area of Science:

• Military health and performance
• Occupational health
• Human factors engineering

Background:

• Enhancing unit-mission effectiveness is a key military challenge.
• Identifying context-specific health and performance needs is the first step.
• Capability-based blueprinting (CBB) offers a bottom-up approach to address these needs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if CBB insights are transferable across installations for the same career field.
• To assess the actionability of CBB for health and performance personnel and leadership.
• To understand the link between career-field requirements and health/performance considerations.

Main Methods:

• Capability-based blueprinting (CBB) was conducted with Weapons Armament System communities at three installations.
• Data collection focused on career-field requirements, working environments, and health/performance considerations.
• Analysis aimed to identify transferable knowledge and site-specific factors.

Main Results:

• Findings linked career-field tasks, environments, and health/performance needs.
• Some knowledge regarding physical, ergonomic, and nutritional demands was transferable across installations.
• Team dynamics and organizational climate were identified as site- and time-specific factors.

Conclusions:

• Understanding career-field critical tasks at one installation provides some transferable health and performance knowledge.
• Site-specific factors like team dynamics and organizational climate necessitate localized exploration.
• Interactions between health and performance domains significantly impact overall readiness.