On Team Decision Problems With Nonclassical Information Structures

In this article, we consider sequential dynamic team decision problems with nonclassical information structures. First, we address the problem from the point of view of a “manager” who seeks to derive the optimal strategy of the team in a centralized process. We derive structural results that yield an information state for the team, which does not depend on the control strategy, and thus, it can lead to a dynamic programming decomposition where the optimization problem is over the space of the team’s decisions. We, then, derive structural results for each team member that yield an information state which does not depend on their control strategy, and thus, it can lead to a dynamic programming decomposition where the optimization problem for each team member is over the space of their decisions. Finally, we show that the solution of each team member is the same as the one derived by the manager. We present an illustrative example of a dynamic team with a delayed sharing information structure.