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¶ … Caesar salad Well, First You -- Well, You Know Anybody who has ever tried to explain a simple task that she is very familiar with to someone else has most likely found the experience to be a very frustrating one. Being able to do something is not in any way the same as being able to analyze and then describe a task so that another person can understand what is needed to accomplish the same task.

At least as difficult is the task of describing how one does something so that another person can analyze it to determine if the task is being accomplished in the most efficient way. This paper provides a task analysis of a simple job that most people have performed: Making a Caesar salad. However, by breaking it down into its component parts and outlining how cause and effect run through this system, this paper demonstrates that even the simplest-seeming task is a complex series of decisions, actions, and feedback processes.

Before beginning the task analysis of the making of a Caesar salad, this paper provides a brief description of what elements are important to any task analysis. It is important to note that a task analysis includes all elements of how a task is accomplished: This includes mental and cognitive aspects of the task as well as the physical or manual) tasks that are required to initiate and complete a task.

A task analysis also includes a description of all of the equipment needed (including training or education required on the part of the task's actor) as well as any environmental conditions that are required. (For example, can the task be performed both inside and outside? Can it only be performed if the ambient temperature is within a certain range? Can it be performed by both adults and children?) We can now perform a task analysis of the making of a Caesar salad.

The first step in the task of making a Caesar salad is the knowledge that there is such a thing as a Caesar salad that can be made (Kirwan & Ainsworth, 1992, p. 27). The next step is the decision to do so. These steps may seem to be too obvious to include, but a task analysis is in fact many ways a process of acknowledging the obvious.

It is essential to remember when creating a task analysis that simply because something is obvious (especially in retrospect) this does not mean that it is trivial (Crandall, Klein & Hoffman, 2006, p. 81). The second stage of the task -- after the cognitive acknowledgement that such a task is possible and the motivation to accomplish the task -- is gathering the ingredients and tools needed to do so.

The ingredients needed to make a Caesar salad are the following: Romaine lettuce, croutons, and a dressing comprising olive oil, lemon juice, egg, and parmesan cheese. Variations are possible: For example, some people include Worcester sauce in the dressing. Assembling these ingredients can be accomplished in different ways. All of them might already be available wherever the preparation is occurring (in one's own kitchen, in a restaurant, etc.) However, assembling the ingredients might be more complicated.

All of the ingredients might need to be acquired, for example, and they might not all be available at a single location. For example, if an individual uses only cage-free eggs, these might not be available at the first grocery store that an individual goes to. The assembly stage also requires that an individual gather certain tools. These include a bowl to put the salad in, a knife to cut the lettuce leaves, a grater to grate the parmesan cheese, and a blender or food processor to make the dressing.

A kitchen counter (or the equivalent) is also needed, as is a sink for clean-up and a place to refrigerate the dressing if the salad is not to be eaten right away. Salad spoons are also needed to toss the salad as are small bowls and forks to serve the salad in. After the lettuce is chopped and placed into a bowl, the lemon juice and egg are put into the food processor.

As the food processor is on, the salad maker pours the olive oil in very slowly so that the dressing thickens. The cheese is then added to.