Situation Awareness: The Difference Between the Best and the Rest
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
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By Wanda Curlee
Situation awareness is taught to many professionals, including pilots, firefighters, air traffic controllers and nuclear reactor personnel. This useful skill has been slow to cross over into the business world, however, though it is making strides.
Situation awareness is the ability to know what’s going on in a complex, dynamic environment. This skill is valuable in project management because a practitioner:
· Needs to evaluate multiple goals simultaneously
· Needs to determine the importance of tasks and goals, and not be distracted by the less important ones
· Needs to know that when team members are under stress, negative consequences may occur, resulting in poor outcomes
Let’s look at how situation awareness can affect projects, programs and portfolios.
I was once on a project that was implementing a new technology. The project manager did not know how to evaluate all the tasks that were happening at one time. Poor decisions were made because the practitioner wasn’t aware of which tasks and goals were important and which were distracting.
As the project continued and lessons learned began to be gathered, the project manager started to gain situational awareness and could share this knowledge with others.
At the program level, intra-dependencies and benefits realization are always on the mind of the program manager. He or she must understand the environment within the organization (such as the politics and the needs of strategic stakeholders) and the industry, as well as other external factors.
Knowing who has the power to do (or approve) different things can help you implement a successful program. The program sponsor can help you get the lay of the land. Thoroughly understanding a country’s laws as they relate to the program and knowing the specific standards for your program and industry are part of developing a better situational awareness.
Again, lessons learned and asking questions of subject matter experts can help. As a program manager, you may have to review lessons learned from similar types of projects to give you an understanding of which tasks or goals are most critical, and which may be just a distraction.
Finally, a portfolio manager should help leadership and project/program managers improve their situation awareness. This means the portfolio manager needs to require a review of lessons learned on a quarterly basis and establish metrics (normally tracked monthly) to look for strategic trends.
Here are some questions portfolio managers can ask to improve the organization’s situational awareness:
· Is there a process or procedure hindering advancements of programs or projects?
· Is the tool set correct?
· Are certain projects or programs failing in some industries but blossoming in others?
· Will there be a gap in resources?
· Will there be a gap in resources with the correct skill set?
· Is it time to re-evaluate a technology or product where sales are dwindling?
Most people in project management have some awareness of their situation.
What sets great project leaders apart is they’ve honed their situational skill set.
Posted
by
Wanda Curlee
on: June 02, 2015 03:14 PM |
Permalink
Comments (4)
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Sujith Kattathara
Founder, CEO| FreelanceTeams Private Limited
Ernakulam, Kerala, India
Hi Wanda
I believe that we can use Risk Management to generate a portfolio-wide (or project-wide, as appropriate) view of major risks in the ecosystem - which I believe is essentially what you are bringing out in your article.
I also believe we can use the Risk Heat map, the Enhanced Risk Interaction matrix, and the Risk Interaction Map (the last 2 are artifacts that I have created) in conjunction to generate this 10,000-feet view of major risks.
Templates for Risk Heat Map & Risk Interaction Matrix are readily available. I will be glad to share the templates for the Enhanced Risk Interaction Matrix & the Risk Interaction Map if you would like this.
What do you think ?
Wanda Curlee
Dr. Wanda Curlee| PMI
Ferguson, NC, United States
Hello Sujith - I do agree that risk management is definitely a tool that project, program or portfolio managers should use. This is just one of the toolsets that helps the project management professional keep track of situational awareness. Risk management doesn't allow for gut feel based on previous experience. I don't advocate reacting out of gut feel but having the wisdom of similar experiences and the toolsets offered by the discipline definitely helps make for better decision making.
Risk management doesn''t allow for gut feel based on previous experience? Wow!
Risk management starts with gut feel based on previous experience. These are the estimates made the first time a risk is contemplated.
If an organization is mature in their risk management practices, they will monitor each risk and measure its frequency and impact. This information becomes an organizational asset of great worth in the future. Where is where we all operate.
Risk management is also the front end of lessons learned. If the first time you experience every negative event is a surprise (aka ''problem'') then the risk management is inadequate. Run project and program FMEAs to elicit what will be in your future. Use your gut and your brain. Don''t let your situation awareness be an accident. Go out and get it!
Wanda Curlee
Dr. Wanda Curlee| PMI
Ferguson, NC, United States
Hello Richard - I agree totally with your last comment "Don't let your situation awareness be an accident." Each project, program or portfolio gives us the opportunity to expand our knowledge, understanding of events and a better degree of predicting the future.
Risk management does allow for gut feel, my comment should have been expanded that risk management should not only be based on gut feel. Even a state of the art futuristic R&D program's risks may have gut feel risks. However, they must be backed with subject matter expert advise, a review similar type of risks on other R&D experiences, etc. in order to manage the risk. The unknown, unknowns will still be there but hopefully as a person's situation awareness becomes more sophisticated the project professional will be able to foresee unknown unknowns before they blindside the project team and create a major issue.
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