Situational Awareness: A Key Tool For A Project Manager

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Sep 13

Situational Awareness: A Key Tool For A Project Manager

Source - Article by Bob Andrew

As project managers we all know how difficult it is to get things done or to get things done properly. Lack of time is often the excuse given to us. Often, however, our team seems not to know what to do or not even to know what the problem is and what has to be achieved. A person’s ‘situational awareness’, that is, the level of understanding of things happening around them, can affect the completion of a task, especially if the task is complex and dynamic.

Situational awareness is about knowing whats going on so that we can figure out what to do. Situational awareness is a key human performance factor in high risk situations that require critical decision making, such as aviation, air traffic control, surgery, emergency response, strategic business affairs and military combat. In these areas, finely tuned and reliable situational awareness is essential.

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Situational awareness is also just as critical in many project management activities. If our team does not have the right knowledge to do a task, or they don’t know how to use the knowledge they do have to integrate it into a coherent picture of the whole project, they will not complete the individual tasks properly. In essence, it is their knowledge of the project environment that dictates how well they will perform individual project tasks.

Poor situational awareness of a team can cause a great deal of confusion that will undoubtedly limit performance-nobody knows what’s the right thing to do. In these situations, there will be ambiguity and argument, improper procedures will be used, things will be left ‘up in the air’ and targets will not be met. What is often most damaging in these situations is that the confusion leads people to become fixated or preoccupied on one specific thing, thinking that at least there’s one or two things they can do, and thereby are unable to appreciate the bigger picture, which is required to complete the task successfully.

Situational awareness can be enhanced by using a systems thinking approach in which the task is viewed as a system with objectives the first thing to be determined and then the relationships and dependencies between the elements (sub-tasks) of the system are defined. For example, airline pilots need to focus first on where they are going to land before they can decide how they are going to arrive. Even when in the air, pilots need to continually visualise their landing while at the same time be aware of their current position and how the aircraft is working. They commonly call this ‘flying ahead of the plane’.

In the same as way as pilots fly their aircrafts, project managers need to understand that effective control mechanisms can be only be confidently implemented if the all the interrelationships between their people and the various tasks are clear and to be able to visualize and communicate the project deliverable. People need to see that their individual achievements and those of the group are controlled by their actions. If their actions do not take into account the dynamics and interrelatedness of the system the results will be different to their expectations.

Determining the knowledge the team will need is often an obstacle since the knowledge we think they might need might not be as critical as the knowledge we don’t know they need. Only by realistically understanding the task at hand and understanding the complexity of the project environment will a project manager be able to determine the team’s requirements.

Situational awareness is keeping track on what’s going on around you. Situational awareness and sensemaking are closely related. Situational awareness helps us make sense of ambiguous and complex problems. There must be a motivated and continuous effort to understand connections, among people, places and events so that we can anticipate and know how to act effectively. Of prime importance is knowing how your job as the project manager and those of your team members contribute to the accomplishment of the project’s objectives.

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