This document discusses the importance of situation awareness (SA) for project team members. It defines SA as having three levels: perception of elements in the current situation, comprehension of the current situation, and projection of the future status. Good team SA is achieved by turning individual SAs into shared SA through communication. Teams with strong SA prepare more, focus on comprehending and projecting, and maintain awareness through techniques like questioning assumptions and seeking additional information.

1. Situation Awareness (SA) for
Project Team Members
Bill O’Keefe
United Space Alliance, LLC
william.s.o’keefe@usa-spaceops.com
(713) 725-7036
NASA Project Management Challenge 2007
Feb 6-7, 2007
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2. Is Situation Awareness (SA) Important?
PM SA Skills
?
Shared SA
Individual SA
Project SA
Project Success
Page 1

3. Overview
• Define Individual and Team Situation
Awareness (SA)
• Turn Individual SAs into Team SA
• Good Team SA tools
• Use the “Questioning Look”
+ =
Page 2

4. Definition (from Dr. M. Endsley)
Situation Awareness is the perception of the
elements in the environment within a volume
of time and space, the comprehension of their
meaning and the projection of their status in
the near future
Perception of Compre- Projection
elements in hension of future
current situation of current Status
Level 1 situation Level 3
Level 2
Page 3

5. Situation Awareness Levels
Perception Comprehension Projection
Bottom-Up or Data Driven
Top-Down or Goal Driven
Page 4

6. Role of Goals & Mental Models in SA
Compre-
hension
Projection SA
Perception of of RID
Mental RID Report of open drives
Completion
Model RIDs
Goal
drives
SA
Preliminary
Design
Review (PDR)
Goal drives Mental Model
Page 5

7. Distributed vs Shared SA
Hardware
Design Software
Team Design
SA Team SA
Team
Shared
SA
Project
SE&I Manager
Team SA SA
Page 6

8. Good Teams turn individual SA…
Spear Snake Tree Fan
Wall Rope
Page 7

9. …. into Team SA …
Spear Snake Tree Fan
Rope
Page 8

10. .. which gives context to individual SA
Tusk Trunk Leg Ear
Body Tail
Page 9

11. Why so tough to get good team SA?
• Too little time
• Too many teams
• Constant change
• Complexity
• Stressors
• “Can Do” people
Page 10

12. How does Individual SA become Team SA?
Bottoms-Up Data Driven Communication
HW Team’s
SA
Then magic
happens?
SW Team’s
No, then
SA Shared
good Team
SE&I Team’s Project SA
SA Management
happens !
PM’s
SA
Team Mental
Team Goal
Model
Top-Down Goal Driven Communication
Page 11

13. Low Hanging Fruit
You already made sure that they have
• Enough time
• Well designed tools and products
• Proper environment
• Training
• Mentoring
Page 12

14. Teams w/ good SA do
1. Prepare more
2. Focus more on comprehending and
projecting
Page 13

15. Teams w/ good SA do
3. Pay attention to the actions of others
4. Verbalize decisions and actions
Page 14

16. Teams w/ good SA do
5. Attend to more cues and seek out
more information
6. Plan for distractions/ interruptions
Page 15

17. Teams w/ good SA do
7. “Buy time”
8. Do better risk assessment, especially
as related to their skill
9. Feedback
Page 16

18. Tool for PM to build Team SA?
Maintain (Self/ Team)
(modified from ESSAI)
Situation Awareness
Communicate
Manage tasks/ workload and prioritize
Interact with processes
Prepare & Notice and Comprehend and Project and Think
Review Perceive Interpret Ahead
• Set objectives • Seek informa- • Build picture of • Build picture of
for team tion current situation future situation
• Not too focus- • Pay attention to • Validate picture • Assess whether
ed on one goal subtle changes by checking for picture of future
• Consider human & weak signals contradictory ele- situation conforms
limitations & • Validate info by ments & applying to planning
pitfalls double cross- rules of thumb • Set markers for
• Review own & checking and • Assess whether confirmation
team’s perform- applying rules of picture of current • Plan for contin-
ance in meetings thumb situation conforms gencies
to desired picture
Page 17

19. Window of Opportunity
Spear Snake Tree Fan
We are
looking
at different
Rope
things?
Page 18

20. Best chance to find bad team SA?
This is your
“window of
HW Team’s Opportunity” !
SA
Then magic
happens?
SW Team’s
No, then
SA
good Shared
Project Team SA
SE&I Team’s
SA Management
happens !
PM’s
SA
Team Mental
Team Goal
Model
Page 19

21. Another definition of SA
Seeing how things are really
going despite our expectations
Page 20

22. Is Situation Awareness (SA) Important?
PM SA Skills
?
Shared SA
Individual SA
Project SA
Project Success
Page 21

23. References
• Dr. Mica Endsley/ SA Technologies:
– Theoretical Underpinnings of Situation Awareness: A Critical
Review
– Training for Situation Awareness
– Modeling and Measuring Situation Awareness in the Infantry
Operational Environment
– Presentation to ‘Situation Awareness in Control Centers for Real-
time Operations of Power Systems and Markets’ course
– Designing for Situation Awareness
• S. Banbury & S. Tremblay:
– A Cognitive Approach to Situation Awareness: Theory and
Application
• Albert A. Nofi
– Defining and Measuring Shared Situational Awareness” (CRM
D0002895.A1 Final, dated Nov. 2000)
Page 22

24. Acronyms
• HW Hardware
• PM Project Manager
Project Management
• RID Review Item Disposition
• SA Situation Awareness
• SE&I System Engineering & Integration
• SW Software
• USA United Space Alliance
Page 23