Situational dynamics

An introduction

Though less obvious than in a physical or electronic book - with its helpful and persistent table of contents up the front - I am organising my initial posts in this Substack into chapters, or at least into themes containing related content. At present, I have eight of them in mind, of which this is the second (the first being “calmness”, which you can read online). But I expect more themes will evolve over time as I further reflect on my experience and the ideas I have sketched to-date.

Okay, so: in my next series of related posts, I’m going to talk about what I call “situational dynamics”. It kind of sounds both vaguely familiar and also a little obscure - so what do I mean by it?

It’s about knowing where you are in a project, as informed by the internal and surrounding factors, to better enable critical decision-making.

A simple but powerful idea containing many interesting and instructive elements.

My aviation analogies are roaring back - hopefully soon like the industry itself! - and situational dynamics borrows from the pilot’s continuous imperative of situational awareness: always know where you are relative to what’s happening around you. And I acknowledge and thank my friend, Captain (ret.) Richard de Crespigny AM, for his insight into that topic.

Interestingly, situational awareness is perceptive. In the context of flying an aeroplane, this means that what a pilot thinks is happening may not always be what is actually happening. A significant proportion of - sadly, usually catastrophic - accidents involving pilot error are caused by the loss of situational awareness due to factors like bad weather, incongruence of information (most commonly, between cockpit instruments and what the pilot senses) and distraction or fatigue. Such loss can arise suddenly or, more often, progressively - remaining dangerously unnoticed meantime.

In business - and, in particular, the management of projects in industries such as financial services and technology - lives are not usually at stake, at least not immediately. In other industries, such as utilities or health-care, they could be. Situational dynamics are also largely perceptive but are also grounded in the rules of business and projects. This is the “dynamics” part of my thesis and refers to the ever-present and intriguing factors in a corporate environment, and to a project existing within one. And, yes: I also mean to imply that these dynamics are interrelated, and that you can influence them.

To the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2007):

dynamics dʌɪˈnamɪks  noun, plural

(among the listed definitions)

1. The motive forces, physical or moral, in any sphere; the dynamic properties of a system.

For me, again regarding business and projects, the inclusion of “moral” in the definition is an attention-getter, as is the reference to a “system” - more on those facets will follow subsequently here.

Accordingly (yes, I’m a former marketer…), in this theme I’m going to further explore the idea of situational dynamics in project management. Amongst other elements, I will discuss:

• the power of common goals

• absolute vs. relative progress

• the project management triangle

• points of reference, and

• dependencies.

And, at the considerable risk of peaking too early, in an upcoming post I’m also going to share my single best aviation analogy – even better than the oxygen mask one – which serendipitously happened to me in real-life and which I’ve never forgotten.

Situational dynamics. I use and benefit from this thinking every day in my work - and I believe you likely can too.

APW.