How observing saves lives (and projects)

Every February, I head down to the Swiss town of Davos for a couple of weeks.

It’s not to teach the World Economic Forum about project leadership.

No, it’s a few weeks later, and it doesn’t involve champagne, caviar, or private jets.

I go down to Davos to teach avalanche safety & rescue courses for a non-profit organization.

You might be wondering what avalanches have in common with project leadership, right?

Well… let me explain.

It’s more than you might think. They both deal with planning, evaluation, and execution. There are people involved who do unexpected things. And both deal with a significant amount of uncertainty and risk.

You see, one of the core frameworks we teach is called the 3×3 Matrix for decision-making. It looks something like this:

The idea is over 30 years old and comes from “the pope of avalanche safety” Werner Munter. (For the climbers amongst us, the same guy who invented the Munter hitch.)

Anyway, his matrix is based on the fact that you can’t afford to make big decisions. That’s too risky. Instead, Munter says, you have to make many small ones along the way.

This is why one of my colleagues in Switzerland always says “Freeriding is observing”.

Munter’s matrix lets you make decisions in 3 areas, and done at 3 different moments. You first make a plan for the day, and you evaluate the human factor, the conditions, and the terrain.

Things like group size, physical condition, and materials for example - you can figure this out in advance. The same goes for conditions: what does the weather forecast say? And finally, the terrain. Where are you going? What kind of aspects, altitude, steepness, etc can you expect?

On the ski day itself, as you move from your Alpine chalet into the mountains, is when the fun starts. You start observing. You’re constantly looking for clues, information, hints, and evidence that either confirm that your plan was a great idea, or that you might have to re-evaluate.

That Ironman friend who’s breathing heavily after 10 minutes? Noted. People putting on an extra wind shell while the forecast said blue skies? Check. All of that is new information that might point at an earlier assumption being wrong.

The third row of the matrix does the same, but now once you’re in the run itself. Just before that steepest section, evaluate yet again.

Is this still a great idea?

By making 9 clusters of decisions, and re-evaluating your plan and assumptions as you gain more detailed information, you drastically lower the impact of one wrong call.

And that’s where this ties into leading a project.

The thing is, I’m sure you’re already planning your project before you start. And in that plan is uncertainty - you make assumptions about certain things.

As you start executing, you get new information. You learn about the details, and the uncertainty decreases.

But most project managers take this information for granted. They don’t act on it.

Don’t be like most project managers.

Instead, block 30 minutes on your calendar every week. Grab your plan, sit back, and think: what did I observe this week? What happened, what did we learn?

Like Munter’s matrix, you can think of different categories too. People, documentation, and deliveries for example.

What did you pick up in that meeting? Which integration is taking weeks instead of days?

Take your observations and ask yourself: what does this say about my initial plan? Does it confirm our earlier ideas, or does it show that some of it is no longer feasible?

And as a result of that, do you continue, adjust, or abort?

You see, leading a successful project is all about identifying issues and mitigating them before they blow up your project.

So observe. Learn to see the clues.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it - which is when this becomes fun.

You’ll be able to make dozens of these evaluations on the fly. And as a result of that, you’ll get 1% better every day.

Talk soon,
Jasper