Signal Over Noise: Why Business Situational Awareness™ is the Framework for Every Decision

In high-stakes environments like the battlefield, the cockpit, or even the emergency room, Situational Awareness is the difference between reaction and control. It's not just about seeing what's happening; it's about understanding it in real-time, anticipating what comes next, and acting precisely.

This same principle often applies invisibly to businesses, especially in startups. Most startup decisions get made in self-created silos, and strategies shaped by gut feeling or outdated metrics leave leaders to react to symptoms instead of interpreting the correct signals. Business Situational Awareness™ (BSA) overcomes this dynamically and proactively.

The Core Pillars of Situational Awareness

Perform a search on Situational Awareness, and you will find a treasure trove of information - from battlefield readiness to human factors design. And, like any great system, you'll also find variations in how it's taught and implemented, and you can quickly become overwhelmed. By understanding these five key points, you'll have an excellent grasp of what it is:

1 - Dynamic Awareness: Situational Awareness isn't a one-time check; it's something you maintain over time. You must pause, check your info, and adjust your thinking when things are unexpected. It's about regularly comparing what you thought would happen with what's happening.

2 - Perception: This is how we gather information, often through our human senses. In business, we rely on tools and dashboards in complex environments to help us see what's happening, rather than observing it directly.

3 - Understanding: Here, we connect the dots. We use what we see and hear, plus our experience and knowledge, to build a clear picture of the situation. This mental model helps us make sense of things and guides our decisions.

4 - Prediction and Projection: This is where we look ahead based on what we know now and what's likely to happen next. It's about updating our thinking and planning for what's to come, while knowing which signals to ignore.

5 - Risks: Awareness also means recognizing current and future risks and considering what could go wrong. It's about staying alert, not just for what's happening now but also for what might be around the corner.

With a basic understanding of business, you can easily map how Situational Awareness fits every business situation.

My introduction and life lesson on Situational Awareness

While at IBM, I was a Deal Coach, working on "mega" deals greater than $100 million in total contract value. It took a vast team of experts across multiple domains, significant investment, and several months of grueling work to win (or lose) these contracts. The only pursuit in my career that I both won and lost simultaneously was for the Army's Distributed Common Ground Systems (DCGS-A). DCGS-A ultimately was about finding the bad guys and saving lives, and Situational Awareness is how you do both.

Almost every defense supplier that sells to the federal government will proclaim they "improve" Situational Awareness with their solutions, proving it is one thing, and its overuse can create exhaustion. In 2016, when the Army solicited the next increment of DCSGs, the underlying requirement was to improve Situational Awareness. The major players lined up to bid - IBM, Palantir, and Raytheon, among others - and after several months and one of the most exhaustive bid responses in my career, IBM and its partners won the bid. I was thrilled for the IBM Army team because they deserved it. Our solution was "Agentic AI" years before the term was even created.

As they say, "all is not fair in love and war." The same can be said when dealing with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) agency. Palantir, which competed in an open process, submitted their bid and presented their solution, but ultimately lost, decided to sue the federal government on the grounds that the Army didn't have the right to send the increment to bid. They won their case, and everyone else lost, including the Army. The FAR is not fair, either.

This outcome is where Business Situational Awareness (BSA) was born. If I had applied BSA at the beginning of the pursuit, these risks would have surfaced early, and our direction and outcome would have been very different.   

Why Signal Matters More Than Ever

Startups and modern businesses are awash in noise. Tools give us more data but less clarity, and dashboards surface metrics without meaning. Internal teams often chase symptoms rather than sources. This is where the concept of signal becomes critical.

In BSA, a signal refers to the underlying dynamics that drive or impede results. It could be a misaligned growth plan, inefficient capital deployment, a tech investment that's not producing a return on investment (ROI), or a people or process breakdown that's hidden by good top-line performance.

Signal is the actionable truth beneath the data. Noise is everything else.

Connect with us at https://foundershaven.consulting to learn more about Business Situational Awareness™ and how to apply it to your business, organization, or project.