Inquiry Wells — Situational Awareness
Questions are organized across fields representing different dimensions of situational awareness.
The questions tend to organize themselves once the pattern starts to become visible.
Movement through the wells may occur in any direction as observation develops.
These inquiries emerge from conditions already visible within workplace cognition rather than from isolated interpretation.
Conditions
What surrounds the situation
Situation Recognition
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What is happening in this situation?
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What assumptions am I making about what is occurring?
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What information is visible?
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What might remain unseen?
Structural Conditions
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What structural conditions might be shaping this situation?
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What pressures might be influencing behavior?
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What incentives might be present?
Constraints
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What constraints are visible?
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What constraints might remain hidden?
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How might those constraints influence decisions?
Time
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How might this situation look different over time?
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What might change?
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What might remain stable?
Actors
How people interpret and respond
Perspective
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What perspectives might differ from my own?
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How might someone else experience this situation?
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What might they see that I do not?
Communication
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What signals are being communicated?
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What messages are explicit?
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What messages are implicit?
Emotional Signals
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What emotions are present?
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What might those emotions be signaling?
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How might they influence interpretation?
Responsibility
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Where does responsibility appear to sit?
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Is responsibility clearly located?
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Where might responsibility be circulating?
Dynamics
How the situation evolves
Coordination
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How are people coordinating within this situation?
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Where does coordination appear stable?
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Where might coordination be strained?
Possibility
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What possibilities exist that have not yet been considered?
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What options might be overlooked?
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What alternatives might exist?
Interpretation
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How am I interpreting what I observe?
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What other interpretations might exist?
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What interpretation feels most certain?
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Why?
Reflection
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What has become clearer through these questions?
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What assumptions remain?
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What still feels uncertain?
Inquiry expands observation.
It does not determine conclusions.
This method provides the structural approach through which these inquiries are held.