How to have the best engineering team (Global or not)

Or, Three Steps to Shared Situational Awareness

When you don't have shared situational awareness, your engineering team will have diverging ideas, and they will not be happy

​You’ve likely seen this in action: people arguing about who was responsible for what, conflicting versions of the same plan, parts that don’t fit together, or teams who only discover they’re on different timelines after it’s too late. The best outcome when things like this happens is that you end up behind schedule. The worst thing is that the engineering goal is never achieved – or only partially achieved after blowing out the budget and the schedule.
This happens when engineering teams do not have shared situational awareness. Situational awareness is one of the core attributes of any successful team. And if you don’t have it, then, no matter how skilled the engineers in the team are, they will not be succeed.
This issue of lacking shared situational awareness is even more prevalent when you are members of your team are from different backgrounds. This is because each member will contextualise differently based on their background.
Therefore, as a global engineer, it is vital that you know how to create shared situational awareness.
Here are three simple but powerful ways engineers and engineering teams can build and maintain shared situational awareness – whether you’re working on software, spacecraft, or subways.

1. Get in the Same Room
It sounds simple, because it is. The first and most powerful step is to get everyone physically in the same location. In the Agile Manifesto, one of the key principles is: "The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation."
This idea has roots far older than Agile. In the Toyota Production System, it was formalized as Obeya (literally "big room"). The Obeya is a space where all the key stakeholders on a project – engineers, managers, planners – work together in close proximity. The room is visual, physical, and intentional. Everyone can see what’s happening. Everyone hears what’s being decided. No one is out of the loop.
Whether you set up a formal Obeya or simply commit to spending regular time together in the same place, you’ll notice an almost immediate increase in coordination, clarity, and energy. This will come from people talking to each other about what they are doing, and incidentally identifying differences in understanding to be corrected.

2. Use a Document of Absolute Truth
This isn’t some mythical or complicated concept – it’s a simple principle: everyone knows that no work is considered done until it’s recorded in one place.
This document – or digital repository – becomes the single source of truth for the team. It might be a master CAD model, a shared file tree, a wiki, or a visual project board. What matters is that everyone knows where it is, how to use it, and what it means.
When everyone refers to the same source, two things happen:

• Everyone has the same understanding of what the project needs to achieve.
• Everyone can see how their work affects, and is affected by, others.

These two things together make a core of shared situational awareness.

3. Schedule Regular Updates
Even with a shared room and a document of absolute truth, teams can still drift. People get absorbed in their own tasks. Decisions then get made in isolation. Then, eventually, you have conflicts within the team.
That’s why you need structured, regular updates. These aren’t just check-ins for the sake of it. They’re touchpoints that give everyone:

• A consistent, shared message
• A chance to ask clarifying questions
• A reset button on assumptions

It’s not enough to assume shared awareness will persist once achieved. It must be maintained. And that’s what the updates are for.

Final Thought: do you already do this or do you need it
Think now if you are someone who needs to put extra effort into ensuring shared situational awareness. Or maybe even needs someone else to do that for you because you always charge off working on your own tasks without thinking about others. Talk to my AI engineering coach Ingeny if you would like some ideas on how to deal with this.
Also, think about “documents of absolute truth” that you have come across. You might not have realised it at the time, but thinking back now, you can understand how they kept everyone on the same page. If you think of one, then share it in the comments – I like learning about techniques that people use.