PS-COO-136 · r3
COORDINATION
OBSERVED
ENGAGED · ONGOING
SHARED STATE DIVERGENCE
Both are looking at it. Neither is looking at the same one.
01 DEFINITION
Condition in which two parties each hold their own copy of one situation and each copy is kept current on its own terms, so the distance between them opens without either side holding anything that would show it.
02 CONDITIONS
UNCERTAINTY
CONFLICTING
Two accounts exist, both maintained in good faith, and they do not agree.
TIME PRESSURE
MODERATE
The divergence accumulates rather than arrives; there is time and no occasion to look.
ERROR ASYMMETRY
ASYMMETRIC
Acting on the stale copy and withholding action pending comparison cost different things.
OPERATOR STATE
SUPERVISORY
The person is answerable for something they are seeing only through a copy of it.
03 WHERE IT APPEARS
MEDICALA record held at the bedside and one held centrally are updated by different people on different occasions.
LOGISTICSA depot's account of a consignment and the network's account are each maintained locally and compared late.
ENERGYA field crew's picture of a network and the control room's picture are both current and not the same.
CONSTRUCTIONDrawings held on site and drawings held in the office diverge revision by revision.
MANUFACTURINGA line's own record of a batch and the planning system's record drift apart across a shift.
PUBLIC SERVICETwo agencies each maintain their own version of one case and neither holds the other's.
04 WHAT AEON WORKED THROUGH HERE
One side held a picture and the elements it was answerable for held another, and the gap opened whenever the link did not. Neither side was wrong about its own picture, which is why nobody looked for the gap. The work went into what each side is told about the other's copy, so that the divergence was part of the account rather than something found when the two were finally compared.
What stays unresolved is how a copy conveys its own age — a version marked with when it was last true invites people to work from stale material knowingly, and one left unmarked is worked from as though it were now.