One of the principles of leading under pressure or leading in crisis is to take a big problem and break it down to smaller problems. Then you and your team can focus on working on each smaller problem until you solve the big problem.

One way to help you think about breaking big problems into smaller problems is the idea of a conditions or Go/No Go Check. A conditions check, is part of every Army air assault (helicopter) or airborne (parachute) operation and is part of NASA’s space launches. A Go/No Go Check, whether for an air assault in Afghanistan or the Apollo program, happens when a leader queries other leaders for the operational and readiness status of their portion of the bigger operation. It is a scheduled check and one that happens hours or days before the big event. For instance, several hours before launching an air assault, all systems had to be a “GO” before I would authorize it.

Here is part of our air assault Go/No Go Check from a mission in Afghanistan. Air assaults are complex missions with lots of moving parts. Each of these elements in the Go/No Go Check was answered by a different person, who owned that part of the mission:

• Weather — Go

• Intelligence (in this case was the predator overhead?) — Go

• CH-47 or Lift Helicopters — Go

• AH-64s or Attack Helicopters — Go

• Battlehard Company or the Ground Force — Go

• Afghan Army and Police — Go

• Fires (in this case artillery and USAF aircraft?) — Go

• Sustainment — Go

• MEDEVAC Assets On Stand-By — Go

• Media Plan — Go

Since all the elements were a Go, we launched the mission.

How does this apply in a corporate setting? Let’s use the Garmin ransomware attack from post #40 (https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/crisis-communication ) as a hypothetical example. As Garmin was trying to bring their systems back online after their attack, their conditions check on Monday, July 27 might have looked like:

• Garmin Connect — Go

• Garmin Express — Go

• flyGarmin — Go

• ConnectIQ — Go

• Garmin Health — Go

• Sensors — Go

• Legal — Go

• Social Media — No Go

• Press Release — Go

• Employee Communications — Go

• Executive Team — Go

• Board of Directors — Go

Since social media was a No Go, Garmin might have paused bringing their systems back up until the tweet was ready for Twitter or the Facebook post was ready. Once all the conditions were a Go, Garmin could begin bringing their systems back online.

The Go/No Go Check is a great way to break a complex problem down into pieces and make sure everything is in-place prior to execution.