Beyond the job

PROJECT: BEING A SCUBA-DIVING INSTRUCTOR

Grant Cooke runs his own scuba-diving training centre – here, he shares the adventure and mystery of his many underwater explorations

In his day job, Grant is a senior people and science project manager at AstraZeneca

Diving is the closest most of us will get to feeling like we are in the weightlessness of space, and that feeling alone is reason enough to head out on a dive. But there is also an infinite amount of underwater treasures to be seen. I have had the pleasure of diving the original HMS Invincible from the 1800s in the morning, and then diving the first-ever submarine in the afternoon. It was an incredibly surreal experience going from wooden decks with original cannons on the seabed to a small submarine that is entirely intact.

I started diving in my final year of university, where after one session in the pool I fell in love with the sport. Little did I know that it would complement my career path of project management, or that my career would be so beneficial and intrinsic to how I operate in the underwater world.

I became a qualified diver in 2014, then progressed to become a technical diver, where time and depth are increased. I went on to become an instructor and started a company called Cobalt Diving, teaching both recreational and technical diving disciplines. Technical diving enables you to dive deep shipwrecks, flooded abandoned mines and flooded cave systems that go on for many kilometres.

Diving has many common attributes with project management. Before starting a dive, detailed preparation and training are key. Like project management, practical and theoretical training are combined with experience to give confidence and competence. Getting in the water involves having an objective, such as exploring a shipwreck, hoping to see certain types of marine life or just to enjoy being in the water. Once the objective has been agreed, we need to understand what tools we need, what kit to take and who we are taking.

One of the best things about diving is choosing the appropriate equipment, as each option has advantages and disadvantages (such as being heavier on the surface but giving a longer time to explore underwater). Choosing equipment is fundamentally an asset management exercise, where I need to bring di erent assets into play for di erent projects. This is directly influenced by processes I have used on transformation projects, such as choosing the correct machinery on a building site to suit the reach lift parameters, or choosing the correct working methodology, like agile and engagement tools such as PESTLE analysis in an internal change programme.

Most equipment will cover most of the jobs, but at the sharp end of both diving and project management, it’s about realising when you need specialist tools for specialist or more risky work.

Precious time underwater

When I began my professional career, the first skills that I began to rely on and continue to develop were communication and engagement. I have spent a lot of time understanding di erent personality types and applying that information to communicate more e ectively. When underwater, we need to be able to communicate e ectively without being able to speak. Using pre-agreed plans with some standardised hand and light signals, we can accurately and quickly

pass information around the team while still moving in a purposeful direction.

Through work, I have developed an ability to read changes in body language, which I use underwater, where vocal tone or facial cues aren’t tools I can use. Furthermore, the ability to lead through ambiguity within project management is directly linked to diving with low visibility or on an unknown shipwreck, for example. Leading people through the unknown takes confidence, openness to changing course and humility when things don’t go as planned.

Why divers need to be agile

Project management has improved my capabilities as a diver. I use stage-gate methodology to portion out the di erent sections of the dive. Using stages allows me to assess where the ‘go’ and ‘no go’ indicators are, such as asset failures, changes in objective due to unforeseen circumstances and underwater issues. I use a risk management mentality to weigh up the challenges ahead and mitigate where possible by changing the tools or plan.

Most of the dives have an agile approach, where the main project management mindset is that the team is everything. A lot of the time, I will only see torch beams behind me. This is identical to trusting a project team when you only have small moments of contact.

Time underwater is as precious as time on a project, if not more, because we have a finite resource of gas on our backs. Having a grasp of time and what stage of the project you’re on is absolutely fundamental to both projects and dives. Leading people through the unknown takes confidence, openness to changing course and humility when things don’t go as planned

The Aeolian Sky wreck

I’ll put these thoughts into context by walking you through a dive I completed in 2020. Diving the Aeolian Sky wreck site out of Weymouth is a regular favourite. The wreck, a Greek cargo ship, is around 32m deep. On this occasion, I was the dive lead for two other divers. As Diver 1, my responsibilities included navigating and controlling timings. Diver 2’s role was to manage the surface marker buoy deployment (which allows us to have a safe, controlled ascent). Diver 3’s role as ‘the rock’ was the most important – to hold the depth for the series of depth stops when ascending. This allows Divers 1 and 2 to manage their roles far more easily, knowing they have a constant stable reference.

To start the dive day, we needed to get to the boat at strict leaving times defined by the tides. We got our individual kit set up and received instructions about when to jump o the boat from the skipper. Descending into the unknown, the wreck appeared out of the blue in all her glory. After coming to a stop hovering over the wreck, I signalled to the team and we started working our way towards our objectives using the planned route around the base of the wreck, moving in and out of the metal structures.

I found some new interesting structures and modified the plan on the go; the team behind me trusted in my decision-making. After seeing several thousand tonnes of metal, including a Land Rover chassis and locomotive items, I signalled the start of our ascent. Diver 2 already had his surface marker ready to launch. At this point, the risk is greatest, and the team must rely on each other to minimise risk and keep the ship steady as we ascend. After several minutes, we surfaced and signalled to the boat to pick us up. We then packed up our kit and headed home, better for the dive and ready to get back into the water with more experience and motivation.

When one of your key risks is running out of air, you know you need to get your project management spot on