Method

Glossary

The words of the method, with their definitions.

A

absence rule: An absence is coded only when the material states it.
access mode: How the object is accessible: anchored in the material or reconstructed.
active temporal condition: Persistent state or condition with an operational effect on what follows. It enters the chart when it starts to bear on the activity.
activity: What unfolds over an interval: a continuous activity or a coherent set of behaviours, qualified by one or more competencies. A process bar.
ahead of the aircraft, behind the aircraft: Ahead: acting now on what is coming. Behind: spending most resources on what has already happened.
aircraft bubble, environment bubble: The two horizons of the Control Index: what the pilot does with the machine, and with the world around it.
aircraft state: Stratum 5, at the centre of the chart: speed, path, track, energy, configuration, modes.
analysis reading, discovery reading: At time T, the analysis reading shows everything retained; the discovery reading shows only what the crew had.
analytical status: What the material allows one to assert, on a single six-level scale.
anticipatory action: Ordinary action taken ahead of need, within the useful window, as a pilot would recognise it. Distinct from a premature action, which is a deviation.
attentional tunnelingproposed: Explanatory mechanism, neither a modulator nor a reading. Its trace is the Control Index loop break.
available, called-upon, instantiated competency: Three moments of a competency: available, called upon by the situation, instantiated in the sequence (on time, late, not demonstrated).
axis marker: Stop, flight phase or tipping point placed on the time axis, never in the strata.

B

backward reading: Retrospective reading going back from an event to what preceded it. Not the upward flow of information.
bar: Shape of what lasts ("while"): activity, condition, retained internal phenomenon. Its length is the retained extent, never an intensity, severity or competency level.
bar sectionproposed: Part of a bar delimited by a cut, with its own valence.
barrier (systemic countermeasure): System defence that exists before the crew acts: alert, procedure, checklist, automatic protection. The systemic countermeasure. Expected only when a text requires it.
borrowed reading: Declared reading taken from the literature.
bound precision: Precision of a start, end or instant, five values. "Order only" applies to the bound, not the axis.

C

case: Finished product of the analysis. The case produced by the engine is the reference data format.
case-specific relation: Proposed change between two objects of a case, with predicate, modified dimension, source and status. Lives in the record.
change arrow: ↑ or ↓ in the label after a cut: an established increase or decrease. Says neither level nor contribution.
channel level: Level of the processing channel; the stratum is the matching band on the chart.
chart: The rendered timeline: analysis chart or teaching chart.
chevron: Bar-edge mark whose count carries the meaning: "continues beyond what the material establishes" or "end set by rule". Measures no duration.
coding: The foundation of the case: what happened, when, who knew, with what status. Frozen once validated.
coding matrix: Coding deliverable: all objects, nominal included, and all relations.
cognitive stageproposed: Perceive, comprehend, project, decide (after Endsley): stages an operational task may have to go through.
competency: General dimension of performance, mobilising knowledge, skills and attitudes. PHASE uses the nine EBT/CBTA competencies.
competency × flight-phase matrix: On-demand table: for each competency and flight phase, observed compliant, presumed compliant or undetermined.
complement principle: In a flight phase covered by the investigation, what is not reported is presumed compliant. A documentary, revisable presumption.
composite level: Control Index level of a segment: that of the shorter bubble. Not an average.
constitutive link: Transition of the general loop frame. Never a case-specific claim.
contrasted pair: Two timelines with the same time axis and threats, differing only by the crew.
Control Index: PHASE's own reading, experimental and formative: a qualitative marker of temporal control, placed by segment (levels I to IV or not determinable). It qualifies a sequence, never a person.
control layer (ECOM: tracking, regulating, monitoring, targeting)proposed: One of the four ECOM layers framing the Control Index levels. They give the depth of control, not what it applies to.
correcting, supervising: Two roles within one loop. A correcting loop reminds its holder; a supervising loop reminds no one.
counterfactual test: Criterion for an established relation: without a, would b have occurred?
countermeasure: What manages a threat, error or undesired state: crew countermeasure (competencies at work) or systemic countermeasure (barrier).
cursor: Vertical cut at a chosen instant, gathering active objects in stratum order. Still, it gives the state; moving, the upward flow.
custom value: Off-list value, allowed because the tool is pedagogical. Always flagged, never confused with a list value.
cut: Break in a bar: change in contribution or magnitude, crew becoming aware, or lightening of an activity.

D

dashed outline (not known to the crew): Mark meaning "not known to the crew". Strata 5 to 10 only. Knowledge of existence, not of significance.
declared reading: Model applied to the validated coding for a given question, with its status. It sheds light without proving.
Deliverable 0: Register of the analyst's positions on the narrative, written before any processing, in rigorous mode.
delta: Shape recording that an action or inaction did not match what was expected. The only shape of the Error stratum.
deviation: Departure from a procedure, profile, rule, flight path or operational expectation.
diamond: Shape of what occurs at an instant, without duration ("at the moment when").
documentary status: Provenance of a fact, nine values.
dynamic complexity: Difficulty arising from how things behave over time, not from their number.
dynamic situation: Situation that evolves partly independently of the operator.

E

effect on safety marginsproposed: Qualification of the effect on safety margins. Two scales coexist; arbitration pending.
emergent state: Collective property developed through team interactions. Reserved term.
end profile: How a bar ends: bounded, rule-closed, or open. Read from the bound fields.
engine: Case production prompt serving both modes. Its output is the reference data format.
entry into level III: Marker at the first available signal not taken up.
error: Situated action or inaction judged inadequate. Its finding is a delta in the Error stratum.
Evidence-Based Training / Competency-Based Training and Assessment: PHASE's main framework for crew performance: competencies and observable behaviours.
expected level: Normal Control Index level for a phase: I in cruise, II on approach.
extent (of an object)proposed: Interval during which an object is retained as active. Carried by bar length and end profile.

F

feedback: Information or condition produced by a new state, feeding the next iteration.
felt time pressureproposed: Internal modulator, codable only if verbalised or declared.
flight path regime: Situation datum: stabilised, imminent change, large change in progress.
flight phase: Procedural division of the flight; unit of the complement principle. A narrative window is not a flight phase.
framework coverage: Axis stating whether the framework used has a category for the object. Independent of analytical status.

G

gate: Human decision point in rigorous mode, which receives a gate status.
gate statusproposed: Human decision recorded at a gate in rigorous mode.
granularity rule: Never cut finer than the material.

I

implicit nominal: Normal functioning is not drawn; it stays in the case.
input-processing-output frame (IPO)proposed: General reading frame. Only the specific content of a feedback or reinjection must be supported by the material.
internal modulator: Internal condition that may affect how competencies are mobilised. It reduces capacity; it does not add workload. Never a diagnosis.
iteration: One full pass through the input-processing-output frame.

K

knowledge gap: Knowledge the crew lacks when it is needed; a KNO object. Distinct from a lack of information.
KSA — Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes: Layer used to build remediation: observables establish the finding, KSAs build the training response. A KSA is not graded.

L

label: Short operational text of the object, without judgement. Its style tells whether the status is "established".
level of evidence: What an assignment rests on: direct trace, documented inference, not determinable.
light mode, rigorous mode: Two processes for the same case: one pass with proposed statuses, or human decision points with recorded validation.
load shedding: Observable lightening of activity, coded against the crew's own earlier activity, never against a norm.
loop break: Activity function with no observable output between two coded instants. Replaces any internal-state vocabulary.

M

margin: Resource available to keep or restore control.
multi-axial coding: Qualification of an object along independent axes. It is summarised, never added up.

N

narrative: Input material of the engine.
narrative windowproposed: Chapter of the narrative (PH-01…), set by the analyst to work through and tell the material, and for nothing else. Used alone, "window" has this meaning.
neutralised material: Narrative dissolved into time-placed objects, without conclusion or evaluation.
new input: Output of one iteration becoming the input of a later one.
not applicable: Not required in the sequence. In data, a field without object is absent.
not determinable: A relevant question, examined, that the material does not allow to settle. A legitimate result.
not documented: Question that cannot be examined for lack of material.
number of attempts: Number of times the loop had to be re-entered before the deviation closed.

O

object: A fact of the case, placed in a stratum and in time.
observable behaviour (OB): Unit manifestation used to assess a competency. 73 numbered observables; order: observable, then competency, then effect.
observable grading: How an observable behaviour was demonstrated, on a seven-value scale.
occurs, learns: When something occurs differs from when the crew learns of it.
operational task: aviate, navigate, communicate, manageproposed: One of the four pilot tasks in priority order. Not a stratum, competency or control layer.
outcome: Terminal result of an event.
outside the framework: Object no category of the named framework can host without forcing. Kept visible, never reclassified by proximity.

P

performance: Situated expression of competencies. Competency is not performance.
PHASE — Performance and Human Activity in a Sociotechnical Environment: Reading framework and visual tool devoted to the temporal dynamics of flight situations.
piloting loopproposed: Path of a piece of information from the situation to the crew's response, then to the resulting aircraft state, which becomes the next input. A reading of object positions, not an object. Used alone, "loop" has this meaning.
place in time before processing: Working rule: place facts in time before classifying or explaining them.
plain-language account: Text in pilot language saying what the timeline shows, and nothing more.
predicate: Precise verb of a case-specific relation. "Influences" is not allowed.
premature action: Action taken before the useful window. It is a deviation, the mirror of a delay; not an anticipation.
process, state: Record distinction between work (process) and condition (state). It drives the end profile.
processing channel: PHASE's vertical grammar: information enters at the bottom, rises to the level that processes it, and comes back down to the observable.

R

real case, constructed case: A real case rereads existing material; a constructed case is produced by the trainer, marked as such and never reintroduced into the factual analysis.
record (object record): What the surface does not show. "The timeline shows; the record establishes."
recovery: Crew action restoring a margin, correcting a state or stabilising the situation.
reinforcing feedback (reinjection): Output returning as input and reinforcing a constraint or degradation. Must be documented, with a status.
relation status: The same six-level scale, applied to a relation.
relational loopproposed: Chain of case-specific relations that returns to an earlier input. Established like any relation; otherwise one writes "no loop established".
review status: States whether a trained person has reviewed the case against the report.
role (PF, PM, crew): Assignment of an object to a pilot. The crew is the default unit.
role in the loop: Function of an object within the iteration.

S

saturation, disengagement: Two opposite reasons for horizon retreat. Demand markers tell them apart.
segment: The Control Index's own unit: an analyst-set interval containing at least two iterations. Used alone, "segment" has this meaning.
shape: What answers "when, and for how long?": diamond, bar, delta.
shared reading: Training exercise: each item proposes a reading; the trainee agrees, has reservations or disagrees, and justifies it.
short loop, elaborate loop: A loop is short when the response leaves without needing to understand; elaborate when the crew first had to assess, compare or choose. The criterion is the level where it stops.
simultaneity view: At each object opening or closing, the list of active objects by stratum. A mechanical computation, not an analysis.
situated reservation: Question raised in the narrative on an undetermined point, with at least two possible readings.
sociotechnical: Describes the interdependence of people, technology, rules, organisations and environment.
source material: What the analysis receives. Qualified before any coding.
staircase: Sequence of steps of an upward flow seen over time. The length of each landing is information.
State of an operational task: Value recorded per Control Index segment for each task: held, abandoned, performed with wrong content, performed without effect.
step: Dated passage of information from one level to the next between two objects. It claims nothing; the three times are what one checks to assert it.
stratum: Horizontal band of the chart matching a channel level. Ten fixed strata in three groups.

T

TEM threat category: Assignment of a threat to the two TEM categories: environmental or organizational.
temporal horizon: How far ahead of the aircraft the crew sees, relative to what is required.
temporal reading: Notion of the temporal-readings repertoire, locatable in time from the traces a file keeps.
threat: Event or condition external to the crew that increases complexity and must be managed.
Threat and Error Management: PHASE's second operational language; PHASE places its categories in time.
threat familyproposed: One of the eight families of the taxonomic annex, a content list. Each has a default stratum and TEM category per a mapping table.
three times: available, received, processed: What one checks in the material to assert a step. Available, received (a trace of uptake), processed (an observable action follows).
time base: Time reference declared for the whole case: absolute, relative (from T0), or order only. Distinct from bound precision.
time pressureproposed: Temporal reading: available time decreases by itself. Objective constraint computed from the file; not an internal modulator.
timeline: PHASE's main visual tool: time horizontally, function vertically.
tipping point: Event that makes the crew lose its lead and installs a state. An axis marker, never an object.

U

Undesired Aircraft State: See Undesired Aircraft State.
Undesired Aircraft State (UAS): Divergence of the aircraft state while recovery is still possible. Never confused with an error.
undesired operational state: PHASE extension: undesired state of the situation that is not an aircraft state.
upward flow of information: Path of one piece of information from input to the level where processing stops. It proceeds by steps.
useful window: Interval in which the expected action produces its effect; bounds anticipation on one side and delay on the other.

V

valence (contribution): Contribution of an object within its sequence. A PHASE convention and a judgement with a status.
variable depth: Processing only rises to the level needed. A missing link is not a gap to fill.

W

workloadproposed: Relation between demand and capacity. Read on the demand side, from overlapping activities; not drawn, not an internal modulator. Its management is the WLM competency.