Having spent a few hours flying over enemy territory as an uninvited visitor, with a map in hand (actually in the computer navigation system), I can speak about maps and territories.

If you look at the map and then look outside the cockpit or down the hiking trail and there is no match, then certainly the territory speaks more of where you are then the map.
The next thing to do is look around on the map for a similar set of territory to “get your bearings.” The map will then tell you the obstacles in the way of your goal, the effort needed to achieve the goal – reaching the parking lot or reaching the deck of the carrier.

Either way the map is a critical tool, without the map you’re likely to be permanetly lost or have a long walk home.

As well if your in a fog, then a map and compass – once you’ve established you location – will likely save you life.

Now I see how simple things can save our lives.
Our problem is that when we are managing projects we are not flying over enemy territory as an uninvited visitor and we became blind to follow simple procedures.
We don’t have enemies in PM. They are not there when we begin a project but they emerge as a result of our complexity to make things simple.
You could write more about how did you manage complex situations during the war. I think that we will see simple solutions working in life or death situations.

We more easily share our maps than we do our territory. We can get agreement that this document represents our map, because it physically represents, more easily than we can get agreement on territory. This sounds backwards, but it smells true.

We plan together, not to create a perfect map, but to create a common understanding of shared territory. This understanding, which no map can represent, becomes the most useful artifact of any planning. The understanding includes the doubts as well as the certainties, and the unspeakable connections connecting us together. david

Projects are processes and being processes they are not finished untill the complete product is produced.
In projects we don´t have a territory yet. It emerges as we follow the map. They are codependents one modifying another and vice versa. We need to trust both at the same time and balance them.
Trust one or another under my point of view does not work in PM.