SE Validation Limited

Support for Innovation and Change

Introduction

There are particular challenges involved for those wishing to innovate and change in the fields of verification, validation, test and evaluation. The nature of these fields often means that staff self-select themselves in or out. Those who stay are naturally a very reflective group that takes very little on trust. Learning has traditionally been 'on-the-job', but this is getting more difficult, with fewer programmes, tighter budgets and less tolerance of error. These fields also need a blend of technical staff, some who are relatively deep specialists, some who have 'user' experience and a few with both width and depth of knowledge. The latter are essential for ensuring that output is correct, complete and consistent. Thus developing technical staff is becoming more and more challenging. The minimum 'depth' staff need is increasing with the march of technology. The minimum 'width' they need is also increasing, since customers are seeking to integrate systems, capabilities and networked capabilities to ever greater extents in pursuit of increased effectiveness and reduced costs. Thus the competencies required of a 'wide & deep' person are outgrowing the compass of a single mind, no matter how good.

Training

Our experience at SE Validation is that training is essential to support innovation and change, particularly to reduce the natural fear of the unknown. However to be effective, this is much better delivered by people who know the T&E/V&V fields than by others who may be admirably qualified, but lack an understanding of these domains. We are certainly capable in providing training in any of our core competence fields.

Strategy

We have considerable experience in developing policies, strategies and plans that support the phased introduction of new capability. Since we are quite happy working with socio-technical systems, we are as comfortable with organisational analysis as with technical system analysis.

Implementation

Successful implementation of change needs management commitment and support for all the business enablers. For example this may include: alliances, technology finding, road-mapping, audits, decision-support, process, method and tool development, or research. With experience in all these fields, we are happy to work with a customer management team for a tailored solution rather than propose a 'one-size fits' all magic bullet.

Papers

'Virtual Assurance of Weapon System Performance', R.Ae.S Conference, Boscombe Down, February 1998.

'Why should Integrated Project Teams use Synthetic Environments?', IInd International Synthetic Environment Symposium, RMCS Shrivenham, October 1999.