Originally Posted by
Not_a_boffin
This also means that professionalising the requirements management function - rather than having it as a 2 year SO2/SO1 career path option needs to happen and will be quite difficult. People do not join up solely to write requirements and should not do so without acquiring the operational experience that helps them define and apply context.
This. Excellent.
Even when civil servants did the job, it was in effect only a 2 year posting. (Two LTC rounds, preferably starting in the Autumn with the Alternative Assumptions). You learned so much, you were snapped up ASAP by a MoD(PE) project office. Once promoted into PE, the bosses there didn't have to worry about you making foolish mistakes. Staffing and funding any omissions was something you'd already learned. And here's a thing. Not a computer or typing pool in the building.
There was a long gap before 'Requirements Managers' were born, and I never came across one who had been taught, or knew, that he was only doing part of the job. However, comparison is unfair. Their previous four ranks weren't a logical progression to such a post. A practical example of what happened was the aforementioned Sea King Mk7 job. In 1995, when asked if they were ever going to quantify their requirement (which is rather important when costing a job), the RN admitted they no longer had the expertise and asked the programme manager if he would work it out for them. He simply pulled out the mandated Permanent Long Term Costings Instructions (never rescinded), which the RN no longer had a copy of, and implemented them. But on projects where the PM hadn't been a 'RqM'.... delay and cost overrun was common.
Of course, there's more to it, but getting the right people is paramount. MoD's recruitment pool was privatised in the mid-90s.