Jungly
Good shout on ALDS. Designed for project managers who didn’t have to learn the basics in 5 or more previous grades. Trouble is, when they come out there are too few project jobs at their (artificially elevated) grade, so it’s onwards and upwards in DPA without ever having managed a project.
Mr Hancock, the MP mentioned, is one of the better scrutineers of the MoD, but he is poorly briefed as too often his questions are frustratingly near to the mark, but not near enough. A bit like the NAO, who quite often get close to the truth but never follow up their reports to make sure they haven’t been told porkies.
Two’s In – You are right about the PFI / simulator issue being Government led. However, it is important to realise that the same Directorate was, at exactly the same time, charged with delivering two simulators, and AH was the lesser in terms of difficulty and risk. The other was delivered to time, cost and performance with effortless ease and fewer resources (and non-PFI), much to the chagrin of the Gods, who did their best to scupper it. One should ask (a) How?, and (b) Why were PE’s specialist simulator Directorate not involved? But the wider problem is that dogma dictates training is part of ILS. ILSMs think in terms of their LSD, usually 3 months before ISD. That’s sod all use when you’ve a raft of pilots to train before ISD – and you all know how long that takes. By the time an inexperienced PM (the majority nowadays) susses this, it’s too late to make his case to avoid PFI. Whereas, the PM who has worked his way backwards through the procurement cycle knows this without thinking, and takes action up front. You can always predict the problems on a project by studying the PM’s c.v. Always.