Perfect storm
Pardon the intrusion, but take a long, hard look at Engineering to see how much further along we are, as an organisation that places no value on knowledge and experience. The parallels with FOPS are there, as is the risk.
With an increasing reliance on engineering trainees, the breadth of engineering knowledge is diminishing at an unprecedented rate. We celebrate promotions and graduations by announcing what degree someone has, yet there is not even the blink of an eye, as one after the other, we lose engineers with many years of real world experience.
Experience and knowledge that will never be replaced.
Of course new talent is essential. But rather than build and develop a cosmopolitan team, we are developing a trainee-based department built down to a cost. And for developing, read 'at breakneck speed'. Add in the cultural shift, where debate is now dissent and challenging decisions marks you out as a troublemaker and we heading into very dangerous waters. As an organisation we are breeding compliance and I'm not talking about the regulatory kind.
As a senior manager said to me rather quietly recently 'There are very few people who really know wtf is going on anymore'.
Haddon-Cave? Don't make me laugh.
To borrow from an earlier post:
"The tragedy is we will be all standing around a smoking hole, peering in, management will be asking "How the hell did this happen?" while the line pilots [read: engineers] will all be saying "We told you so."
We have a perfect storm in the making.