The ATM Digital Readiness Diagnostic
Twelve questions every ANSP should answer before committing to modernisation.
Most ATM modernisation programmes do not fail at cutover. They fail at procurement, and then take two to five years to reveal it.
This diagnostic exists for programme directors, CAA modernisation leads, and ANSP executives who are about to sign, or who have just signed, an ATM modernisation contract. The questions are not difficult. Most of them can be answered in a sentence. The difficulty is that answering them honestly requires admitting what has not yet been decided, and by whom.
There are twelve questions, grouped into four themes. The themes escalate. This is a framework, not a scorecard. There is no number at the end that tells you whether your programme will succeed. The point is to surface, in language you can take into your next steering committee, the decisions that have not yet been made and the assumptions that have not yet been tested.
Theme 1 — Operational Involvement
Who is actually in the room when requirements are written?
- Who wrote the operational requirements, and what was their most recent day on position?
- When operational staff raised concerns about the specification, what happened to those concerns?
- How many of the features controllers use on their current system are explicitly named in the new system's requirements?
Theme 2 — Transition Ownership
Who owns the path from installation to operational service, and do they have the authority to deliver it?
- Who is accountable for the system reaching operational service, and what happens to them if it does not?
- Who is building the bridge between what the system can do and what operations actually need, and is that their full-time job?
- If the person owning the transition left tomorrow, what would happen?
Theme 3 — Organisational Readiness
Is the organisation capable of absorbing this change, and how do you know?
- How do you know the operational workforce believes this change is worth making, and what did you do with what you found?
- How do you know the organisation can execute this change, and what would you be willing to bet on it?
- What kind of leadership is this programme actually going to need, and is that the kind of leadership it has?
Theme 4 — Post-Installation Reality
What have you planned for the eighteen months after the box arrives?
- How long is the shadowing and parallel running period, and who decided?
- What is the plan for the first post-cutover incident, and who has signed off on it?
- When the programme is complete, who owns the system, and what does ownership mean?
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If the diagnostic surfaces something you want to talk about, here is the discovery call.