A 'soft' approach to TLM requirements capture to support through-life management

Loughborough University and BAE Systems are sponsoring a research programme to develop an enterprise Knowledge Management system for Through Life Management (TLM) in support of Through Life Capability Management (TLCM). This paper summarises the finding of a requirements analysis case study which captured, analysed and synthesised the key stakeholder requirements for this Knowledge Management research within the aerospace and defence industry. This study consists of two approaches; (1) an Interactive Management (IM) workshop and (2) semi-structured interviews with the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Three of the group methodologies used in the Interactive Management workshop were Idea-Writing, Nominal Group Technique and Interpretive Structural Modelling. Soft systems rich pictures were also constructed by the SMEs to provide a diagrammatic representation of the systematic but non-judgmental understanding of the problem situation. The difficulties and benefits of adopting this ’soft’ approach and future research plans are also discussed here.