Capability based planning and capability engineering: where's the join?

Abstract

Many nations, including the UK, aspire to take a capability based approach to their defence planning. The central planning function is structured differently in each nation but tends to be led by military staff with support from operations research analysts. These communities tend to take different perspectives and use different language than systems engineers working in the developing discipline of capability engineering. This raises two questions, fundamental to the successful implementation of a capability-based approach; does everyone involved mean the same thing when they refer to 'capability' and is the interface between capability-based planning and capability engineering correct, or even understood? The terms capability based planning and capability engineering are not widely used in the UK. However, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is engaged in collaborative research with other governments and this provides an opportunity to build a consensus as to what these disciplines are away from the constraints and language of extant MOD processes.