Virtual Centre (special edition)

It did not take long for Klaus Meier, Director Engineering and Technology at Skyguide, to be persuaded to join the company and oversee the planning and deployment of the most radical air traffic management (ATM) technology programme for decades. The result has been more wide-ranging than anyone had thought possible.

Why did you decide to take the approach you did with the Virtual Centre Tranche 2 (VCT2) programme? What were the technical reasons behind it and what did you hope to achieve?

We decided to use a proven, service-oriented technology that was working in other industries.
But to apply this to ATM was a huge leap. A normal ATM project involves writing thousands of requirements, giving it to a supplier and then checking they can deliver. But we realized we had to take another approach, a completely different way of thinking.

Instead of managing 19 different projects over eight to ten year we developed the concept of a programme with tranches of three to four years’ duration, because that’s about the time-horizon you can realistically see into the future. We then split the tranches further into annual deliverables, because our experience showed that we can plan in fine detail for 12 to 18 months ahead. So for each annual deliverable we worked out a budget and went to the Board of Directors for approval. Within each annual budget I wanted the freedom to spend on what worked and to postpone other activities which needed more time. We also changed the way we looked at the three critical factors: time, cost, and scope. Usually, you have to keep the scope fixed and manage the cost and time but we turned that round: we kept time and cost fixed (with an annual delivery) but focused on the scope (minimal viable product).

Did the final version of VCT2 vary very much from the original scope?

We pretty much delivered what we said we would deliver, but it looked slightly different. Originally the VC programme was focused on en-route but we soon realised that the core system could also provide critical functionality for the approach and departure phases into and out of international airports. So we changed the scope to cover the entire airspace.

What kind of new organizational structure did you have to develop to support this rather radical technology implementation programme?

In my experience, the deciding factor in successful innovation programmes is less the technology and more the people. The architecture had already been defined by the chief architect, so I then decided to manage the development via tranches and started looking in the organization for the people who, in my opinion, had the right mind-set and skills to implement such an innovative programme. I took my time here to look carefully, which I know worried the Board of Directors initially, but it was important to get the right people to drive it forward.

How did the pandemic impact progress?

With the Agile annual delivery we had chosen a scaled Agile framework concept which required physical planning meetings every three months – the “Programme Increment Planning Events (PIPE)”. When COVID hit we had to make these events remote. Early in 2020 this had hardly any impact because there was enough momentum to carry forward. But by 2021 people were becoming tired of not meeting and delivery dropped off by 20%. As traffic collapsed, we also faced uncertainties over revenue. When the government jumped in with loans and increased equity holding, they were very clear that they wanted us to continue with this critical programme and backed our plans. With this programme we were helping solve our structural cost problems and they encouraged us to continue. COVID was an extreme situation, but it also showed that the traditional air traffic control (ATC) operating model will have to change in the future because there is no variable cost element within it, just fixed costs. The Virtual Centre is, to my knowledge, the only modern ATM concept that exists today worldwide which answers this question.