The task of scaling up a well-established Integrated Platform Management System (IPMS) to meet the requirements of the largest warship ever constructed for the UK Navy has provided a diverse set of challenges. Designing a control system for a constantly evolving ship design was never going to be a straightforward task, especially with the complexity of the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) aircraft carrier and the design intent of reducing crew size by automation. Adopting a development cycle suitably capable of providing resilience to the dynamic nature of the ships development would always be a significant risk. Some of the challenges were evident from the outset, such as the system requiring a multitude of external interfaces supporting a variety of communication protocols. The most demanding of these being the Electrical Power Control and Management System (EPCAMS), which requires the transfer of almost 10,000 signals. Whilst other challenges manifested themselves in unexpected ways such as the engagement with ships staff in the early stages of design, providing an excellent means to create solutions best suited to meet the expectations and ergonomic requirements of the end user. Also providing conflicting opinions of individuals resulting in a minefield of requirements to process in order to arrive at the best engineering solution. This paper explores the most significant challenges and the processes put in place to mitigate against the risk that they provide. Analysis of these processes and procedures allowed us to establish a well-defined set of lessons learnt that can be used to optimise and improve the development cycle for future projects. Many of these processes targeted the de-risking of the solution via testing, simulation and the engagement of the operator. Early de-risking workshops helped identify bugs early on in the design, the use of test rigs and simulators provided continued assurance and the development of automated test tools for testing both hardware and software proved invaluable. The use of a shore-based training facility provided early exposure to the operators, whilst also providing continued confidence in the system’s capabilities. All of these contributed to the consistent deployment of software to the ship despite an increasingly demanding schedule.