2009-03-30 TSC Call Minutes

TSC - Technical Steering Committee

Monday, March 30, 2009 11:00 AM (US Eastern Time, GMT -5)
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Attendance

Expected

• Chair: Charlie McCay
• CTO: John Quinn
• Domain Experts: Austin Kreisler (primary), Ed Tripp (alternate)
• Foundation & Technology: Ioana Singureanu (primary), Woody Beeler (alternate)
• Structure & Semantic Design: Calvin Beebe (primary), Gregg Seppala (alternate)
• Technical & Support Services: Ken McCaslin (primary), Helen Stevens Love (alternate)
• Affiliate: Ravi Natarajan
• ARB: Charlie Mead (primary), John Koisch (alternate)
• HQ: Karen Van Hentenryck, Lynn Laakso

Invited

• Charles Jaffe (CEO)
• Ed Hammond (HL7 Chair); Bob Dolin (HL7 Vice Chair)
• Marc Koehn (EA IP)
• Jim McCain

Apologies

• Ken McCaslin
• Ioana Singureanu

Agenda

1. (5 min) Meeting Admin
   1. Roll Call - The following individuals joined the call: Calvin Beebe, Woody Beeler, Bob Dolin, Marc Koehn, John Koisch, Austin Kreisler, Lynn Laakso, Jim McCain, Charlie McCay, Charlie Mead, Ravi Natarajan, John Quinn, Gregg Seppala, Helen Stevens Love, and Ed Tripp,
   2. Accept Agenda – structured documents – defer to next week review for Bob Dolin by Calvin
   3. Approve Minutes from 2009-03-23_TSC_Call_Minutes – unanimously approved
   4. Review action items –
      • Options for interim/temporary co-chair in Kyoto - Lynn
        • For the DESD meeting, DESD DMPs explicitly state that for quorum, the "chair (or designate) and Co-chairs representing at least half the constituents must be present". This clearly allows for a 'designated chair' for the DESD meeting.
        • For the TSC meeting,
          1. Option: do nothing, i.e. plan to achieve quorum without representation by one SD. The TSC DMPs define quorum as the "chair (or designate) and at least five other TSC members must be present, including at least two of the four elected Steering Division representatives". This definition could be strictly interpreted as a "TSC Member" must be an "elected Steering Division representative (or their alternate)".
          2. Option: Add an ad-hoc member to the TSC for a short duration. The GOM allows the provision that "Should the TSC identify an imbalance or the need for specific expertise, they may vote to include an ad hoc member to correct the situation." The ad hoc member’s term is at the discretion of the TSC (up to two years), so could theoretically last only one week if needed. This ad-hoc member counts towards quorum but not as one of the two required SD reps.
          3. Option: Add a time-limited proxy clause to the TSC DMPs. We could change the DMPs (a reusable mechanism) to allow for a proxy to represent the SD. The DESD would have to elect Jim as their proxy or ad-hoc rep.
      • Option 2 generally preferred. Jim Case would be the nominee: Austin to run an e-vote on DESD to approve Jim; will schedule motion on agenda after DESD approves. Ed suggests we add action item to specifically address this should it come up again?
        • ACTION ITEM: Lynn to document this for guidance going forward
2. (20 min) Standing Committee Reports/Approvals
   1. EA IP Update - Marc Koehn
      • struggling to get people up to speed and moving forward. Pulling together documentation and looking forward to discussion with ArB in Vegas. Call later today with Russ Hamm on CTS2 as alpha project, to use draft criteria and objectives against an actual project proposal. A little concern over how long it has taken to form and norm, good progress toward baseline document. Charlie asks if we need to schedule time to go through planning documents in detail? Marc says it will be much closer to Kyoto than we’d like. Tough to get folks to free time up between calls. Will take more “staff” time (Marc and Lynn).
   2. CEO Report -
   3. CTO Report – [1]
   4. ArB Report –
      • Koisch reports in last week’s meeting addressing questions and confusions around scope of SAEAF. Not as clear as could have been – crafted position paper going into the harmonization meeting, ready by end of week. Also evaluated SOA WG’s RASCI sheet, ArB to propose changes
      • Charlie Mead reports the TSC needs to get into the middle of this; when ArB started working on SAEAF, notion was that ArB would define arch framework from which the architecture to be defined, and the TSC would deal with operationalization. One issue ArB specifically deferred was organizational impact of EA terms of responsibilities and governance. Still sitting smack dab in the middle but may not be appropriate. Hot button of HDF has become focal point/lightning rod around discussions of SAEAF operationalization. TSC needs to sit down and understand what SAEAF supposed to be doing. In his experience with NCI, the ArB is not the group that should be doing the organizational change management, should be TSC.
      • Woody asked for clarification. McCay paraphrased hearing the impact of EA on products, specifically foundational documents, including HDF. Need to address the SAEAF document and the other foundational documents. Given new foundational documents, what is the governance and process around the other foundational documents to ensure they come under a common approach, e.g., Balloting, informative, committee-level, general consensus. Koisch says two levels of grievance: one is the dot your i’s cross your t’s, but suggests the TSC needs to address the other level of grievance – e.g. why are you doing this, what is your authority in doing this. TSC needs to defend the message that this is what we’re doing and this is the direction we’re all going, and the ArB is acting appropriately. Example discussed in RCRIM – a contingent using HDF view of analysis artifacts, quoting the HDF that ‘this is all we have to do, and we’re not doing any more’. Having to align RCRIM models against the BRIDG? Issues of should and shouldn’t, versus must and may be. Does the SAEAF prescribe that there must be a DAM? Needs a document like core principles, which doesn’t have enough bandwidth to get itself published again as normative. Don’t know what line to toe.
      • Helen responds, shouldn’t this be addressed by the EA IP project with Marc Koehn? Woody agrees an adoption decision should be reached around Kyoto time to say ‘this is what we’re expected to do’. Institutionalize the recommendations from the ArB. Mead reiterates the TSC needs to make a clear and continuous statement - that this is what we’re doing, don’t fight the alpha project just because it’s different. Change management is getting bigger by the day. Ed agrees we should be more proactive on the change management, perhaps an ambassador group to schedule time on each wg agenda to go through a short overview and Q&A. You just can’t say it enough. Ravi asks are we looking to improve visibility or do people genuinely not understand? Helen reminds of the communication strategy whether you call it marketing or education. Is it the push for change that’s premature? Alpha projects to inform the rollout. Helen identifies change management assessment needs to be part of scope of Koehn’s project.
      • McCay time boxed the discussion and referred discussion to continue next week.
   5. Affiliates Report – Ravi received feedback from int’l affiliates group with no suggestions. Request from Bernd (Germany) for MIE2009 as example, who is designated rep from HL7 to attend? Looking for more contribution – is there somebody named to look into conferences for increased visibility. HL7 work shop within the conference Aug 30 – Ravi will forward to Quinn.
   6. Domain Experts – Austin reports that the email sent to the work groups on the three-year plans has borne fruit. Heard from half the groups already. May have to go back to the others.
   7. Foundation & Technology – Nothing to report.
   8. Structure & Semantic Design -
      • SSD SD Project Approval: Clinical Genomics - Project Proposal (attachment) on Genetic Testing Reports (tabled from 2009-03-16) [2] TSC Tracker # 917 – postpone to next week.
      • Project Approval: CDA R3 PSS, at TSC Tracker # 1013; approved unanimously
      • Structured Documents: DSTU Publication request document CDA R2 IG Questionnaire_Assessment, TSC Tracker # 1038, unanimously approved.
   9. Technical & Support Services - haven’t met since last call; no report.
3. (30 min) Discussion topics
   1. Approval of pending TSC internal projects – See draft TSC Three-Year-Plan. TSC Internal projects which have not been formally approved by the TSC -
      • TSC Actionable National Initiative Plan 2009 Scope Statement, at TSC Tracker # 1001; Jim McCain has joined the call, and has agreed to be facilitator for the project. McCay reports that Don Simborg has indicated it fits in with the work they’re doing on the board level. Calvin can contribute time, 4 hours a week to this effort. If we’re not ready to approve today, perhaps set up a different call this week and continue refining project plan for further discussion next week. Get something out to the proposed work group so that the cochairs and the affiliates council can review. Charlie recounted that Ken might be able to put some time in too, Freida has also said she could contribute. Helen can too. Jim agrees this is an appropriate next step. Would you prefer this work done before going out to affiliates council and marketing, or send it with caveat that further clarification of scope is forthcoming. Charlie says release it as is and indicate we’ll have a conference call later this week where people with time can get together to work on it. Bob asks if the different countries’ adoption strategies need to be understood to define the scope of this project, in light of tie in to the operationalization discussion from the SAEAF above. Helen feels this should be looked at beyond HL7, affecting other organizations. Helen agrees this project is an HL7 piece of a larger picture. McCay says we pick out the potential ways PEOs can engage with each other; country with V2 implementation strategy can say what they need from HL7, etc. What are the constraints and what is practical to deliver, mindful of the EA IP. Bob says we should know what each country’s doing and then identify the HL7 international strategy that supports each country but is not specialized to each country. McCay wants to know from each country what do you want from HL7, what is the value that you’re looking for. Then we can look at what HL7 can offer.

Meeting adjourned at 12:01 PM EDT