2012-09-08 TSC WGM Minutes

TSC Saturday meeting for 2012 Sep Plenary and WGM, Baltimore MD USA

back to TSC Minutes and Agendas

TSC WGM Agenda/Minutes

HL7 TSC Meeting Minutes Location: Annapolis Room		Date: 2012-09-08 Time: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM EDT
Facilitator: Austin Kreisler		Note taker(s): Lynn Laakso
Attendee	Name	Affiliation
x	Calvin Beebe	HL7 SSD SD Co-Chair
x	Woody Beeler	HL7 FTSD Co-Chair
regrets	Giorgio Cangioli	HL7 Affiliate Representative
Q2	Jane Curry	HL7 Risk Assessment Project Facilitator
regrets	Jean Duteau	HL7 Affiliate Representative-elect
x	Freida Hall	HL7 TSS SD Co-Chair
	Chuck Jaffe	HL7 CEO (member ex officio w/o vote)
x	Tony Julian	HL7 FTSD Co-Chair
x	Austin Kreisler (Chair)	HL7 TSC Chair, Ad-hoc member
x	Lynn Laakso (scribe, non-voting)	HL7 HQ
?	Patrick Loyd	HL7 T3SD Co-Chair
x	Charlie Mead	HL7 ArB Chair
	Don Mon	HL7 Board Chair (member ex officio w/ vote)
regrets	Ravi Natarajan	HL7 Affiliate Representative
x	Ron Parker	HL7 ArB Alternate
x	Melva Peters	HL7 DESD Co-chair-elect
x	John Quinn	HL7 CTO (TSC member ex officio w/vote)
regrets	Andy Stechishin	HL7 T3SD Co-chair-elect
x	Ed Tripp	HL7 DESD Co-Chair
x	Pat Van Dyke	HL7 SSD SD Co-Chair
regrets	Mead Walker	HL7 DESD Co-Chair
x	Paul Knapp	Invited Guest, ITS Datatypes discussion
Quorum Requirements (Co-chair +5 with 2 SD Reps) Met: (yes/No)

Agenda Topics

Governance

Q1 - Governance : 9 am to 10:30 am

1. Roll Call and Introduction of visitors (including declaration of interests)
2. Additions to, and acceptance of, agenda:
3. Link to Interim decision review since last WGM
4. Governance
   • TSC V3 Governance/Product Line Task Force
     • Establish task force goals and timeline
     • Establish task force membership
5. Work Group Health metric tracker review
   • Project Health metric to be incorporated into WGH in place of 3 yr plan metric (#2346)
   • Recommend metric for WG facilitator participation in WGM Sunday training, tutorials and Thursday roundtable (#2295)
   • measure projects completed versus active (#2167)

Q2 - Governance continued: 11 am to 12:30 pm

1. Risk Assessment Project
   • Review and update Risk Assessment PSS
   • TSC's Risk Assessment Methodology
   • Input into Risk Assessment
     • Strategic Initiatives
     • Formalizing Product Lines
     • TSC and other work group SWOT's
2. Identify Governance Points based on Risk Assessment
3. Planning for TSC Governance project

Q3 - Governance continued: 1:30 pm to 3 pm

1. Strategic Initiatives TSC Dashboard metric review

Q4 - Management: 3:30 pm to 5pm

1. HQMF out of cycle ballot request
2. (Sept) Review and re-confirm ArB membership (even numbered years)
3. (Sept) Review and confirm ORC liaison assignment
4. Tooling Strategy/Plan Review

Sunday

1. • ArB Business Architecture Modeling Project

Tuesday lunch

1. WGM Planning - agenda setting next two WGMs - agenda links
   • Schedule:

     (September) Review TSC SWOT

Minutes/Conclusions Reached:

1. Roll Call and Introduction of visitors (including declaration of interests), Paul is invited to discuss Datatypes, Melva invited as co-chair-elect.
2. Additions to, and acceptance of, agenda: HQMF out of cycle ballot, move Jane to Q2 and move WGH to Q1.
3. Woody moves adding Melva as ad-hoc member for International Affiliate representation. Seconded by Ed, the motion passes unanimously.
4. Link to Interim decision review since last WGM
5. Governance
   • TSC V3 Governance/Product Line Task Force
     • Top priority for task force to make recommendation on V3 Data Types issue.
     • Charlie notes we need to scope V3 for this task force. Austin hopes that anything that asserts that it is V3 is provisionally in scope. Freida suggests the task force decide it. Charlie notes that Datatypes is definitely part of the product line so address the immediate problem and let it figure that out iteratively. As an instance of a larger issue Paul suggests to define it as that problem, punt it to the task force, then receive their recommendation and go forward.
     • Austin notes that Mead offers his regrets for the weekend but volunteers to be on the task force. He would like to see this task force also acting as the start of the V3 product line.
     • Messages, Documents, all RIM-based work like RIMBAA and Services. Ron notes attributes of the product lines may include reference to RIM but not require RIM-basis as definition of a product line.
     • Woody notes that since '97 all standards should be based on the common RIM and Datatypes and terminology to distinguish V2. CDA R1 was self-asserted as the first V3 standard. Issue at stake is "what is THE datatypes structure for the RIM?" It represents the foundation of V3.
     • Change is more than applying ITSs to the communities. It's a business and implementation problem, not a technical problem, notes Paul.
     • Paul adds they get questions for how to change slightly what ITS does, users want to use their 'stuff' but modify it slightly. Charlie notes it breaks interoperability, and cites an example from Oracle. Companies offer support for past versions for a while and then move forward. NCI committed moving forward with ISO 21090 as wire format. You'll also disenfranchise those that pre-adopted aspects of R2 informally like Canada, adds Paul. Those using ISO datatypes even if completely separate from the use of HL7, such as was asserted for Pharma in Europe. Ron notes if CEN 251 declares that they must use a certain standard, it is done. The question is whether HL7 will fork away from 21090, revert back to R2B.
     • Task force needs to identify what is in, what is out of R2B, set up a table, and send it out to confirm understanding. Paul suggests they consider whether R2B is one solution, seeking others. Austin notes we don't know the delta between R1/R2.
     • Goals: three deltas - R1/R2 - R1/R2B - R2B/R2 (one of the three can be derived from the other two). R2B-to R2 is main issue.
     • Second goal is understanding penetration of ISO datatypes: Scope of effect of the business decision to be made, and effect on those who pre-adopted aspects of R2 informally. Paul notes we need to know "the rub" - what the effects are.
     • Goal: If forking is the path, which forking option is taken, and what are the costs. Breaking change proposals have been adopted in the past, some in the RIM, some in Datatypes, some rejected (wrappers), notes Woody. Part of V3 product line governance is risk assessment including the impact of forking.
     • Woody observes we must offer a mandate, guidance, or request to WGs developing standards, in dealing with the presence of the R2B…Deliverable: Implications to Work Groups
     • Goal: cost and implications on forking
     • Deliverable: identify paths, make recommendation of action going forward, and consider scope of effect.
     • Calvin asks if there is a statement or value proposition for when it is appropriate to consider breaking backwards compatibility. Need a policy. Paul notes there is one for V2, but not for V3. No wire-format backwards compatibility requirement exists, notes Woody. V3 has semantic backwards compatibility but not wire notes Austin. Paul describes it as a request for something that HL7 has a declared policy that we will not do; you can declare it out of scope.
     • Woody says we need a statement of how V3 backward compatibility is expressed. CDA used the version as of date of publication and declared it frozen.
     • Calvin notes he's not ready to declare it out of scope as we need the value proposition to evaluate. Ron notes that these assertions are governance precepts. Woody states that annual packages of normative editions may constitute versions or releases and may need to evaluate the strategy of the normative edition release.
     • Woody describes processible specifications as a goal from many years ago that would not require intermediate programming to use the standards for implementations. This may still be important for the future. We have to accommodate more rapid change.
     • Who's on the group? Mead, Woody, Charlie, John, Pat, Paul. International representation, Austin notes, can be requested in tomorrow's meeting. Charlie notes that BRIDG needs representation and describes BRIDG's binding versus NCI's binding history. Woody notes we need Lloyd or Grahame but with Lloyd's history on the white paper he might be more accessible though Paul adds that Grahame has the best feel for the datatypes delta, and consideration for FHIR datatypes. Ron notes Ravi was very concerned but as he's not here, Melva may be a good conduit to solicit participation.
     • List: Mead, Woody, Charlie, John, Pat, Paul, Lloyd, Ravi, and anyone Melva solicits. Grahame's participation would be welcome. Woody would be willing to serve as co-chair, as would Charlie. They will need to coordinate a time and get with Lillian to get a room. Wednesday lunch is proposed.
6. Work Group Health metric tracker review
   • Project Health metric to be incorporated into WGH in place of 3 yr plan metric (#2346)
     • Review PBS Metrics
     • Ed moves approval of this metric rather than the 3yr plan metric. Freida seconds and suggests some tweaks e.g ArB, Ed accepts amendments.
     • ArB should be exempt from the 3-yr plan requirement, list n/a on PBS Metrics. Tooling is similar in its direction as it is provided by the organization as compared to self-defined. Ed sees Board of Directors, Marketing, TSC in addition. Austin cautions against exempting any work groups that belong to a Steering Division. Vote: unanimously approved.
   • Recommend metric for WG facilitator participation in WGM Sunday training, tutorials and Thursday roundtable (#2295)
     • Woody notes facilitator participation on Thursday nights are pretty consistent and generally have those that are needed to attend. Is the issue more about the WG having facilitators, and have they received training.
   • measure projects completed versus active (#2167) - problematic to measure with different approaches to using project scopes. Freida notes master and subordinate projects are being evaluated by Project Services. Ed adds the definition of a project is very nebulous.
   • Agendas published in advance may be a metric not only for the Strategic Initiative but could add to the WGH. Room requests and meeting minutes have a deadline. Let's look at it as part of the SI Dashboard rather than as WGH.
   • wiki metric has been dropped, close 2173

Q2 - Governance continued: 11 am to 12:30 pm

Reconvene 11:10 AM EDT

1. Set deadline for V3 Governance Task force - have recommendations by end of October.
2. Risk Assessment Project
   • Review and update Risk Assessment PSS
     • BAM has already started to identify some risks that should feed into the risk assessment project, which the TSC will use to form Precepts, Roles, Processes and Metrics to feed into the BAM. TSC will take candidate risks, prioritize them, and then identify the Precepts, Roles, Processes and Metrics to act as governance points for managing those risks. Project scope statements updated. Scope broader but shallower. Jane advocates that existing project 901 closure and opening a new project would indicate change in responsibilities (source of authority, level of delegation) from subproject of the architecture to a project of the TSC. General feeling is comfortable with leaving it as 901. Motion: Calvin moves and Ed seconds the amended project scope statement. Vote: unanimously approved
     • This will go out as approved "in-committee" and go to co- and affiliate- chairs for review.
     • Need to identify project team and set up first meeting; Jane is facilitator. All of TSC is involved, which is why we shifted management approvals to e-vote, to discuss this on the calls. Wiki page set up http://hl7tsc.org/wiki/index.php?title=TSC_Risk_Assessment.
   • TSC's Risk Assessment Methodology
     • Results of Vancouver Weds Q4 governance workshop sought on the wildernesses of various hard drives. Charlie reviews key slides from the June Presentation. Extension of the mapping in page 9 of the presentation, and relationship between Management and Methodology discussed. Metrics, and consistency of measuring, are usually part of methodology
     • Thomas Erl's 11 step development process equivocated to HL7 development reviewed from page 5. Erl's 32 candidate precepts applied to different steps in the process. Candidate matrix may be useful to deciding what will be governed and what will govern it.

Recessed 12:35 PM

Q3 - Governance continued: 1:30 pm to 3 pm

Reconvened 1:35 PM

1. Strategic Initiatives TSC Dashboard metric review
   • Mead and Patrick not available to discuss their areas, and progress on the metrics not reported.
   • Rene Spronk, RIMBAA and Marketing cochair, attends to discuss. His responses to email 8/17/2012 to RIMBAA reviewed. "One of the metrics is 'Industry responsiveness and easier implementation', a proposal on how to measure this is available at http://gforge.hl7.org/gf/download/trackeritem/2060/9460/20120513MeadDeliverable.docx

     (quote)

     This has two pieces which are rather different:

     • Is HL7 responding to the needs brought forward by its stakeholders?
     • Are the products that HL7 creates getting easier to implement?

     In both cases, the issue is the relationship between HL7 products and the outside world. Measuring this solely with reference to HL7 activity is difficult at best.

(end quote)

1. • Both are relevant to the members of this WG.
   • The ideas towards metrics part doesn't appeal to me - it leaves it up to a WG that creates a standard to define or estimate to what degree it has been implemented. They're not a neutral stakeholder, nor would they necessarily know of any (or many) implementations of their standards.
   • (End Rene Spronk email)
   • Rene notes one question might ask if V3 is more implementable today than it was 5 years ago. Marketing has a survey out also.
   • Ron notes that there are precepts to be determined around this. TSC needs to assert what those might mean.
   • DSTU implementers are not asked to report back so we don't know if something worked. Rene asks if the RIMBAA renamed group named "Software Implementers" can be involved in developing these metrics. Updated scope of Software Implementers WG discussed.
   • Jane asks about responsibility for organization of products (TSC function). Rene adds it will be on the Marketing Survey.
   • The updated Publication Request template was reviewed to enable measurement of cross-artifact consistency. Motion: Calvin moves and Woody seconds adoption of the updated Publication request.
   • Freida asks if we verify on the publication request if the DSTU implementers listed on the project scope statement are still going to implement the DSTU; discussion ensued on the timing of requesting who the implementers are, might be better suited before the standard goes normative. Ed suggests a DSTU implementation report at the time a standard goes normative instead. He further suggests we may want to revisit this in January after the change to IP is more clearly known.
   • Rene notes that RIMBAA is the only work group in their steering division that does not create standards so WGH is less applicable to you. It was clarified that TSC is also driving definition of product lines and this may require reorganization of Steering Divisions.
2. Announcement:
   • V3 Governance Task force meeting lunch Wednesday in Constellation E
   • FHIR Governance Board meeting tomorrow 7 AM in this same room, Annapolis.
3. Input into Risk Assessment: review Governance Overview, with Erl steps and HL7 document.
   • Formalizing Product Lines
     • Step 2, component inventory analysis, or product line scope. How to differentiate between V3, CDA, FHIR for example, and what is in the one and not in another. Assertion that CDA is a distinct product line from messaging is correct.
     • Product lines share governance, management and methodology. How one does design and map back to requirements may be another distinction. How to segment for consumers so they don't have to understand the middle to use the beginning requirements and end conformance statements. Not all product lines are siblings either. Core product lines have children that may be siblings to other core product lines. Charlie notes that product line development cycles may produce several kinds of things. The product line-specific development cycle has composite products. Each product line defined will have to go through the remaining step 2 through 11 definition processes. The first stage is defining how big your inventory is. Another phrase for step 2 might be called "product line inventory". This was generally accepted.
     • Step 2 may also include product line capabilities.
     • Step 3 for Business-level Analysis/Requirements gathering in services is defining context specific activities versus context-agnostic boundaries. What do the things in the product line need to be doing. Product capability decomposition, suggests Ron. If we use SAIF terminology, call it "Conceptual Level Requirements" with the implicit use of SAIF in our methodology for conceptual level. Austin points out that this makes the HL7 SAIF Implementation Guide to be product-specific. Conceptual-informational and conceptual-behavioral are in this step 3 box. Separating capabilities from process are important.
     • Step 4 becomes "logical level artifact definition". Bound to roles designer vs. developer vs. etc.
     • Step 5 becomes "logical level bindings".
     • Step 6 is Implementation Guide development
     • Step 7 was Service Testing, initially interpreted to internal publication of specifications, balloting, but is actually "balloting publication and balloting"
     • External publication in Step 8 - is DSTU internal or external? DSTU moved to external as Step 8 and the prior external publication step moved to Step 9.
   • Charlie Mead adds that he can obtain an example for TSC use - see reference from the NCI on risk assessment

Recessed 3:14 PM

Q4 - Management: 3:30 pm to 5pm

Re convened 3:29 PM

1. HQMF out of cycle ballot request, at TSC Tracker # 2352
   • HL7 Version 3 Standard: Representation of the Health Quality Measures Format (eMeasure), DSTU Release 2 -History of prior ballot 2012Sept reviewed. Need a preview period prior to ballot open to prevent changes. Some in the group that want to address only technical publication problems and not correct content prior to the next ballot based on comments received. Calvin moves and Ed seconds. Motion: approve out of cycle ballot request with expectation that content for preview site will be submitted by September 30. SDWG will notify TSC that they have reviewed the content on the preview site in readiness for the out of cycle ballot. Vote: unanimously approved.
   • Candidate governance points identified; preview of ballot site as acceptable for ballot. Detailed quality check at the beginning of V3 ballot. It should be asserted that the results of the quality check should be resolved or explained by the WG prior to ballot open. Woody agrees, since he fixed five normative specs prior to this ballot whose errors had not been addressed since they first occurred a year ago.
     • Austin notes that we also exposed a risk of jeopardizing HL7 credibility to the US Government stakeholder on this ballot.
     • Review of the preview site should be a role for a ballot on a project scope statement. QA report is there but someone needs to review it. Melva shared that Pharmacy now uses a checklist.
     • Charlie notes the governance point would have precept of "preliminary ballot preview", guidelines, people who are supposed to do it, and metrics of success.
2. (Sept) Review and re-confirm ArB membership (even numbered years); Charlie addresses potential changes. Most active participants are Charlie, Ron, Tony, Andy, Jane, Bo, Cecil and Zoran. Steve's participation is still welcome. AMS has offered to be their modeling facilitator but declined interest in becoming a voting member. Liaison role between ArB and Architecture Program needs better fulfillment. Grahame has not had bandwidth to participate and the wiki and web page are both wrong. Lynn will contact HQ to update ArB membership, removing John, Grahame, and AMS from the ArB membership page. Table ArB re-confirmation to tomorrow night after Charlie speaks with individuals.
3. (Sept) Review and confirm ORC liaison assignment; Ed has not done anything with it. John reports that other organizations are trying to interact with us and don't have anyone to interact with. X12 and WEDI are meeting the same time so it's becoming more difficult. IHTSDO interaction on clinical experience in SNOMED is increasingly important. Effectively the committee is non-functional since there have been no minutes with quorum since 2010. Activities with Other SDOs have continued to be run by the TSC though the ORC was supposed to take it over.
   • Woody notes that TSC is aware of relationships that need management and ORC is not currently adequately interacting with other organizations and not technically performing their functions so we may want to recommend to the Board to address the situation. HQ Staff have effectively taken over the ORC work but cannot liaise with other organizations.
   • Motion: TSC communicate to the Board that it has significant concerns: that the lack of activity in the ORC, as evidenced by lack of quorumed meeting activity in the last 20 months; and very important relationships such as with IHTSDO; are of direct concern as it is now affecting operational relationships with the organizations. As such, the TSC recommends that the Board address revitalizing the ORC. Changes in organizational relationships have occurred during that time and approved SOUs are still coming forward, but no visible mechanism of accomplishing the work. Seconded by Charlie. Vote: unanimously approved.
   • Ron notes that this will impact the BAM as well. These relationships are going to impact the Business Architecture in intersection points.
   • Charlie volunteers to represent the TSC to whatever form that committee takes once it becomes functional.
4. Tooling Strategy/Plan Review
   • John describes in a slide show. The spectrum is much larger than the scope of work from the Tooling WG. Advisory council recommends what we should be doing the most is the stuff we don't do at all - user tools. Free IP means less money for tooling funding. They need to be their own business, as otherwise they depend on whatever budget is left over by the Board. Recommendation by Grahame is a tooling coordinator per product line (or by WG?).
     • Woody asks about the "user" tools, from EHR on FM Profile development and management tool, free to users and running on a real-time repository. He found that to be worth HL7's full budget for three years. John compares that to Trifolia (web application, SQL-server based) and CDA Templates. Free IP paradigm means we need to provide value to members, such as our tooling.
     • Woody asks how the free IP first came about. The Board has been kicking around the idea for a couple years. EHR FPs and DAMs started it, and FHIR kicked the door wide open. John notes that the current IP policy is non-enforceable. Charlie recounts a comparison with W3C. John notes our model is moving closer to that, with strategic influence will bring in larger revenue.
5. Messages to the cochairs Monday night and International Council tomorrow. Ed asks for better education for cochairs besides the cochair handbook. Melva suggests mentoring; she had the same thing in terms of ballot reconciliation to understand what has to be done. Going to the training, by the time to have to do the functions some time later you've forgotten and the handbook is lengthy. Shadowing someone is a better way if you have someone available. Education with screen shots and pictures, videos, powerpoints besides text would be better. Austin will ask the cochairs for feedback on cochairs knowledge needs.
   • Work Group Health changes
   • unhealthy Work Group reps invited to Tuesday lunch

Adjourned 5:03PM EDT

Actions (Include Owner, Action Item, and due date) .

Next Meeting/Preliminary Agenda Items V3 Governance Task force meeting lunch Wednesday in Constellation E FHIR Governance Board meeting tomorrow 7 AM in this same room, Annapolis.