TSC CTO Chair PM Roles

TSC Comparison of Responsibilities between CTO, TSC Chair, and TSC Project Manager

Comparison Table of CTO, TSC Chair, and TSC PM

Category	CTO	TSC Chair	TSC PM
Summary	The HL7 CTO is a full-time, non-volunteer executive leadership position in HL7 with direct responsibility for assessing the technologies used in HL7’s products. Since the products of HL7 are highly dependent on prevalent information technologies, the HL7 CTO contributes to the foundations and processes that make up and deliver HL7’s products. The HL7 CTO is both responsible for and dependent on his/her abilities to cooperatively work with the volunteers that make up the HL7 Working Group and together design, build, ballot, review, publish and maintain HL7’s products.		Assist HL7’s Technical Steering Committee (TSC) manage a project database, organize information from various sources on the current activities in each Work Group, review and create monthly summary reports on all active projects.
Reporting and Leadership Responsibilities	The HL7 CTO reports to the HL7 Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The CTO is a participant of the HL7 Executive Committee and a member of the HL7 Technical Steering Committee (TSC). The CTO serves as vice chair of the TSC and Architecture Board (ArB).	The TSC Chair is elected by the TSC Voting Members, is an ex officio voting member of the HL7 Board of Directors to facilitate communication in both directions, and is responsible that strategic technical recommendations are properly represented and understood at the Board. (from HL7_Technical_Steering_Committee Mission, Responsibilities, Composition and Formation)	To assist the TSC and specifically the TSC Chair, CTO and Associate Executive Director in the following:
Responsibilities	1. Work directly with and advise the HL7 CEO, Board of Directors (Board), and Industry Advisory Board to set, document and communicate HL7’s vision and current strategic goals. 2. Be a liaison of the HL7 vision and current strategy with the TSC and the wider Working Group. This responsibility may require overseeing the execution of standards development within HL7 and helping to guide efforts of the Working Group (WG) to be in line with the products and services strategy set forth by the Board. 3. Act as a conduit of information from the TSC to the HL7 Executive Leadership and Board about concerns and business opportunities that may warrant additions or changes to HL7’s current strategic goals. 4. Advise the ArB as it defines and documents HL7’s reference architecture for individual products and as it supports the foundation of HL7 products. 5. Establish and maintain a process to continuously manage and measure HL7’s products to its reference architecture, periodically update the reference architecture, and report on how HL7’s products are supported by or diverge from this architecture. 6. Act as the primary liaison between the TSC and the HL7 Program Management Office (PMO), work with other members of the TSC to help align priorities among HL7’s committee level projects with the PMO. The CTO will also report back to the TSC when necessary resources are not sufficient, priorities need to be realigned and when timeline expectations need to be reset. 7. Work with the TSC and its Projects Services Committee to define, document and work to continuously improve the work process of the HL7 Working Group. 8. Help manage and coordinate HL7’s internal (to HL7) and external (to its customers) tooling products. HL7 uses software tools to manage many of its processes, and develop and publish most of its products. 9. Be a primary liaison for technology and product obligations of HL7 between itself and other Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) as defined by HL7’s CEO and Board. HL7 maintains formal relationship agreements between itself and many other SDOS. The CTO is not, in general, responsible for the business relationships with other SDOs but rather must be consulted, made aware, and be a point of support for obligations HL7 accepts that involve the make-up of its products (e.g., Standards or Implementation Guides) as well as its delivery schedules, architecture and tooling.	Assures that the efforts of the Working Group (WG) are effectively focused on accomplishing the product and services strategy set forth by the Board.	Manage the HL7 Work Group Project Database: • Review and create a summary report on all active projects monthly or as directed. • Create periodic reports for the TSC, its Steering Divisions (SDs) and the constituent Work Groups (WGs) on projects, projects statuses. • Organize information from various sources on the current activities in each Work Group and report on the alignment of WGs activities to current business and technical plans of the organization. • Periodically review each WG’s web site(s), Wiki’s or other documented WG communications mechanism; verify each activities alignment to the current projects list and initiatives being addressed by the TSC. • Manage a “gap” report that identifies each active or upcoming initiative on HL7’s plan documents (business & technical plan and/or “road map”) that does not have corresponding and matching project in the TSC Project Database. • Other activities as directed by the HL7 Associate Executive Director
Additional Information	(from HL7_Technical_Steering_Committee Mission, Responsibilities, Composition and Formation), Decision making and delegated decisions By and large, decisions of the Technical Steering Committee will be made by vote. There are however, tactical decisions, such as approvals for ballot, exceptions to ballot rules, etc. that have, in the past, been assigned to the Technical Chair of HL7 as part of HL7 By-laws or Policies. Such decisions should be assigned to the CTO, using the individual SDs and committees as resources, with the TSC providing a venue for appeal of such decisions.	The Technical Steering Committee and its Chair should delegate responsibilities and operational decision-making (to be defined later) to the "Technical Officer."