ConCall-20070327

T3F - Transitional Technical Task Force

Tuesday Mar 27, 2007 12:00 PM (US Eastern Time, GMT -5)

Present

Beeler, Buitendijk, Case, McCay, Lorenzi, Parker, Quinn, Walker

Agenda

1. Roll Call & Accept agenda & Approve Minutes
2. Follow up on action items
3. Role of TCO and TD Chair
4. Review Diagram of TD relationships (Parker)
5. Discussion of e-mail topic "SIG is not a Project"
6. Discussion of Core concepts for TD (McCay)
7. Planning for Cologne deliverable

Minutes

Approved minutes of 3/20/2007

Follow up on action items

Jim Case reported on initial discussions with Project Life-Cycle Team. Appears to be consensus that the definition, execution and maintenance of the Project Life-Cycle will become a TD responsibility once the strategic team completes its task. There is no expectation that the current project team would continue functioning. The notion of a "Project Services Committee" appointed by the TD appears a reasonable solution.

Role of TCO and TD Chair

The T3F continued discussions of the Role of the Technology Coordination Officer (TCO or CTO) in the TD. In aggregate, the T3F believes the TCO should be a partner with the TD, but that the Chair should come from among the volunteer community. Beeler agreed to draft a formal motion for adopting such a position during next week's conference call. The motion will include a secondary motion addressing whether the TCO should be eligible for election as the TD Chair.

There is general consensus in the T3F that the TD Chair should be elected by the TD, rather than in an "at large" election. The belief is that TD is best placed to recognize the qualities and capabilities needed for this role. The group agreed that with this approach there is no need to select a formal Vice-Chair. Such responsibilities could be delegated by the TD chair, as needed. There will be a need to avoid the Chair selection process from getting "hung up" on the terms of the candidates.

Review Diagram of TD relationships (Parker)

Craig Parker provided an update of the diagram that reflects the relationships between the TD. the CEO, CTO and other HL7 Employees, the Board, and the Technical committees. The group asked for minor modifications, which were made, resulting in this final document.

Discussion of e-mail topic "SIG does not equal project"

There was a brief discussion of this e-mail thread. Prospectively, the issues of "SIG vs TCs" or "Projects vs Committees and SIGs" must be a serious TD undertaking. The TD will only succeed if it addresses this with sensitivity and wisdom so as to not disenfranchise the volunteers who seek to contribute. Although this will be on the TD agenda the T3F will not discuss these questions further until the steps to organize an instantiate the TD are underway.

Discussion of Core concepts for TD (McCay)

McCay had presented a series of questions under the heading "Success criteria for TD". These are the sorts of questions posed by HL7 adopters and developers, and for which it is often difficult to get a consistent answer today. This list was augmented in subsequent e-mail threads.

The core notion, however, is that6 the TD can only be successful if each of these questions is easily answered at all times and across all committees. It is not the TD's responsibility to be "answer central" for these, but to assure that the processes and management capabilities are present such that the answers are always readily available.

Planning for Cologne deliverable

The final topic focused on steps to finish material and prepare for the Cologne meetings. McCay notes that the T3F has identified three areas to work on - Organization, Architecture, and Process.

We have made good progress on Organization, with a firm recommendation as to the composition of the TD, and how the roles should be filled.

For architecture and process we recognize that there is good existing work available, and that these should be addressed once the organizational issues are resolved.

The T3F agreed that the objective for Cologne is to complete the Organization work and present it along with a tactical plan for establishing the TD to the Board.

The following steps/action items were agreed:

1. (Beeler) Finalize the TD organization documentation
2. (McCay) Agree upon a set of questions that the TD is tasked to assure can be answered, starting with Success criteria for TD
3. (Lorenzi) Agree on a set of responsibilities for the TD, and the set of responsibilities that it will ask other committees to take on. This could be done using the Strategic Recommendations as a very straw straw man from CM comments on TD definition from Strategic Recommendations
4. (ALL) Assure 2 & 3 are consistent. (Suspect that we will need to agree some questions, look at the responsibilities, then look at the questions again.)
5. (Case)- Create a set of decision making Practices for the TD, starting with the PIC document.
6. (Parker) - We also need to provide a time-line for the first elections to the TD so that it is in place for the Sept WGM, assuming that our proposals are accepted in May.