2011-09-10 TSC WGM Minutes

TSC Saturday meeting for 2011 September WGM

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TSC WGM Agenda/Minutes

HL7 TSC Meeting Minutes Location: Garden Salon 2, San Diego CA USA		Date: 2011-09-10 Time: 9am - 5 pm
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
x, regrets Q2	Bob Dolin	HL7 Board Chair (member ex officio w/vote)
x	Freida Hall	invited guest, HL7 T3SD SD Co-Chair-elect
	Chuck Jaffe	HL7 CEO (member ex officio w/o vote)
x	Tony Julian	HL7 FTSD Co-Chair
x	Austin Kreisler (Chair)	HL7 TSC Chair, DESD Co-Chair
x	Lynn Laakso (scribe, non-voting)	HL7 HQ
x	Patrick Loyd	HL7 T3SD Co-Chair
x	Ken McCaslin	HL7 TSS SD Co-Chair
x	Charlie Mead	HL7 ArB Chair
	Don Mon	HL7 Board Chair-elect (member ex officio w/o vote)
	Ravi Natarajan	HL7 Affiliate Representative
Q3/4	Ron Parker	HL7 ArB Alternate
PM Regrets	John Quinn	HL7 CTO (TSC member ex officio w/vote)
	Pat Van Dyke	HL7 SSD SD Co-Chair
	Mead Walker	invited guest, HL7 DESD SD Co-Chair-elect
x	Ed Tripp	HL7 DESD Co-Chair
x	Jay Zimmerman	HL7 Affiliate Representative
x	Jane Curry	Tooling co-chair; guest
Quorum Requirements (Co-chair +5 with 2 SD Reps) Met: yes

Agenda Topics

Q1 - Roadmap and HL7 Strategic Issues: 9 am to 10:30 am

1. Roll Call and Introduction of visitors (including declaration of interests)
2. Additions to, and acceptance of, agenda: ArB would like to review membership this cycle also
3. Link to Interim decision review since last WGM
4. Tooling (30 mins)
5. Strategic Initiatives Dashboard - criteria

Q2 - TSC Planning and Open Issue Review: 11 am to 12:30 pm

1. (45 mins) Review Open Issues List
2. PBS Metrics as part of project approval decision making practices
3. Next WGM Planning - next two WGMs - agenda links
4. (May) Elect TSC Representative to Nominations Committee (Per GOM Section 10.06.01)
5. (May) Review TSC Three-Year Plan
6. (May) Review TSC Communications Plan - how are we doing against it?
   • Maintenance project: obtain / publish WG updates to M&C, SWOTs and DMPs
   • Task: report Work Group Health, and Work Group Visibility
7. (Sept, even numbered years) Review and re-confirm ArB membership
8. (Sept) Review and confirm ORC liaison assignment

Q3 - TSC Project Review: 1:30 pm to 3 pm

1. TSC Continuous Improvement objectives
   • Product Strategy Project (Project Insight # 413)
   • T3F Strategic Initiative Review
   • Reflections on the Fresh Look Task Force?

Q4 - Architecture and Tooling: 3:30 pm to 5pm

1. ArB
2. Introducing New Processes to HL7 - Freida Hall - see document

Sunday

- SAIF AP

Tuesday lunch

1. WGM Planning - agenda setting next two WGMs - agenda links
   • Better coordination of joint sessions between Work Groups
   • Schedule:

     (January) Review TSC Mission and Charter, Decision Making Practices

     (January) Review TSC Decision Making Practices

     (May) Review TSC Three-Year Plan

     (May) Review TSC Communications Plan

     (September) Review TSC SWOT

2. Review of WGH metrics suggestions

Supporting Documents

• http://gforge.hl7.org/gf/download/docmanfileversion/6435/8679/2011Sep_decisions_sincelastWGM.xml
• http://gforge.hl7.org/gf/download/docmanfileversion/6397/8592/HL7AdoptionProcess_draftV11.doc
• http://gforge.hl7.org/gf/download/docmanfileversion/6434/8678/StrategicInitiatives-RASCI-2_20110910.xls

Minutes/Conclusions Reached:

Q1 -

Call to order 9:11 AM PDT

1. Roll Call and Introduction of visitors (including declaration of interests)
2. Additions to, and acceptance of, agenda: ArB would like to review membership this cycle also, Austin would like to add to Q2 the discussion of the Monday night cochairs and Weds AM membership message.
3. Link to Interim decision review since last WGM – Lynn will add
4. Tooling – John Quinn presents his slide deck
   • We’ve eliminated contract funded work; some more funding will become available but it’s not enough. OHT met the past two days. John makes the distinction with our current tooling process to support standards “development”. Jane reports on repository efforts within OHT with HL7 as an early adopter on our artifacts. Repository also includes registry of IP included in the open source material.
   • Charlie notes that this looks like the NCI semantic infrastructure. John suggested he also get with Rob Kolodner on Monday. Coordination should be encouraged. John notes that an orthogonal turn that the idea of Tools has broadened considerably – HIT Products are gaining focus rather than standards development. There is a strategic leg within OHT for developing open source infrastructure objects on which an HIT product can be built. Woody points out that some of the existing HL7 tools already fit into the boxes in the diagram indicated as “leverage” OHT.
   • Strategic Initiative (SI) 2.3 related to Tooling to make standards easier to implement and more responsive to customer needs... 2.3.1 timeliness to industry needs; 2.3.2 implementation gets easier; 2.3.4 prioritization between new tool development versus ongoing support and evaluating externally developed tools – this topic needs some TSC discussion.
   • Tooling requirements in 2011 include reqs for IHTSDO WB enhancements, CDA IG publishing pilot, and EHR-S FM profile designer, as well as Shared Artifact Repository for OHT. Need to know the requirements before requesting funding from the Board. Charlie Mead notes that alignment of MIF with XMI requirements is still outstanding based on 400+ requirements submitted to OMG. Semantic Web is better prepared to meet those requirements at this time. A conversation is needed with Robert Lario.
   • additional proposed tooling projects include ES and Publishing joint project, tooling dashboard, communications, and GForge hosting alternatives. Budget considerations were also discussed. Bob would like to note the use of external tooling might also be a budget consideration. Tooling support and the change to Wilfred’s resource, requests to Woody and the use of the documentation on the wiki were discussed. Ed suggests a survey of those that use tools to get some information on how often they use them and how often they use support. Jane notes that it might be a part of the tooling outreach and communication.
   • Elections of Steering Division chairs for 2012 discussed. Motion made by Woody seconded by Jay for nomination of Austin as ad-hoc member of TSC after his term expires December 31st 2011 for two years until January 1st 2014. Vote: Unanimously approved. Past chair or vice-chair as used for the board chair would be helpful to an incoming chair, despite John’s position as vice chair.
   • Ken moves to change the GOM to allow a steering division to backfill an election of a steering division cochair to TSC chair. Woody seconds and offers friendly amendment to allow one year past chair membership in the event the TSC chair is not re-elected to TSC membership. Once an individual member of the TSC is selected as a TSC chair, whatever position that individual held entitling them to membership on the TSC will be vacated and a replacement named in that constituency according to its decision making practices for representation on the TSC; and the exiting TSC chair is eligible to continue membership for one year as past TSC Chair. Ken accepts the amendment. Unanimously approved.
   • postpone Strategic initiatives to Q2

Q2 -

1. Strategic Initiatives Dashboard – criteria
   • as bullet points, can get it down to one page, so the dashboard can be, too.
   • Austin also had a RASCI chart to identify TSC responsibilities versus Board
   • Criteria under each strategic initiative assigned to the TSC would be on our dashboard. Should HQ have Responsibility for 2.2.1, WGM have been effective? They are listed as Supportive of all criteria. WGH is a trailing indicator of evidence of a problem to when we sense it. An issue is when elements are changing faster than we can track them. We may not know how we’re doing before the initiatives change again. Product quality is one example of when we would know quality is improved or perceived to be improved. Ken suggests we only dashboard the items in column D (TSC responsibility). The project states that the TSC would develop the dashboard for tracking progress for all the SI’s not just those the TSC is responsible for. For those items where the Board is responsible, the Board may still have to designate from whom they will delegate the activity and receive the response for the dashboard. The TSC and the Board need to talk together on such assignments. TSC chair, Board chair and CTO sit on both ex officio so liaisons exist.
   • Product Strategy (formerly 2.3.4) was dropped from the SI list. The TSC should recommend to the Board (need to ask Bob) that this be brought back. Work is actively ongoing around this effort; if this were added into the requirements for achieving 2.2.3, product quality, then it might be understandable but really it needs to be on its own.
   • Jane asks if the TSC wants to see and approve the Tooling Strategy before it goes before the Board. The TSC in its consulting role would offer feedback.
   • Ken finds it problematic to see the SI change each year and having to re-engineer a dashboard each year. John finds that as the SI change we refine our direction and understanding of where the organization needs to be and we define what needs to be done to get there. When Don Mon takes the reins next year we will continue to see changes. If the initiatives change faster than we can measure them we’ll lose any ability to drill down and reach a consistent process. Our dashboard may be lightweight and link to a spreadsheet.
   • First initiative: Realm specifications are brought into HL7 to bolster and support the universal standards. Current efforts with Microbiology is a first start. Do we have information to support this? How do we capture info on project scope statement to indicate that material was a former realm standard, such as “Was this standard previously balloted or approved as a realm-specific standard?” This can go on the next round of changes to the PSS. Then we can start identifying standards coming from the realms. Zero is red, yellow is initiated, and green is that it’s balloted and passed and published. It may take a few years of projects in the pipeline getting through the process before this becomes green but only looking on new projects submitted under the new templates. Calvin notes that the health of projects in the pipeline may be another issue. That was set aside. Ed asks if we can search on realm – Ken notes it’s not on the searchable database but it is available from the spreadsheet version.
   • Working Group Meetings have been effective: is this based on the result of the surveys? We need to identify the objectives. How do we identify the percentage of ‘yes’ on a certain line item. Calvin suggests review the last six meetings. Ken suggests that the project team go out and look at these criteria and bring them back to the TSC. Woody suggests we assign individual criteria to individuals or groups and have them come back to the TSC. Patrick will look into this.
   • Product Quality has improved. Woody will take the Product Quality criteria
   • Requirements traceability enabled: needs to be part of the SAIF AP. Austin will take this one. Woody notes that it’s enabled in the MIF. Jane notes there are tooling issues tracking down from conceptual down to design issues. Needs to be tied to cross artifact inconsistency.
   • Cross Artifact inconsistency reduced: Austin gets this one too.
   • Industry responsiveness demonstrated: Ken will take this one along with John.
   • Standards implementation easier: Ken will take this one too. John will be part of this as well from the Tooling perspective.
   • Education Plan – it’s already yellow as they have put out a plan for peer review. Criteria: red is no activity, yellow is a project out there and plan being developed, and green is that the project is completed and the plan is approved. Austin takes this one.
   • The dashboard needs to include criteria for all the initiatives so we want to ask the Board for who is assigned to develop criteria for the remaining bullet items. If we have no report on those dashboard criteria they will be marked as Red. Might be able to use the RASCI chart as the basis for the dashboard color-coding. Such determination needs to be done by the project team as facilitated by Ken. ACTION ITEM: Austin will send Lynn an updated version of the RASCI chart.
2. Open Issue Review: 11 am to 12:30 pm
3. Review Open Issues List
   • 1815 Guidelines on informative vs normative - Austin will present what he has to the cochairs on Monday night and discuss with Arden, CCOW, and GELLO on how their standards meet our proposed normative guidelines.
4. PBS Metrics as part of project approval decision making practices
   • Bob asked if we need a TSC policy around how long you have to finish ballot reconciliation and publish, before the project times out? Different situations between ballots that take time to reconcile, versus a bad ballot, or reconciliation has not been undertaken.
   • Do we want to start taking into consideration these metrics when the WG brings forward a new project scope statement? Patrick agrees. How do we want to review their numbers? If they have x outstanding ballots or how shall we evaluate, or get a summary from the Work Group explaining? Ken notes that this needs to be socialized before we start using this as criteria. This needs to be mentioned at the cochairs meeting. Should this be part of the Steering Division approval process instead of the TSC? Ed suggests that with new projects the Steering Divisions ask them to include some information on their PBS metrics health. What review process to propose? Patrick notes that we’ll start using these after the next Working Group Meeting as a means for assessing a work group’s capability for undertaking a new effort. To evaluate WG capacity to manage another project what is the best measure? Which of the P, B, or S reports or metrics best captures that? Austin notes that though the information is available it is in different places so he can announce that we’ll be looking at using the information towards project approval.
   • Ed notes that updates to projects getting into Project Insight though active projects that are being managed in MS Project or other tools have not the understanding that they should be notifying HQ that milestones should be updated each cycle. Dave should add that to his PMO update. It’s been communicated before but needs to be repeated. Freida notes that Project Services can look at how the Steering Divisions can use the information to evaluate. Calvin asks if the information is available? We have a socialization issue to ensure people know how to get the information. Dave needs to communicate how to get this information. Project services should also provide insight into how it is used. ACTION ITEM: Freida will take this request to Project Services. Austin reiterates that it’s not a hard and fast rule but used in evaluation of the project. If it doesn’t happen in the steering division it will have to happen here at the TSC. It’s a judgment call as there’s not a clear line drawn. Will the TSC be satisfied with the line drawn by the Steering Division, asks Calvin? Austin notes the Steering Divisions “should” take the PBS Metrics into account, where the TSC “may” take it into account. Ed adds that when the Steering Division forwards an approved project scope statement it includes a statement of the results of the PBS Metrics review. Should this be added to the PSS or only in an email when the scope statement is forwarded. Lynn notes that not all Steering Divisions send an email so putting it in the PSS is helpful.

Q3 - TSC Project Review

Reconvened 1:32PM PDT

1. Next WGM Planning - next two WGMs - agenda links
2. (Sept) Review and re-confirm ArB membership
   • Metrics for membership on ArB, attendance and so on. Does Charlie or Ron need to manage requirements and expectations for membership and participation, or does the TSC wish to set those? Individuals that have significant contribution to offer are not available to participate. Does the TSC wish to command their membership or allow the ArB to name other individuals? The GOM provides metrics for participation which some members are not meeting in 09.03.02.02. The ArB chairs will speak to the members in question and address their participation.
     • Patrick suggests that the GOM be revised to refer to periodic conference calls instead of weekly. Ron notes that the support by ArB of liaisons into other Work Groups needs to be evaluated. The Architecture Program has not also been well operationalized in ArB.
3. (Sept) Review and confirm ORC liaison assignment – Ken has served as ORC liaison. As his term ends this year we need a new liaison. Ken notes that it has consisted of reviewing how relationships are defined outside of HL7. CDISC and DICOM were the focus, moving into CLSI to create a formal statement. Ed offers to take it on. Charlie notes that OACIS issued a document SOA Reference Architecture Foundation which looks a lot like SAIF in a lot of places. He sent it to John, who referred him to the HL7-OACIS MOU, who sent it to their liaison on cross-referencing the documents between the organizations, who may need to coordinate a working group to ramp up the coordination. Motion made by Calvin second by Patrick to name Ed Tripp as ORC liaison. Unanimously approved. ACTION ITEM: Send notice to Scott Robertson and Karen Van Hentenryck.
4. Monday night cochairs and Weds AM membership message
   • Some items previously discussed include using PBS Metrics to evaluate WG capability to take on new projects as well as normative vs informative balloting guidelines. Any other messages? SAIF update – CD release and first normative (DSTU) ballot. SAIF Architecture program update, lessons in experimentation. Relationship to Grahame’s RFH? Need the HL7 SAIF IG (beyond the Canonical Definition) to move forward. Too early to share specifics on the Strategic Initiatives dashboard effort.
5. TSC Continuous Improvement objectives
   • Product Strategy Project (Project Insight # 413) – web site development underway for presentation layer to product briefs according to architecture defined in the document circulated a month ago. Ed notes that the disconnect in our product strategy is an inability to select something specific out of V3 to be able to purchase it. He doesn’t have a solution for that but it’s a packaging issue on interdependencies in the technical packaging. CDA managed to break out, and ICSR was trying to, for separate packaging. The organization is focused on developing things, not selling things. The domain perspective was necessary for scoping development in an area but packaging all the dependencies needed to implement just a domain or functional/business viewpoints is not available. Woody notes that Fresh Look is a consequence of those issues. Should the product list be reviewed with an eye for those areas that have broad applicability and where are they narrowly focused? Do we need a better product strategy, or do we need to better define what a product “should be” in our environment, versus trying to define the products we have. Ron notes that SAIF tried to define traceability from a set of requirements. This is in theory but not yet in play and is not available to define a product perspective. Woody notes the idea to set requirements for an EHR is too large to create an entire top down product strategy. Ron notes that the architecture is a frame from within you can define some bottom up packages. TSC still needs to ask the board to consider a product strategy. Woody also notes we collectively need to look at the products already held out as products, and determine those that have a position where they can exist independent of other products, or as part of a formal product we have not yet recognized.
   • T3F Strategic Initiative Review – change from all cochairs on TSC as compared to electing representatives on the TSC. Something needs to be said on it, but no major corrections are obvious. Nothing has been written yet but will have something for January.
6. Reflections on the Fresh Look Task Force?
   • RFH was starting with a discussion on mood codes and the need to clean up the RIM was Lloyd and Grahame and Woody talking about the granularity with which things are laid out. This was in response to the Board FLTF which needed input.
   • Concern is that there are two efforts which Stan is leading. They may lead to similar objectives but are actually two separate efforts. The clinical information modeling/representational issues are being addressed outside of HL7.
   • Task force efforts are not well known within the membership. MnM is having a session as well as RIMBAA Q6 (after the networking reception). Fresh Look session is scheduled Monday Q3-with Q4 closed to the board-appointed task force.
   • There have been conflicting pressures regarding output of FLTF with TSC involvement. Bob notes ’08 V2/V3 task force formed under Ed’s chairmanship and ended with set of recommendations in earlier 2011. The aftermath of the recommendations evolved into FLTL which will now hopefully become a source of innovation in HL7. Innovations are already happening in HL7 even though “the Innovations project” has stagnated. Discussion ensued.

Recessed 3:12pm PDT

Q4 - Architecture and Tooling: 3:30 pm to 5pm

1. ArB review of SAIF Tutorial Overview slides
   • Austin would entertain specific ideas about what needs to be communicated. People that have been working off of the initial version may need to be ‘re-baselined’.
2. Introducing New Processes to HL7 - Freida Hall - see document
   • Document reviewed, some edits made. Tooling will be trialing the process in accord with a project whose scope will be developed this week.
   • Various groups have ‘skin in the game’ in process determination. It’s not about process that is internal to the work group. This has to be a part of a process that impacts more than a single workgroup. Discussion ensued regarding the applicability of this process definition as related to the rollout of the new CMET process as compared to modification of its existing processes, and the definition of a project scope statement for the CMET “process artifact”. A process definition should have requirements such that it should be new, and affect more than one work group such that it requires different behavior. Significant change to a process may be adjudicated by the Steering Division.
   • This process adoption process should pilot its own adoption process! Implications exist for changes to the project scope statement. Should this be a TSC project? Probably needs a comment only ballot, not only wiki based comments. Freida will bring a project scope statement.
3. Woody asks for an electronic version of the registration list so that he can tick off attendance in meetings rather than entering an attendance list.

Adjourned at 4:42 PM PDT.

Actions (Include Owner, Action Item, and due date) Notify GOC the TSC wishes the GOM to reflect that: Once an individual member of the TSC is selected as a TSC chair, whatever position that individual held entitling them to membership on the TSC will be vacated and a replacement named in that constituency according to its decision making practices for representation on the TSC; and the exiting TSC chair is eligible to continue membership for one year as ‘past TSC Chair’. Austin will send Lynn an updated version of the RASCI chart Freida will pass on the suggestion to capture info on project scope statement to indicate that material was a former realm standard, such as “Was this standard previously balloted or approved as a realm-specific standard?” for the next round of changes to the PSS Strategic Dashboard criteria metrics recommendations: WGM effectiveness – Patrick Woody will take the Product Quality criteria Requirements traceability and cross-artifact consistency – Austin Industry responsiveness and easier implementation: Ken with John’s help Lynn will send notice to Scott Robertson and Karen Van Hentenryck that Ed is the new ORC liaison Freida will task Project Services with looking at how the Steering Divisions can use the information to evaluate.

Next Meeting/Preliminary Agenda Items Sunday - SAIF AP Tuesday lunch - WGM Planning - agenda setting next two WGMs - agenda links Better coordination of joint sessions between Work Groups Schedule: (September) Review TSC SWOT Review of WGH metrics [http://gforge.hl7.org/gf/project/tsc/tracker/?action=TrackerItemBrowse&tracker_id=616 suggestions