Meeting-20080504

TSC - Technical Steering Committee

Ssunday, May r, 2008 5:00 PM (US Pacific Time, GMT -5)

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Attendance

Expected

• CTO: John Quinn
• Domain Experts: Jim Case (primary), Austin Kreisler (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: Frank Oemig
• ARB Chair: Charlie Mead
• HQ: Karen Van Hentenryck

invited

• Charles Jaffe (CEO); Ed Hammond (HL7 Chair); Chuck Meyer (HL7 Vice Chair)

Agenda

1. (5 min) Roll Call- The following individuals were in attendance: Chuck Meyer, Frank Oemig, Gregg Seppala, Calvin Beebe, Woody Beeler, Austin Kreisler, Jim Case, Charlie McCay, Ken McCaslin, Ed Hammond, Ioana Singureanu, Charlie Mead, and Karen Van Hentenryck.
2. Work group input - (example SWOT example and narrative on obstacles to progress) – Case displayed the example he worked up with the PHER. There were two suggested models for capturing the information; the first being bulleted lists, the second being a a narrative paragraph. The TSC felt that the bullet list format is easier to understand and should be distributed to the work groups for use. What the committees plan to do about the obstacles/threats is the strategic plan. Hammond noted that this analysis will be valuable input to the Board. If the same obstacles/threats appear on multiple work group lists, it may influence the Board’s priorities. Hammond noted that the Board will provide feedback to the work groups on what the organization is doing to address the obstacles/threats to progress. Beeler noted the SWOT analysis is secondary to the primary deliverable of the 3 year plan. The plan allows people to understand what the committee is planning to do over the next few years. Ask the committees what they are trying to accomplishing over the new 1-3 years. McCay noted that we need to be very clear about why we are asking for information. From McCay’s perspective, the primary reasons purpose of the dated list to be posted at the top of their web page. Second, we want to feed this into the organization’s Roadmap. The SWOT analysis is an internal document and as such should not be posted on the work group’s front page. At most, the work group’s should spend 30 minutes completing the SWOT analysis.. McCay will present this at Monday’s evening’s TSC meeting. We will also distribute the Structured Documents plan as an example of what we’re looking for.
3. TSC meeting plans for September WGM – The group decided to keep the same schedule as this meeting. We will have a full Saturday meeting, and schedule a Sunday meeting from 6-8 pm.
4. ArB Issues – Charlie Mead reported that the Dynamic Framework requirements documents were discussed and approved. There is a recommendation of the ArB at the end of the document that a single work group be tasked with this responsibility. Quinn wants the ArB to develop the Dynamic Model and the other committees (INM, MNM, Vocabarulary) to stop their work related to this project . Secondly, what was thought to have been a developing set of recommendations for the re-organization of core foundation committees, was actually just a project proposal. Grahame Grieve is just now submitting the project proposal which needs to go through steering division approval before being brought to the TSC. Beeler asked about the ballot Quality Assurance project. He has asked that the ballot AQ be discussed with Publishing. Neither Virginia, Dick nor Keith have approached the Publishing Committee. Dick Harding is one of the Publishing co-chairs and thus the ArB likely felt that this had been discussed with that committee. Publishing has this on their agenda on Q4 Wednesday. Charlie Mead will attempt to get this group of people talking with Publishing. Beeler noted that if there is a project that involves the main work of a particular committee, that committee ought to be involved in the discussions. A project proposal was submitted by the ArB and approved by the TSC shortly following the San Antonio meeting. The process failed in that the steering divisions did not review the project proposal. Beyond that, the project sponsors need to understand what is involved in getting the ballot out. Beeler will also address the issue tomorrow evening at the TSC meeting. Charlie Mead reviewed the requirements for the Dynamic Framework. The recommendation is that: This project should be an ArB sponsored and ArB executed project. Singureanu suggested that references be added to the requirement document. Beeler noted that past attempts at this have failed because of our inability to fund meetings of a multi disciplinary project team. Beeler hopes that the committees that have been involved up to this point can suggest individuals from their group to work with or serve on the committee. Charlie Mead indicated that the Quinn was not wanting the limit the project to the member of the ArB. Rather, he wanted a single group to lead the project and assume responsibility for delivering it. Quinn would like the Dynamic Model to be completed by the September Working Group Meeting. The next step is to have the project statement reviewed by the steering divisions. Beebe noted that supporting tooling is one of the requirements of the Dynamic Model.and he asked for clarification on how this project can support tooling given the timeframe. There is tooling today that can support this. If the requirements can be ageed to then these requirements and the requirements underneath them are supportable by tooling. There needs to be computation support for any dynamic model that we have. This would be pre-existing, open source tooling. Beebe feels that the tooling might be better as a separate project. Beeler expressed concern with the schedule. There are key people that he feels must participate in this project who might not be available in the expressed timeframe. McCay suggested caution on a couple of fronts. The TSC can spend the time reviewing the details of the deliverable. The TSC can ensure that the project is reviewed effective and in a timely manner through the steering divisions. The TSC is being asked to peer review this particular project and contribute content. The set of requirements need to be reviewed and validated before the scope statement is considered. There was an agreement that the ArB should put out a call and assembling the team. The topic will be presented tomorrow evening at the TSC. Beebe recommends that all appropriate work groups are given these requirements and given a timeframe in which to provide feedback. Tomorrow evening, the requirements will go out to the steering divisions, who will identify the groups that will review. Steering Divisions will be given 15 days to respond. Feedback will go directly to the ArB as they will revise the document. The document will be posted to the TSC wiki site. Funding for dynamic model will need to be presented to the Board in the near future. Beeler estimated approximately $2k/participate for each of two meetings. The cost would be $30-50k The request would come from the TSC. The TSC needs to review the re-organization project and review/approve it. This has been forwarded to the Foundations Steering Division.
5. Projects and Committee in good standing – Case noted that we’ve already discussed some general principles, including:
   • Development of a plan.
   • No open projects that show no or little progress for x period of time.
   • Posting of minutes
   • Scheduling Conference calls
   • Presence at SD calls/meeting
   • Listserv activity
   • Wiki presence
   • Balloted in the past year

The items above are good practices. Many of the other steering divisions expressed interest in compiling similar spreadsheets. This is a matter of an organization reviewing and measuring its own processes so that we can improve quality. This will open some dialogue that is useful to the organization. The staff will be tasked with pulling this information together; the TSC will pull the list of criteria together. Similar criteria should be drawn up for projects. McCay called for someone to take this project forward. Calvin Beebe, Austin Kreisler, Ioana Singurean and Ken McCaslin volunteered to pull this information together for their steering divisions.

1. Meeting time - Frank Oemig asked if the group could move the meeting time. Case suggested that we meet Noon ET and not convene the week of the Board call. After some discussion, this proposal was rejected and the group agreed to continue meeting Monday’s at 11 am ET.

Meeting adjourned 7:50 pm PT