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2017-10-25 SGB Conference Call

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HL7 SGB Minutes

Location:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/538465637

Date: 2017-10-25
Time: 10:00 AM Eastern
Facilitator Paul/Calvin Note taker(s) Anne
Attendee Name


x Calvin Beebe
x Lorraine Constable
Russ Hamm
x Tony Julian
x Paul Knapp
Austin Kreisler
Wayne Kubick
x Thom Kuhn
Ken McCaslin
Regrets Rik Smithies
Regrets Sandy Stuart
x Andy Stechishin, David Burgess - EST
x David Johnson, Laura Mitter - HL7 staff
Quorum: Chair + 4

Agenda

  • Agenda review
  • Approve Minutes of 2017-10-18_SGB_Conference_Call
  • Action Items
    • Review GOM with respect to where SGB and precepts should be reflected
    • Recommend to TSC to work with CTO on architecture and tooling strategy to support the work of the committees in following the precepts
    • Ask Vocab to approve a motion that it was the WG’s intention in R3 for the Expansion profile to be balloted as STU. If PA has not documented approval, send them the same message
    • Paul to verify with Karen that the documentation on the FHIR R3 ballot STU approvals is sufficient
  • Discussion Topics
    • Conversation with EST regarding precepts around adding new tools.
    • Finish review of mixed ballot content precept
    • Precept implementation strategy
    • Backwards compatibility consistency and definition across families
  • Precepts to Develop
  • Parking Lot
    • Review Publishing M&C updates regarding dual roles
    • How do we deal with making sure that WGs involve those whose content domain they’re touching? (CIMI and Pharmacy and Lab models)
    • Review Mission and Charter
    • Handling situations where two documents come out of one project
    • FHIR Product Director Position Description: we should 1) review further and draft feedback, then 2) map back the description to the role of FGB
    • Drafting Shared Product Management Responsibilities
    • Levels of standards
    • Separation of concerns
    • Ownership of content
    • ISM
    • Ask methodology groups to define how the definition of substantive change applies to their product family; management groups must then operationalize

Minutes

  • Agenda review
  • Approve Minutes of 2017-10-18_SGB_Conference_Call
    • MOTION to accept: Lorraine/Thom
    • VOTE: All in favor
  • Action Items
    • Review GOM with respect to where SGB and precepts should be reflected
    • Recommend to TSC to work with CTO on architecture and tooling strategy to support the work of the committees in following the precepts
    • Ask Vocab to approve a motion that it was the WG’s intention in R3 for the Expansion profile to be balloted as STU. If PA has not documented approval, send them the same message
    • Paul to verify with Karen that the documentation on the FHIR R3 ballot STU approvals is sufficient
  • Discussion Topics
    • Conversation with EST regarding precepts around adding new tools.
      • Paul: SGB is responsible for creating precepts and guidance when necessary in order to support the work of the various WGs, in particular so that the WGs are able to operate in an efficient manner and have the necessary authority to manage risk to the organization, and to ensure we have the appropriate maintenance of our standards. One group we hadn't spoken to was EST. Touched base at the WGM in San Diego to ask if there were precepts and supports that you needed to support the work of EST. Circumstances in the past occurred where committees may have gone around EST in trying to get work done expeditiously, but that doesn't necessarily benefit long term behavior. In San Diego we determined there may be precepts that would be helpful in your area. Are there particular areas of concern which you find interfere or reduce the ability for you to deliver on your scope and mandate?
      • Andy: EST had established a set of policies for interaction with other WGs. Most of these efforts seem to have fallen by the wayside over the last couple of years. Originally we had a network of liaisons that met once a month under Tooling/EST that discussed working with tools and so forth. We had a formal requirement that if you had a cosponsored project with Tooling that you had to have a liaison. Also had a set of rules established concerning how we brought tools into the organization that are published on the wiki. There may not be a well understood precept on how you engage with the organization when it comes to tools. Paul: It sounds as though your responsibility is to set guidelines as to the processes for selection of tooling or manufacture of tooling to support publication and implementation? Lorraine: That's part of the scope. There's also the ES side of the house which is the delivery of our electronic services, from the listserve, SVN, ballot desktop, etc. Andy: Tooling is also responsible for the maintenance of tools and guiding tooling within the organization in terms of making sure that we have a consistent approach, following an architecture, ensuring sustainability. Challenge is that EST has attempted to put policies and guidance in place but can't make sure it happens operationally because they don't have the perceived authority. There are no consequences for not going through those processes. The CTO used to take an active role in that, but not currently.
      • Reviewed guidance on EST wiki. Lorraine: Of late we've been issuing tooling-related projects in a more ad-hoc manner than is described in the Tooling Project Selection and Prioritization section. Discussion over tooling budget. Andy: There was an approach taken by some to develop big tools internally, primarily for V3 publication. There were also website redesigns, help desk creation, etc. Lorraine: Risks and challenges have been identified for awhile. On publishing yesterday we learned about tooling we're using to produce one of our projects that I'd never heard of, that isn't in the tooling stack that EST is managing - part of CIMI work.
      • Calvin: How frequent a visitor is the CTO in your meetings? Andy: Usually ever meeting. Calvin: I see that there are issues and hot topics listed and there are a lot of good points. Has this been reviewed in depth with the CTO? Andy: Not the current one. Calvin advises that he should take the time to go through it and answer those questions.
      • Paul: Looking at the life cycle of the tools - in general, it strikes me that when we create new initiatives, there is a lot of energy and interest in giving money or volunteers to create tooling, and that tooling then becomes part of our ecosystem. But at some point in time, the attention may not be there at the same level. All of this tooling eventually becomes the responsibility of HL7 itself. Is that a correct understanding? Andy: It might not become the responsibility of HL7 in all cases. Lorraine: It does when it's required to produce our standards. Andy: The messaging workbench is a good example. It was used by HL7 but not maintained by HL7, and when the person who maintained it passed away, we scrambled to find a way to replace or update it. The expertise ultimately had to come from the outside.
      • Paul: Most organizations struggle to maintain a cohesive, effective suite of tooling to support whatever business they're in within a narrower scope than the technology world provides them. Do we attempt ot manage our tooling along those lines? Lorraine: IN a volunteer organization there are also tools that volunteers bring forward. IN the past we've attempted to give guidance, and had a checklist that projects should provide regarding their tooling, but we tend to skip over it when someone comes up with a convenient solution quickly. Paul: So who decides? If a project wants to create some tooling that was necessary to create their artifacts, do they get to decide that and then the organization has to live with it? Lorraine: They don't get to decide it, but the behavior has been that we accept it anyway. Paul: So are they supposed to go to EST and get a blessing? Lorraine: There are three kinds of projects: projects funded by HL7, HL7-sponsored projects that go through our process, and things that come from outside. Paul: For things that we fund, we get to pick what it's done in. David: We also try to inform the group if there is existing tooling in the organization that can be used.
      • Paul: You appear to be putting forward both practical and useful guidance, and the guidance appears to be within IT conventions of trying to manage risk. Is it being followed? Sensing that the answer is no. David: At times yes, but at other times WGs need to move forward before they've received a response. Lorraine: When we first set up tooling liaisons, they would coordinate, review and advise. Individual projects were expected to provide connection back to EST, but that has dropped now. Paul: EST's role seems like it should provide the guidelines for all aspects. But doing management and making decisions does periodically require you to say no, which is difficult. So liaison participation is down; seeing PSSs go by with increasing amounts of tooling or fresh tooling is being created, and there is not a level of engagement with EST from a decision making or approval process that seems to be commensurate with what we're discussing in terms of scope. People aren't doing what they need to do so you can do what you need to do. Is that correct, and if so, why? Lorraine: Some of it is that the groups that are doing this stuff don't know there is an organizational expectation to do something different. CIMI, for example, needs to start participating with EST and publishing, and that is starting to happen but they had to be prompted. Some just desire to get something done quickly and deal with the organizational impact later, and some people just don't know what we expect of them.
      • Lorraine: There is a set of custom code tooling used in CIMI that we need to get into the inventory.
      • Paul asks if Laura and David have copies of all of these tools at HQ? DJ: We don't have a respository; what we have is references to where they exist. Paul: Are you comfortable overall that if the person who is championing each of these things disappears and we turn to you, can you respond to that? DJ reports that he's fairly comfortable with that. In general, documentation is done fairly well as far as the tooling goes. Hasn't been in a situation yet where a tool has been entirely abandoned. Lorraine: The work that's been done in EST has improved that situation, but there are still some places where we have gaps and holes. Some tools don't have links to the tool themselves in the inventory, like the MAX project. Things could be orphaned if we're not careful. Also the ADL and OpenEHR. Paul asks if they have access to the CIMI tooling? Lorraine states that they don't yet but they are working on it.
      • What concerns EST from a risk perspective? David: Lack of engagement with liaisons. We hear about things second and third hand. Maybe we could make it a WG Health issue that people actually have to show up. Lorraine: When a PSS comes up with tools, there should be an EST cosponsor, but then the communication piece gets dropped. A WG health measure to ensure that communication happens is good, or at least it should be tracked or corrected on.
      • Paul: These seem to be management issues rather than governance issues. It sounds like further support, interaction, engagement with TSC and other parts of the management side of the organization are needed. On PSS, should someone be required to call out if they have tooling, and should that be reviewed? David: We did get a box added to the PSS. Lorraine: We could put a precept in place that the management groups put together a process and plan that their tooling issues are communicated with EST. Management groups don't develop domain content and also wouldn't create the tooling. Lorraine: We did put verbiage in the FHIR-I mission and charter regarding cooperation with Tooling, but not sure it's been enforced.
      • Need to understand what the responsibilities of the committees are, and that EST be supported by our processes to be able to be successful within a scope, and that the risks within that scope be enunciated sufficiently.
      • Lorraine: How can SGB and the broader organization better support EST operationally in getting these things in place? Paul: Most of these are TSC issues because they're management, not governance precept setting. Continued discussion should be at TSC. Paul asks if this makes sense, and if so, are there concerns about that? David: I think it makes sense but my understanding of the relationship between EST and TSC has been that it is most effective when Wayne takes the issues to TSC. Paul: There needs to be a clearer understanding of the decision making processes and rules. Lorraine: Would it help for EST to raise it to TSC to get TSC to put the backing and mandate of TSC on the process? Paul: Yes, I think so. Seeing a lot of unintentional skirting of the process because people aren't aware of it. Reinforcing that there is process is an important thing. TSC needs to not be surprised when tools are suddenly not supported. Need to establish communication/reporting back to TSC on a periodic basis to advise them on the risks that EST sees so they can manage those risks.
      • David: the size and bandwidth of the EST WG makes it difficult to manage. Paul: Maybe there are some different things that we need to do in order to better support you in a manner that allows you to maintain bandwidth. David: It's a tough WG to sell to employers as having a lot of value. Our membership is low. Wayne was looking at either consulting or bringing on a position to help, but not sure where that stands. Paul: Unlike other WGs, this work needs to occur regardless of volunteer interest. Lorraine: There is volunteer interest in achieving these things, but we haven't been able to bring that into the EST process. Paul: EST should be able to manage the process around the acceptance, evaluation, maintenance of tooling, not to create the tooling itself. Need to pull people in who are toolsmiths within the WGs to engage with EST.
      • Paul: Don't see that we have specific things to do on this within SGB, but Paul invites EST to contact SGB if they feel that governance precepts are necessary.
  • Due to absences, next week's call will be cancelled.
  • Add to agenda for next time:
    • Finish review of mixed ballot content precept
    • Precept implementation strategy
    • Backwards compatibility consistency and definition across families
  • Precepts to Develop
  • Parking Lot
    • Review Publishing M&C updates regarding dual roles
    • How do we deal with making sure that WGs involve those whose content domain they’re touching? (CIMI and Pharmacy and Lab models)
    • Review Mission and Charter
    • Handling situations where two documents come out of one project
    • FHIR Product Director Position Description: we should 1) review further and draft feedback, then 2) map back the description to the role of FGB
    • Drafting Shared Product Management Responsibilities
    • Levels of standards
    • Separation of concerns
    • Ownership of content
    • ISM
    • Ask methodology groups to define how the definition of substantive change applies to their product family; management groups must then operationalize

Meeting Outcomes

Actions
Next Meeting/Preliminary Agenda Items

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