Tooling Strategy and Process Revision

Project Insight # 801 Project Description: Revise existing Tooling Work Group Processes to include coordination with other Work Groups and to specify criteria for tooling project selection and prioritization.

Project Need: The HL7 Board has emphasized that the Tooling Work Group needs to focus on tools that make implementing HL7 standards easier as well as those needed to develop and publish HL7 standards. Since tools now often have a web presentation, the Electronic Services Work Group needs to be consulted, as well as Publishing to ensure tools remain coherent and to coordinate resources and schedules.

Return to Tooling Work Group

• Co sponsored by Electronic Services WG and Publishing Work Group

Project Information

Project Insight # 801 Description: Revise existing Tooling Work Group Processes to include coordination with other Work Groups and to specify criteria for tooling project selection and prioritization.

• Initially titled 'Process alignment for ES and Tooling', with description "Tooling will work with Electronic Services to align the requirements gathering and tool selection processes to ensure resources are available to develop or enhance requests for tools that come to either group that may impact the other group."
• Project facilitator: Jane Curry

Meeting Information

• Project meeting schedule as part of regular Tooling WG conference call

Standing Conference Calls

The Tooling WG will hold a Conference Call at 2 PM Eastern time, each Thursday except during scheduled face-to-face Working Group Meetings unless otherwise noted at Telecon_Agendas.

Conference Call: Uses HL7 Conference Call Service

Dial 770-657-9270 and enter pass code 586935#

GoToMeeting at 482-299-629

Status

• Jane working on RFP
• Objectives:
  • Revised process documented - Target: 2012-01 needs revision
  • Revised process accepted by the board - Target: 2012-05 needs revision

Additional elements of the Tooling Strategy:

• defining coordination with other Work Groups
  • establishing Tooling Liaisons to other Work Groups,
  • regular reporting from Liaisons
  • setting expectations for active participation in Tooling work group
    • Formalize processes that increase non-tool developers’ active participation in tooling projects (e.g. acceptance testing)

Issues/Hot Topics

• Part of new strategy is that funding will be a subsidy for additional participation for those that are already working on areas of interest. This is in comparison to historical commissioning of the building of tools by commercial tool builders. (from 2012May Tooling WGM Minutes)
  • Proposal for trialing a new process for funded projects using the EHRS-FM and MAX projects.
    • a number of Tooling projects, some of which are volunteer driven need to move from a strategy of commissioning people to perform projects to a strategy of participation in other tooling efforts to build tools that work for us as well. The clear path is probably to fund this effort (from 2012-05-12 TSC Meeting minutes)
    • some guidance needed on what the budget document design should be for targeting likely budget amounts, such as: here are the people, these resources, and this is what we could accomplish for this chunk of money, and can scale back according to funding available. (from 2012-04-19_Tooling_Call)
• Proposed Process for funded tool development projects (see also Proposed RFP Release and Selection Process)
  • PSS mandatory, w co-sponsorship from requesting Work Groups
  • Requesting Work Groups to provide resources to document requirements, review deliverables and test software; may request funding subsidy
  • Requirements documented w sufficient detail to produce time/cost estimates
  • Request for proposal based on requirements to solicit resources to be developed by requesting Work Groups and reviewed by Tooling
  • Request to be sent to Contracts listserve to solicit resources
  • May request funding subsidy for identified roles in the project that cannot be completed with only volunteers
  • Criteria for selecting resources gives preference to individuals already volunteering
  • Proposals need to indicate estimated time contributing as volunteer and estimated funded time
  • Contracts to be approved deliverables based
  • Tooling to lead proposal evaluation, any Tooling WG members will recuse themselves for any proposals they are involved in
  • Successful proposals to enter into contract w HQ
  • Tooling and requesting Work Groups to review and approve deliverables
  • More detailed processes being worked out with HQ and CTO

Specification of criteria for tooling project selection and prioritization

• Recognizing that strategic efforts like SAIF, FHIR & Tooling become components of an overarching technical strategy
  • That strategy is aligned with the organizational objectives as identified in the strategic initiatives
• HL7’s strategic intent to use the Eclipse Platform, including the expectations of intra-tool data exchange (from 2012-04-12_Tooling_Call)
• FHIR initiative and tooling: the production of the standard is based on a tool chain. The tool chain is open source and hosted on GForge SVN. What is Tooling's responsibility on that tool chain maintenance and provision? The ability to produce the standard from the tool chain is the concern. By the next January WGM in Phoenix we may want to schedule a joint quarter to decide how to manage the tool chain going forward.
• Resolved 2011Sept: we prioritize tools:
  • firstly, based on the critical path to ensure standards are produced on a regular basis according to schedule,
  • secondly, based on Board direction and
  • thirdly, subject to available funding to complete an existing tooling project so as not to dilute the ability to fully complete a project

Selection criteria in RFP (approved by Tooling WG on 2012-06-21_Tooling_Call)

• 1. Preference for resources who are already volunteering in HL7 in some capacity
  2. Preference for resources with current involvement in sponsored project
  3. Preference for open source software with rights to create derivatives
  4. Meets stated licensing criteria
  5. Proposal contains information to evaluate budget implications
  6. Proposal indicates what deliverables would be provided in a phased approach to accommodate budget constraints and demonstrate progress
  7. Proposal formatted to support selection process
  8. Familiarity with methods and technology used by HL7
     • Ability to work in distributed virtual environment
     • Demonstrates approach to protect HL7 Intellectual Property (e.g. use of MIF-Lite)
  9. Approach proposed for change management and knowledge and skills transfer
     • During project
     • Ongoing support
  10. Compatibility of proposed tooling platform with target tooling architecture
  11. Skill and experience of proposed resources
      • Communication skills
      • Software development skills

Project Documents

• Proposed RFP Release and Selection Process as discussed at 2012-06-21_Tooling_Call
• GForge issues tracker for Tooling
• Initial work at HL7_-_Tooling_&_Electronic_Services_alignment