Connectathon Organization and Management

Project Manager Responsibilities

The IHE Connectathon model includes a Technical Project Manager who is responsible for all technical aspects of the event. Some of the responsibilities can be delegated to others, but the manager retains overall responsibility. The table below lists those responsibilities and includes comments about shared tasks.

Item	Comment	Delegate?
Independent	Needs to be independent of the participants. Cannot be employed by participants either directly or as a consultant.	Because the final decision will rest with the manager, this part cannot be delegated.
Network	Needs to understand the network design and how that might affect system to system testing. This is especially important for any systems that might exist on the Internet and not on the Connectathon network.	Yes
Profile Requirements	Needs to understand the profile documentation and the requirements for each actor in the profile. You may or may not find a condensed version of requirements that have been extracted in a table. Assume that you will have to understand at a detailed level.	Common for the Connectathon Manager to know some domains and delegate others.
Connectathon Test Location	Many Connectathon tests are document in the Gazelle Test Management system. This is by domain. Some domains manage test definitions outside of Gazelle.	Same comment as Profile Requirements. You cannot run a Connectathon without having access to the test descriptions that will be shared with participants.
Profile Tests	Needs to understand the test cases that have been written for each profile to be tested. This includes understanding what each actor needs to accomplish and how you evaluate test results for success.	Same comment as Profile Requirements. If you cannot look through the evidence provided by participants and understand if this satisfies profile requirements, you will need to recruit someone who can do this. At some point, you need independent knowledge of the test data. You cannot fully rely on the participants to tell you that "It worked".

The table above listed technical responsibilities. There are also soft skills that are useful.

• Time/Schedule Management: You are working with organizations that have other priorities/concerns. You need to be able manage your time so that you respond quickly to questions/requests.
• Communication Skills: You have to be able to communicate with the participants and keep them directed and on target.

Domain Selection

Selecting the domains and therefore profiles to be tested is more of a sponsor question than a manager question. The sponsoring organization should know what they would like to test based on their marketing interests.

Here are some examples:

• IHE-RO is an AAPM/ASTRO-sponsored initiative. They have held Connectathons that only tested profiles in the IHE Radiation Oncology domain
• IHE Korea has hosted Connectathons that have emphasized different domains. In some years, they tested profiles from the Patient Care Devices (PCD) domain. In other years, they have tested IT Infrastructure (ITI).
• IHE USA and IHE Europe tend to test the same domains. This is a list of some, but not necessarily all, domains tested by those two regions:
  • Cardiology
  • IT Infrastructure
  • Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
  • Patient Care Coordination
  • Patient Care Device
  • Quality, Research and Public Health
  • Radiology
  • Eye Care (EU only)