Continuous Development Process
Draft
Governance
This is a specialization of the IHE Process. All the normal governance is expected, the difference is in 'when'.
Governance for Continuous Development
The goal of continuous development is to enable more flexibility and achieve better quality.
This is not to say that the former annual schedule produced poor quality, but does recognize that when the calendar is considered the top priority there is more pressure to deliver product possibly before it should be released. With a continuous development method these opportunities can be delayed by 3 months to achieve appropriate quality.
A continuous development governance enables new work items to start at 4 times throughout the year, rather than only in the fall. This enables projects to approach IHE in a more flexible timeframe, when that project resources might be more readily available.
A continuous development governance enables smaller work items, and very large work items. It is possible to have a work item complete in as short as two meetings.
A continuous development governance may not work. ITI is considering it for 2019 schedule. This due to the lack of major projects, and the need to hit various deadline timeframes. This year of experimentation will be a learning experience
General schedule
The committees meet quarterly. Under the annual schedule the fall meetings are two short two-day meetings. Under Continuous development governance these two meetings will be merged into one fall meeting.
On a quarterly basis
Two weeks prior to the face-to-face meeting
Deadline for approved projects to submit their current phase text so that the co-chairs can plan the agenda. Anything submitted later than this will need to be delayed to the next quarterly meeting.
- Planning committee to groom the backlog of potential new work items. This includes assuring there is available appropriate authors, and resources. This includes quality measurements of the new work item proposal text. Any new work item proposal that does not have resources or is not well documented will not be considered at this quarterly meeting, but will be allowed to improve so that it could be considered at the next meeting.
- Technical committee to groom the ongoing work items. Having the profile text ready two weeks prior to the meeting enables the community to review so that the focus on the meeting is on producing quality, not reviewing brand new text. Having the profile text available enables co-chairs to develop a reasonable agenda.
Face-to-face meeting
Four timeslots each day of the face-to-face will be scheduled for specific project tasks. This enables participation by all participants. The co-chairs are enabled to give more than one timeslot to a work item, but the following tasks must be completed each face-to-face meeting based on availability of project deliverable at the two-weeks prior deadline. The face-to-face meeting should be focused on review of submitted text, and less on developing new text. Any project that has not completed their
Part one of face-to-face meeting
Technical Committee
- Review any Volume 1 development projects, approve as appropriate to technical solution development (Volume 2/3)
- Review any Technical Solution (Volume 2/3) projects, approval as appropriate to public comment
- Review any Public Comment resolution projects, approval as appropriate for Trial Implementation
- Review any Connectathon test plans and tools for how well they test expected requirements of the profiles
- Review any Change Proposals for ballot or integration
Part two of face-to-face meeting
Planning Committee
- Review of Trial Implementation for promotion to Final Text
- Review of project that have stalled -- more than two quarters of no progress --
- Cancel with option to that project to promote as new work item
- Review of potential profiles to retire or deprecate
- Capacity assessment for following quarterly phase and Review new work items for approval as new capacity and expertise allow.
Planning Committee Responsibilities
The planning committee is still responsible for incoming new work items, prioritization of work items, capacity planning, and approval of final publication.
With the annual schedule, the planning responsibility was at the beginning of the year's planning. Concluding with the selection of new work items that are developed during the rest of the year. With continuous development governance, this will take place at the end of each quarterly meeting in preparation for the next quarterly meeting. The planning and technical committees will consider current load, and then select new work items to be picked up.
Thus the planning committee must keep a backlog of potential new work items. The planning committee must maintain this backlog prior to each quarterly meeting. This maintenance is the same maintenance as is expected prior to the Fall meeting under the annual schedule. New work items must still meet the same criteria as today.