Horizon Programme
Acceptance Board Meeting
Gavrelle House
17.00 - 19.00 pm
18" August 1999
Minutes ©
Attendees:
POCL: D.Miller, B. McNiven, K. Baines, J.Meagher, R.Holleran, A. Simpkins (minutes)
Pathway: R. Christou, J.Bennett, M.Coombs, J.Dicks, T-Oppenheim
Opening Remarks
DM said the Board was meeting to establish if Acceptance had been met.
Incidents Review
JM confirmed the following 3 medium incidents already have agreed rectification
plans:
© 342 TIP data file delivery SLA breach
« 361 Duplicate Records over TIP Interface
¢ 371 Late Transaction over 9 days Old on HAPS
376 Derived Cash Account
JM summarised thc status and the current monitoring of fixes for which POCL need
time to complete observation. He recognised that constructive discussions have taken
place in the last few days to reach a comprehensive solution.
POCL are unable, however, to agree the proposed rectification plan as it stands today.
In their view the plan is still immature and the proposal not to deliver the additional
controls until March 2000 is not acceptable.
In addition, the latest analysis performed on Incident 410 (which POCL had agreed to
include under 376 subject to an agreed resolution of the additional controls) has
revealed further unresolved deficiencies and the workaround for these is not agreed.
In summary this incident has not been resolved by the time of the Acceptance Board
and POCL retain it as a high priority incident.
JD said he was disappointed that the new proposals had not been accepted given what
he believed was a reasonable plan and that good progress had been made in
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discussions. JM acknowledged this progress but the position remained as he had
described.
JB said the Pathway position was that the plan was sensible and that they considered
the incident was medium severity with a sound rectification plan.
378 AIS Contravention/Data Integrity
JM said rectification activity had not been successful and that further analysis was
awaited from Pathway. It remained as a medium incident without an agreed plan.
JD said that a new and specific issue has arisen during rectification and that on
frequency alone it could not be used to class the incident still as medium. He believed
the proposed Pathway rectification plan comprises monitoring and fixing any new
issues that arise.
DM said the POCL view was that there is no agreed plan on this medium severity
incident.
JB said the Pathway position was that there is a sound rectification plan but that a
further position has arisen which is being analysed and may not be part of the original
incident. Pathway consider the incident is low.
211 EPOSS Receipts and Payments not Equal
JM said the rectification plan is agreed and accepted.
218 Training
BMc said the reason for the incident was based on the requirement to recognise the
differences in users ability. Despite progress a significant number of offices could not
cope with the first live balance without HFSO support which had never been intended
by POCL.
Pathway had looked at potential improvements outside the course. The areas POCL
had raised included:
a forming up of ideas on pre-entry training - a wider variety of course types was
expected
* aplan to address testing of attendees - some staff seem to have passed
inappropriately
¢ aneed to look at the use of Training Mode
POCL have now had additional proposals from Pathway but they cannot accept this as
a mature plan - it is lacking details of cost and time for example.
POCL therefore see 218 as a continuing high severity incident.
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MC said Pathway did not see the incident as high but as closed. The recent
discussions have identified new proposals and Pathway have made an offer about pre-
entry event with details of aims and scope and POCL’s expected contribution. In the
time that has been available Pathway have produced the construct of a plan which
now needs POCL input. The proposals did cover Pathway’s views on testing and field
support. These proposals in their view should enable POCL to reduce their perceived
severity of the incident.
BMc said he agreed new components were being proposed but their absence in Live
Trial had been a serious problem and in terms of Acceptance the incident is not yet
capable of being closed.
JB summarised Pathway’s view that the incident had been medium on Monday and
that the new proposal was a genuine attempt to help with the management of change
and as such was an additional initiative. They continue to view the incident as
medium.
372 Systems Management
JM said a rectification plan had been received but is not accepted as it does not
contain clear dates and deliverables. There is a lack of evidence on resolution to
enable the current plan to be agreed.
JD said it was difficult to know what else can be done by Pathway at this stage.
Explanations had been fully given in their view. Future upgrades would be observed
and there is full visibility of current changes. Pathway cannot see what further can be
done. JM said POCL do have recommendations to make which may help.
DM confirmed that POCL see the incident as medium without an agreed plan.
Pathway said they see it as medium with a sound rectification plan.
391 Physical Security at Bootle and Wigan
JM said the proposed rectification plan was not clear. Dates had not been provided
and it does not commit Pathway to improvements. There is a lack of clarity to allow
acceptance.
JD said POCL had full visibility of work in hand and the opportunity to review
outstanding work. JD said only detailed building plans were not supplied and this
level of detail is not appropriate. JM said experience suggested that the commitments
being proposed were insufficient to avoid future dispute.
JB said Pathway had tabled a plan to address the remaining concerns and that in their
view if the plan was agreed Pathway would accept it to be categorised as medium.
However Pathway consider the incident as low given the plan is not agreed by POCL.
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390 and 395 AP Transactions
JM said that POCL accept the rectification plans for these incidents.
298 System Stability
JM said the proposed rectification plan does not provide an understanding of how the
problems will be resolved by the proposed fixes. It is also unclear when fixes will be
implemented. Given the lack of understanding of the impact of the plan on the
incident POCL cannot accept it.
JD said all the fix dates were in the near future. JM confirmed that POCL would need
to see the outturn as this was the only way to confirm the impact of the changes.
JB said that Pathway have done the proposed analysis of incidents as agreed . JB
asked if POCL have undertaken their assessment of business impact. DM said he did
not believed ihat common data had yet been agreed and that information from
Pathway was not yct available. JD said the data had been provided from the Help
Desk. KB said the data had not come from the system logs but from user calls.
DM asked if there is data other than the Help Desk logs. JD said there was other data
from office observation. BMc said the evidence from ringarounds suggested the
problem could be 50% higher than reported at the Help Desk and that there was no
clear evidence from Pathway to confirm or deny this.
MC said use of system event logs coupled with phoning of post offices had allowed
additional analysis, but that use of event logs on their own would not provide a
meaningful picture.
DM stressed the need for a better view of the data on this incident and that Pathway
must share as full a picture as possible. Would Pathway share all their information
even if it was a top-side figure? JB said that such a figure would be wrong and that
part of the issue is offices failing to report all incidents to the Help Desk.
BMc said that he felt the analysis was simply not yet robust. JD denied this was the
case.
RC said the immediate task is to establish severity based on the data which has been
agreed. The next step would be to share information with the expert. DM disagreed.
He wanted to have additional information to establish the full impact of the incident.
BMc said POCL view the incident as high on the basis of information that was
available. JB said Pathway view it as medium with a sound plan.
314 Provision of Technical Documentation
JM said the plan suggests two documents should be obtained from Escher, one of
Pathway’s subcontractors, and it was not acceptable on this basis. POCL retain the
incident as medium without an agreed plan.
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TO said the situation with respect to Escher should be viewed in the same way as if
the subcontractor were Oracle. Any supplier of Riposte based applications would need
a development licence with Escher. Once they have an agreement with Escher they
would have access to the APIs directly from them.
TO said Pathway would nevertheless offer to write a generalised API for Riposte in
addition to the EPOSS specific components and this would enable a procurement
process.
JM agreed to consider this offer. RC said that the offer was subject to agreeing the
next steps.
369 Scanner Reliability
KB said POCL saw this as medium. He said there was doubt over field conditions for
rejecting the present books and that lab tests had not resolved the problem in POCL’s
view. POCL’s position is that the problem is not fully understood and a further round
of tests would resolve this. POCL see the incident as medium without a plan.
JB said that Pathway’s position had not changed and that this was not an Acceptance
Incident in their view.
408 Horizon Help Desk
BMc said this is seen as still a medium incident requiring an agreed plan. The current
proposed plan is seen as deficient in a number of areas. Production of scripts is not
complete and the plan contains some items that have already missed dates. [Pathway
stated that actions due on 17/18" August were done on schedule.] The plan did not
show activities such as the need to train HSH staff.
This suggests that the proposed plan is high risk and will not have the required impact
on the achievability of NRO rates.
Also call volume projections and staffing projections contain assumptions that POCL
cannot agree based on experience to date.
In summary the plan was not seen by POCL as credible.
Pathway disputed this and said in their view the plan was sound and would resolve the
incident.
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Summary
The following incidents are in dispute:
376 POCL high, Pathway medium
378 POCL medium no plan agreed
218 POCL high, Pathway medium
372 POCL medium no plan agreed
391 POCL medium no plan agreed
298 POCL high, Pathway medium
314 POCL medium no plan agreed
369 Pathway do not accept as an incident
408 POCL medium no plan agreed
On the basis of the above DM said that from POCL’s view acceptance has failed.
Next Steps
DM said the next steps were for Peter Copping to work on areas of dispute. DM
would wish to agree with RC the process for this.
ts on two criteria - one the number of highs and two the
KB added that Acceptance fails on two criteria - one the number high:
lack of agreed plans for medium incidents.
RC said 6 out of 15 incidents have now been agreed. Pathway dispute the highs,
believe acceptable plans exist for the mediums, and that 369 is not an incident.
RC said Copping should take a view on the robustness of the plans. KB said the fact
was that the plans were not agreed and this was the condition for acceptance. The
acceptability of the plans was not a dispute subject to decision by Copping
RC said he therefore saw there were two legal issues on which he needed to take
advice before Copping could be involved. These were:
© can Copping rule on whether 369 was an incident ?
* can Copping take a view on whether the plans should have been agreed ?
RC would take legal advice as would POCL before the next contact, which would
take place tomorrow.
It was noted that the RAB could not take place on Friday. Training of staff for NRO
would also have to be suspended. Both parties would need to take the appropriate
action on this delay to RAB.
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