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PSC Meeting
24 September 1997
Previous Minutes
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RESTRICTED - COMMERCIAL/MANAGEMENT/POLICY
BA/POCL Programme Delivery Authority
Minutes of the Programme Steering Committee Meeting
15 duly 1997
Present
Stuart Sweetman - POCL (Chair)
Peter Mathison - BA
Alec Wylie - SSA (NI)
Keith Todd - IcL
Paul Rich - POCL
George McCorkell - BA
John Bennett - ICL Pathway
Peter Crahan - BA/POCL PDA
Jim McManus - POCL
Sue Daniel - BA/POCL PDA (Secretary)
1. Minutes and Matters Arising
1.1 The minutes of the meeting held on 8 May were agreed.
1.2 The status of the Action Points was noted. Action
point 2 would be covered under Agenda Item 4.
2. Programme Director’s Report
2.1 Mr Crahan presented a general update on Programme
progress plus a status report of current planning
activity.
2.2 Progress
2.2.1 OBCS and IGL
2.2.2 The OBCS system was working well overall, with a
few conventional incidents. There had been implementation
difficulties and the new target was to achieve 140 by the
end of June with a further 17 in July and 14 in August.
Lessons learned to factor into subsequent roll-outs had
—) been:
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- earlier site surveys;
- POCL support on site to sanction changes.
POCL had implemented a number of organisational and
support changes to address the installation problems.
2.2.3 Non ISDN outlets remained an issue and on present
evidence from BT it was anticipated that 5% of offices
would be affected. ICL Pathway had reported that the
technical solution wouid take intil the end of the year
to resolve.
2.2.4 Future Role of the PDA
2.2.5 Activity toward =he future structure had been taken
forward via two work streams. The first stream involved
priority teams set up, with co-operation and input from
ICL Pathway, to develop critical end products (e.g to
assure business and technical design). The second was a
project mobilised to address overall organisation
structure and resourcing.
2.2.6 The decision had been made to migrate
responsibility for pos= office roll-out to POCL and to
this end the following key decisions had been made:
. Horizon implementation would be managed as a project,
with a Project Board, project disciplines and focus;
. the appointment c= a National Implementation Manager
(NIM) reporting directly to the Network Manager and 7
Regional Implementation Managers (RIMs) who would
remain as part of the Regional Team with a direct
line to the National Implementation Manager;
. the user communication responsibilities within PDA to
be absorbed within the POCL Network function.
2.2.7 Work was now vroceeding on the detail of the
migration. The provision of a team of 400 POCL staff to
support implementation would be a stretching resource
requirement for POCL and a considerable task to undertake.
Lessons could be learned from the BA experience of OPSTRAT
and POCL would be taking up the BA offer for the POCL
Regional Implementation Managers to meet for discussions
with their counterparts in the BA who had been responsible
for the successful impiementation of OPSTRAT.
) .
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2.2.7 Areas to be taken forward in the future would
include Contract Management and Service Management and a
paper would be prepared to broker with sponsors in the
near future.
Action: Mr. Crahan to present the detail of the future
structure of the PDA to the next meeting.
2.3.1 Mr Crahan reminded the meeting of the background to
the current planning activities as follows:
- the PDA had been working with sponsors and ICL
Pathway since May toward an agreed target date of 18
August for Congo 4 (Pathway Release 1c) following
slippage identified from the intended delivery date
of 30 June; .
- emerging plans were in the process of being approved
by sponsors;
- these plans had been overtaken following a
presentation by ICL Pathway on 3 July at which they
had advised the PDA that they could not meet the 18
August date and proposed the 13 October for delivery
of Congo 4 with subsequent consequentials on future
releases.
2.3.2 To date the PDA had not had visibility of the
detail below the high level plan supporting delivery on
13 October but it was hoped that this would be rectified
at a meeting taking place today with ICL Pathway. It was
the PDA’s intention to:
* analyse the detail of the proposals for 13 October 1997
Congo 4 release to confirm achievability;
* on the basis of 13 October being confirmed as
achievable, take a joint approach via workshops to
clarify/verify options for future releases;
* present to sponsors and Ministers once a deliverable
plan is available.
2.3.3 To this end the PDA Board had agreed that ICL
Pathway should:
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¢ Commit to sharing the findings of their internal
review/audit;
¢ give further details of their proposed
managerial/structural changes;
e work with the PDA on the way forward, providing the
lower level of detail supporting their plans;
* take a realistic position on the resultant, inevitably
difficult, commercial negotiations.
2.3.4 In discussion the following points were made:
2.3.5 A critical path issue was end to end security
testing for Congo 4 which required and was getting
serious attention from the PDA.
2.3.6 ICL Pathway was confident that the 13 October
date was deliverable, and from the planning seen and
progress made they were assured that it was a
soundly based plan. The detail upon which the plan
was based would be shared and be open to. challenge.
ICL Pathway welcomed challenge as a means of
identifying any. potential gaps which may have been
overlooked.
2.3.7 CAPS was able to deliver for the BPS release
and the move to the October date would not be a
problem.
2.3.8 POCL immediate dependencies would not be
affected by the move to October but the slide would
have a major impact on what POCL was hoping to
achieve from other systems post Live Trial. POCL
would be working with the PDA and ICL Pathway to
achieve a solution.
2.3.9 ICL Pathway wanted to decouple from CAPS
releases, thereby relaxing interdependencies and
providing the option to remove interface testing.
This would mean that CAPS would not be held up by
ICL Pathway and ICL Pathway would not be put on a
eritical path.
2.3.10 PDA expected to have the Congo 4 plan
confirmed within one week and subsequent options for
—) future releases available two weeks later. It would
be the end of August before all the information
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would be available to present to sponsors and then
to Ministers.
2.3.11 It would be essential to commence commercial
negotiations as soon as possible to enable figures
to be factored into updating the Business Case.
2.3.12 Sponsors reiterated their disappointment at
the inability of ICL Pathway to meet the 18 August
date and expressed their concerns about continual
Programme slippage. They were, however, encouraged
that non of the parties had an entrenched position
and sensible approaches to the issue were being
taken by all sides.
2.3.13 The meeting agreed to the approach to the re-
planning activities and consequent timetable as proposed
by Mr Crahan and decided it was appropriate to address
the potential for fast-tracking the commercial
negotiations informally outwith the meeting.
Action John Bennett, George McCorkell, Alec Wylie and
Paul Rich to take forward the commercial issues relating
to the re-plan.
2.4.1 The meeting addressed the communication issues
raised by the proposed re-plan and in discussion the
following points were made:
2.4.2 The move of Congo 4 delivery to 13 October
impacted directly on those people expecting
involvement in implementation activity in
preparation for 18 August and beyond. The meeting
agreed that, following receipt of the formal
recognition from ICL Pathway that they would not be
delivering Release 1c on 18 August, those directly
impacted would need to be informed.
2.4.3 POCL also had a requirement to re-set
objectives and advise all staff and agents of the
revised position. There intention was to use The
Courier and the Sub-Postmaster to communicate the
message to a potential audience of 40,000. It was
essential that POCL controlled the message published
in the Sub-Postmaster negating any risk of the NFSP
—) creating their own headline.
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2.4.4 BA expressed their concern about the danger of
the communication becoming public knowledge, making
what was already going to be a very difficult
private decision for Ministers into one that would
be impossible to make in public. For that reason the
BA requested that POCL did everything possible to
limit communications, minimising the risk of the
information becoming public and open to mis--
interpretation.
2.4.5 Currently BA were only in a position to state
that currently there were some issues which were
subject to review, but work was continuing on the
project. They were unable to give official Dss
commitment at this stage as that would be
effectively taking the decision away from Ministers.
2.4.6 The meeting agreed the practical way forward to be:
¢ the preparation of a shared high level defensive
briefing for sponsor and supplier press offices;
* to stand down those people directly impacted by the non
delivery on the planned 18 August date;
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* POCL to share their message with PDA, BA and ICL
Pathway prior to inclusion in the Courier and the Sub-
Postmaster publications.
Action: Peter Crahan to work with PDA Communications to
prepare a high level defensive press briefing. To be
available to press offices prior to the POCL
communication being published.
3. ICL Pathway Report
3.1 Mr Bennett reported that, following a Programme
Audit, ICL Pathway had made some management changes. Mike
Coombs had been appointed as permanent Programme Director
and he was currently looking at how resources should be
redirected. He would be in a position to present this
work to the next PDA Board in August. Another ICL
Director had been appointed to the Programme for a three
month period to provide assistance on all technical
integrity issues.
3.2 The main issues receiving ICL Pathway’s priority
attention were:
- Ensuring the soundness of Release 1c and future
releases;
- Resolution of the non-ISDN issue;
- more robust configuration management;
3.3 There remained an affordability gap between ICL
Pathway and the PDA in relation to Customer Education.
There was a distinction between:
- providing only one communication when the Benefit
Payment card comes into use. This one communication
would collectively cover all benefits regardless
upon when a particular benefit came on stream; or
- communicating a message each time a new benefit is
taken onto card.
3.4 Everyone agreed that the best method of communication
would be a letter to each individual customer as each
benefit migrated onto card, but the issue was who would
pay for this.
4. Independent Programme Review
4.1 Mr Crahan advised the meeting that the outline terms
of reference for the review had been agreed by POCL and
BA and had initially been agreed by Mr Bennett on behalf
of ICL Pathway. However this agreement had been retracted
by Mr Todd pending discussion of his particular concerns.
with the PSC
4.2 Mr Todd explained that the first priority for ICL
Pathway was the Programme and every effort was being
channelled into achieving delivery of Congo 4(Release 1c)
by 13 October. He was concerned that the Independent
Programme Review, coming at this time, would be adding
one more layer of pressure so-.soon after the ICL internal
review.
4.3 Following discussion with sponsor senior managers, Mr
Todd was now in a position to support the principle of an
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independent review, with ICL Pathway resourcing a third
share of the costs, subject to the following caveats:
- the review would be conducted within the principles
of Programme First. Nothing should be allowed to
detract from achieving the 13 October date for
delivery. The timing of the review was critical;
- ICL Pathway reserved the right to ring fence
resources whose work was critical for 13 October not
releasing them for interviews which would result in
time lost;
- the full report, including all drafts, be shared
with the full PSC;
- ICL Pathway to be involved in the selection process
for appointing the company/individual to conduct the
review.
4.4 Mr Crahan assured the meeting that the review was
expected to be an efficient and effective three week
activity. It would not be an in depth excavation of the
past but rather would draw upon the work done to look
ahead to the future. It would be a way of assuring the
principle that all individual plans and processes were
facing up to responsibilities and that they tied into all
other plans. By looking forward the review provided
potential for risk exposure, ensuring that these were
addressed and managed early. The ICL Pathway resource
issue had been recognised and would be managed through
with Mr Bennett.
4.5 The timing issue was recognised by all to be
eritical. It was agreed that it was essential to have
firm plans in place for Congo 4 and timings for approval
of plans for future releases before implementing the
review. However it was expected that robustness of plans
and timings would be sufficiently assured within 2/3
weeks in order to instigate procurement of the company to
conduct the review.
4.6 In discussing the selection process it was pointed
out that the company/individual contracted must have both
Project Management and Technical expertise. All parties
accepted that the selection criteria would be based on
the capability of the individual/company to provide the
—) expertise required. The meeting agreed that Mr Wylie
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would co-ordinate the procurement process. He would
contact each party for to confirm a shortlist of
companies/individuals and to agree terms of reference,
process and funding.
Action: Mr Wylie to co-ordinate the procurement of a
company/individual to conduct the Independent Programme
Review.
5. Date and time of the next meeting
5.1 The meeting congratulated the secretariat for the
work undertaken to formalise the meetings process. It
agreed to the principle of de-coupling the PSC meetings
from the PDA Board meetings and decided to maintain the
next PSC meeting at Longbenton on 24 September 1997