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Discussion Paper : POCL/ ICL Pathway Joint Meetings
1. Introduction
There are currently a large number of formal and semi-formal regular management
meetings between POCL and ICL Pathway. Some of these are defined in the contract (“The
Codified Agreement”) and others have been set up over time by mutual agreement.
Changes to the Post Office’s organisation and management processes, the new basis of the
contractual relationship with ICL Pathway, and the move into the full national roll-out
phase of the programme make a review of the scope and number of these meetings
necessary. There have also been some apparent weaknesses in previous arrangements, and
these should, if possible, be corrected as part of this review.
2. Terminology
POCL is the Contracting Authority for the contract with ICL for provision of Horizon.
PONU manages the contract on POCL’s behalf.
All of the meetings discussed in this paper are joint POCL/ICL Pathway meetings. In some
cases there is an internal PONU meeting with a similar name; these internal meetings are
not addressed by the proposals in this paper.
Meetings are referred to as “Boards”. This is not meant to infer any particular mode of
operation or attendance - it is simply the term used for joint POCL/ICL Pathway meetings
in the contract.
3. Current Meetings
The contract recognises the following meetings between POCL and ICL Pathway:
© Contract Steering Group
* Change Control Board
¢ Contract Administration Board
¢ Service Review Board
« New Business Board
e Release Authorisation Board
In addition the following senior-level meetings have been established, but are not in the
contract:
« Delivery Meeting
« New Developments Meeting
4, Overlaps
Because of overlapping terms of reference, there have been many instances of issues being
raised at more than one meeting, and lack of clarity in the process for escalation and
resolution of difficult issues. In particular:
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e Issues relating to Change Requests and Change Control Requests Notes in progress are
typically discussed at the Change Control Board and also at the Delivery Meeting and/or
New Developments Meeting.
¢ The Contract Steering Group is defined in the contract as the escalation point for all
disputes; However, because senior programmes staff from both PONU and Pathway
attend the Delivery Meeting but not the Contract Steering Meeting, this route is often not
used or not effective, and major issues (such as Pathway’s apparent concerns about
reference data) have instead been discussed at the Delivery Meeting and escalated by
correspondence to senior post office management.
« There is no clear boundary between the New Developments Meeting and the New
Business Board. This has resulted in potential service additions that are not part of the
contract being discussed in the New Developments Meeting, with no clear links to
PONU business processes in place to support or authorise this.
¢ The Release Authorisation Board is contractually only required to meet once for each
release. In practice, there were a series of pre-meetings for the CSR Release (and for
previous live trial releases under the former contractual arrangements) with significant
duplication of issues covered in the Delivery Meeting.
« Pathway reports to the Delivery Meeting, the New Developments Meeting, and the
Service Review Meeting, cover common ground (often repeating the same text verbatim),
inviting discussion of the same issues in more than one forum.
5. Aunt Sally Proposal for New Meetings Structure
5.1 Principles
¢ All formal meetings should have clearly defined roles and be recognised in the contract.
¢ Meetings with ICL Pathway should be aligned with PONU’s management structures and
processes.
¢ Meetings with ICL Pathway and should be chaired by the responsible manager from
PONU, who will be ensure that appropriate business processes are in place to support
decision making required of that meeting.
e Routine issues capable of being dealt with in written reports (such as reporting that
progress is in line with plans) or particular issues that can be dealt with on a one to one
basis between the relevant PONU and ICL Pathway managers should not be dealt with
in joint meetings.
¢ Escalation from one meeting to another should be exceptional, should only occur in cases
of disputes or choice between defined options, and should be supported by documented
positions. Meeting composition should support this.
« Meetings should not normally have more than 5 attendees from each of PONU and
Pathway, plus a meeting secretary, with fewer being desirable. Where specialists are
needed to support part of the agenda for a meeting, they should attend for those agenda
items and not for the whole meeting.
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5.2 Proposals
1. Establish a new Joint Management Board for escalation of issues not resolvable in other
forums, and for occasional (no more that 6-monthly) review of the overall Horizon
programme. This meeting will subsume the escalation roles of the current Delivery
Meeting and Contract Steering Group meeting. The meeting will be chaired by the
PONU Automation Director. Attendance will depend on the issues for discussion. The
PONU Operations Director will attend meetings dealing with New Requirements
and/or Service Management issues.
2. Cease the Delivery Meeting - its functions other than escalation of unresolved issues
should be covered in Roll-Out and CSR+ specific meetings.
3. Cease the Contract Steering Meeting - its functions other than escalation of unresolved
issues should be covered in a Contacts and Commercial meeting.
4. Re-focus the New Business Board into a New Requirements Board, recognising the
different contractual arrangements now in place (ICL are paid on a time and materials
basis, so their assessment of the commercial viability of new business forecasts is no
longer appropriate; paid studies may be required, and PONU will need to manage ICL
Pathway’s delivery of these), and taking over those aspects of the New Developments
Meeting that relate to functionality not included in the contracted (CSR and CSR+)
releases.
a
Extend the Contract Admin. Board to cover commercial issues, transferred from the
Contract Steering Group.
6. Forma new Joint Roll-Out Project Board, taking over all issues relating to the roll-out
and delivery of CSR functionality from the Delivery Meeting.
7. Re-focus the New Developments Meeting into a Joint CSR+ Programme Board, dealing
with all issues relating the development and delivery of CSR+ functionality.
8. Requirements for future releases will initially be managed by the New Requirements
Board. When a set of requirements are sufficiently defined to be taken forwards as a
planned release, (and a PONU project manager appointed for the release) responsibility
will transfer to a joint programme board for that release, similar to that for CSR+.
9. Release Authorisation Boards for CSR+ and any future releases should be special
meetings of the Programme Board for that release.
10. In addition to the meetings which will be defined in the contract, a number of working
meetings will be required to deal with specific specialist areas. These are expected to fall
into three groups:
e Meetings dealing with specific aspects of roll-out (training, individual roll-out
programmes, etc.)
¢ Meetings dealing with support functions to the overall programme (e.g. Design
Assurance, Integrated planning etc.)
¢ Meetings dealing with specific aspects of operational management (e.g. help desks,
problem management, interface operations, etc.)
These meetings should not be specified in the contract, but where they are needed ona
regular basis, it would be good practice for their terms of reference and attendees to be
set out in working documents. Issues not resolved in these working level meetings
should be escalated in a timely fashion to the relevant contractual meeting.
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5.3 Summary
The overall meeting structure is shown in the diagram below; and the PONU function
chairing each meeting is listed in the subsequent table. Annex 1 is a draft replacement for
the table in Schedule A04 of the contract.
JOINT
MANAGEMENT
BOARD
HORIZON NEW JOINT JOINT JOINT JOINT CSR+ JOINT SERVICE
REQUIREMENTS ‘CHANGE CONTRACT & NATIONAL I IPROGRAMMEI IBOARD(s) FOR REVIEW
BOARD CONTROL COMMERCIAL ROLL-OUT BOARD FUTURE BOARD
BOARD. BOARD. BOARD. RELEASES
Roll-Out Functional meetings: Operational
Working + Design Assurance, Service
Groups + Overall Programme Planning, Working
+ Release Management Groups
Meeting PONU Lead
Joint Management Board
Automation: Automation Director
New Requirements Board
Operations: Service Development Manager
Joint Change Control Board
Automation:
: Head of Horizon Commercial
Joint Contract Admin, and Commercial Board I Automation: Head of Horizon Commercial
Joint National RollOut Board ‘Automation: RollOut Project Manager
Joint CSR+ Programme Board Automation: CSR+ Project Manager
Joint Programme Boards for Future Releases Automation: Project Manager for that Release
Service Review Board
Operations: Head of Business Service Management
RollOut Working Groups
‘Automation: Roll-Out Project
Functional Meetings
Automation: Programme Office
Operational Service Working Groups
Operations: Business Service Management
Keith Baines
24 January 2000
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Board Joint Horizon Management Board New Requirements Board Joint Change Control Board Joint Contract and Commercial Board
Purpose To provide asingle point for timely To communicate POCL development plans I To agree limescales for processing Change I To actas the first point of escalation for any
escalation of significant issues not resolvable I to the Contractor. Requests (“CRs”) and CCNs commercial issues not resolvable in the Change
at other meetings in this management table. . . . vo Control Board, Contract Administration or Service
To review and agree provisional high level I To monitor CRs and CCNs in progress. Review Board meetings.
To carry out occasional high level reviews of I planning assumptions for future .
the Services. developments of the Services. To review reasons for rejection of CRs and I To act as the point of escalation for any disputes about
CCNs. °
the amounts or terms of invoices.
To initiate and monitor progress of -
development of service definitions and terms I Te review CCNs To consider and resolve or escalate any general
and conditions for adlitions to the “To agree mechanisms to enable new commercial issues arising from programme activities.
contracted services, provisions to be drafted and agreed under
CCN
To review progress of paid studies
undertaken to investigate potential additions I 76 resolve que: a 1 To review and agree changes to the contract to
beicoijsrinndetien resolve questions of whether particular I implement signed CCNs.
'o the contracted services. changes require CRs or can be handled
To approve additions to the contracted through operational business change. To discuss and resolve questions of interpretation of
services, which will then be formally the contract.
introduced by CCN. To provide expert advice on drafting of CCNs
Al discussions and agreements at this board To operate version control of the contract and
are without prejudice and subject to contract tnanntain wecordke of CCDs and CRD.
until confirmed through the Change Control
process, To monitor and facilitate resolution of Agreements to
Agree
Frequency Escalation meetings as required. Two-monihly, or more frequently by Fortnightly ‘As needed - most business likely to be handled by
agreement,
phone and correspondence.
POCL Attendees
‘Automation Director
Any or all of the following, depending on
agenda:
* Operations Director
* National Roll-out Project Manager
* CSR+ Project Manager
+ Head of Horizon Commercial
* Head of Service Management
+ Service Development Manager
© Operating Process Design Manager
Meeting secretary
Service Development Manager
Operating Process Design Manager
Head of Horizon Commercial
Business Sponsors (as appropriate)
Commercial Manager
[Business Integrity Manager}
Meeting Secretary
Head of Horizon Commercial
Operating Process Design Manager
Sponsors of Changes (as appropriate)
Head of Programme Management Office
Contract manager
Change control manager
(acts as meeting secretary)
Head of Horizon Commercial
Commercial Manager
Contract manager
(Legal advisor at POCL's option - advance notice to be
given of attendance)
Meeting secretary
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Board
Joint Horizon Management Board
New Requirements Board
Joint Change Control Board
Joint Contract and Commercial Board
Contractor
Attendees
Managing Director
Deputy Managing Director
Any or all of the following, depending on
agenda:
© Commercial and Finance Director
© Customer Requirements Director
* Implementation Director
© Customer Service Director
New Business Director
Commercial and Finance Director
Customer Requirements Director
Contract Manager
Head of Business Development
‘Commercial and Finance Direclor
Contract manager
Sponsors of Changes (as appropriate)
Change control manager
‘Commercial and Finance Director
Contract manager
(Legal advisor at the Contractor's option - advance
notice to be given of attendance)
POCL Approval
‘Automation Director
ervice Development Manager
Head of Horizon Commercial or,
Automation Director or Managing Director
subject to authority limits to be decided by
POCL
Head of Horizon Commercial
Contractor
Approval
Managing Director
New Business Director
Managing Director or Commercial and
Finance Director subject to authority limits to
be decided by the Contractor
‘Commercial and Finance Director
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Board Joint National Roll-Out Board Joint CSR+ Project Boa Release Authorisation Board Service Review Board
Purpose To review progress and performance of the I To review progress and performance in the I In relation to any Release, fo review To review performance against contracted service
Implementation Programme, including,
infrastructure, training, outlet migration,
[more?}
To review and resolve or escalate operational
issues arising from the Implementation
Programme
development and deployment of the CSR+
project (including development, testing,
training, migration, documentation etc)
To review and resolve or escalate issues
arising in relation to the wider CSR+
release.
readiness reports and decide whether that
Release should go into live operation
levels.
To agree remedies payable arising from any failures to
meet service levels.
To monitor and review operations of operational
business change processes.
‘Such other purposes as are set out in the relevant
service management schedules
Frequency
Monthly or more frequenily by agreement
Monthly or more frequently by agreement
When CSR+ or any further Release is to be
reviewed
Monthly
POCL Attendees
National Roll-Out Project Manager
Head of Horizon Implementation
[others}
meeting secretary
CSR* Project Manager
CSR+ Release Manager
Training & Implementation Manager
Commercial Manager
Meeting secretary
‘Automation Director, who shall be Chairman,
Head of Service Management
Others at POCL’s discretion
(Horizon Commercial Manager will attend if remedies
on agenda)
Meeting secretary
Contractor
Depuly Managing Director
Deputy Managing Director
Managing Director or his authorised deputy.
Customer Service Director
Attendees Others at the Contractor's discretion (Financial
Implementation Director Development Director Controller will attend if remedies on agenda)
[others] Testing Manager
Implementation Manager
[others]
POCL Approval I National Roli-Out Project Manager CSR? Project Manager Head of Service Management
Contractor
Approval
Deputy Managing Director
Deputy Managing Director
Customer Service Director
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