BA/POCL Demonstrator POCL Infrastructure Strand
benefits
be
agency
BA/POCL Stage 3 - Demonstrator Stream
POCL Infrastructure Demonstrator Strand
Summary of Demonstrator Activities
October 1995-January 1996
Jeremy Folkes
BA/POCL Programme
z i
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1. Introduction
This paper documents the POCL Infrastructure Demonstrator Strand, as part of the
overall Demonstrator Stream of Stage 3 of the BA/POCL Programme.
The paper first outlines the structure and organisation of the strand and the general
philosophy followed during the life of the strand. This is followed by an appendix per
service provider, in which their general style is described, together with a list of
meetings attended.
2. Background
The POCL Infrastructure Demonstrator Strand was conceived at the time of the
BA/POCL Stage 3 re-organisation in October 1995, and ran as one of 6 strands up
to the formal closure of the Demonstrator in January 1996, and the subsequent
mutation into the Assessment phase by the strand leaders.
A period of planning, culminating in the Demonstrator Stream awayday on 17th
October 1995, preceded the demonstrator activities as outlined in this note.
It should be noted that the original demonstrator plan (pre-October 1995) did not
contain an Infrastructure Strand per se; this area would have been partly covered by
the Design Assurance Strand, and partly by slices of other strands. Unlike a number
of the other strands, which were a natural evolution from one or more of the old pre-
reorganisation strands (eg Applications, BPS etc), the Infrastructure Strand enjoyed
the dubious advantage of starting In October from a clean sheet.
3. Objectives of the Demonstrator Stream
The objectives of the demonstrator, as defined by the team and in STAGE 3 - RE-
PLANNING DOCUMENT (v1.2 25th October 1995), were as follows:
e to clarify the requirements with the three service providers and ensure they have a valid
understanding of these requirements
to identify deficiencies in the requirements and to feed these back into the BA/POCL requirements
team for resolution
e to explore and understand the service providers solutions and to identify issues and risks associated
with these solutions and then feeding these into the Service Providers Risk Register (SPRR)
e to provide a forum through which service providers may reduce risks on the SPRR
e to assess the service providers solutions as input to the overall evaluation process
e to provide confidence to the sponsors in the service providers solutions
3. Organisation of the Strand
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The overall strand leader was Jeremy Folkes, ably assisted by Steve Grayston and
Bob Booth’. Steve Grayston handled the Supporting Services Area within the
strand, whilst Jeremy Folkes and Bob Booth handled the Technical Infrastructure
Area.
The strand reported to Michael Berg (Stream Leader) and Tony Johnson (Deputy
Director).
4. Scope of the Strand
The initial scope of the Infrastructure Strand was derived from the functional parts of
three draft contract schedule groups - OPS (office platform service), TMS
(transaction management service) and SMS (system management service). A list of
eight high level areas was identified and these were shown within the overall “Scope
of Strands” table given to service providers at the introductory, cross strand meeting.
This high level scope was further developed by the /nfrastructure Strand into the
“topic list’, reproduced below. The list was intended to give the service providers an
outline of the areas that we wished to investigate and as a checklist for review during
the Demonstrator process, but was not intended to be exhaustive or restrictive,
should other issues arise. In particular, the emphasis on particular topics differed
across the three service providers, depending on their solutions and the related
risks.
The topic list was walked through with each service provider during the first POCL
Infrastructure Demonstrator Strand meeting, to ensure that they had a sound
understanding of the areas we wished to cover. No significance was attached to the
order of topics; indeed flexibility was offered to the service providers as to the order
of coverage of the topics (to fit in with other activities, availability of staff and
documentation, etc).
‘ Bob Booth joined the BA/POCL programme a couple of weeks into the life of the strand.
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The topics included in the list were as follows:
4.1 Technical Infrastructure Area
Office Platform:
* hardware
¢ actual specification
e input devices
¢ printing capability
e standards/health and safety/EMC etc
e environmental friendliness
number of configurations
¢ suitability for range of offices
® appearance/robustness
e bespoke hardware
* operating system
e local area network (hardware, cabling and software)
* middleware/4QL/database packages etc
e performance/capacity
© availability/resilience/recovery
« security
* technology refresh/reviews/upgradability/future-proofing
Wide Area Network:
technology/architecture
performance
availability/resilience
security
coverage
TMS:
* links to other systems
e resilience (incl multiple sites, inter-site links etc)
¢ scalability/performance
System Management (SM):
e software/data release/downloading
e configuration management
e user administration/access control (including to OP)
* remote diagnosis
¢ office churn/changes
4.2 Support Services Area
Support Services:
e Helpdesk for POCL staff
* Second line support/fault management
* Field support (repair, swapout, remote sites etc)
e Upgrades
4.3 HCI Area
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HCI was an area which existed as an explicit strand in the pre-replan Demonstrator
organisation, and therefor at the time of the Stage 3 Replan, work was already
underway, under the auspices of that strand, with a firm of outside HCI specialists
(EFD Total Systems Consultants Ltd) to evaluate the three suppliers HCI.
Although HCI was originally included in the topic list for the Infrastructure Strand, it
became clear at an early stage that it made more sense for this existing activities to
continue in their current form, and HCI was therefore excluded from the scope of
work for the Infrastructure Strand.
However, for historical reasons, the assessment scorings for HCI have still been
included as one topic under Infrastructure, although the scorings were done by the
Demonstrator Strand Leaders as a group, rather than by this strand.
Notional responsibility for liaison with the HCI activities was taken by Michael Berg.
5. Approach
5.1 Demonstrator Meetings
The demonstrator process was based around a series of full day meetings with each
service provider, with each strand being allocated a specific day of each week for
each supplier (for Infrastructure this was IBM Tuesday, Pathway Wednesday,
CardLink Thursday) as part of the planning at the Introductory meetings.
Meetings were generally held at the service providers main offices, although some
were located at specific sub-contractors sites if this facilitated specific
demonstrations or the availability of staff or equipment. In addition, a two week
period in December 1995 was reserved for “site visits”, with this being used for a
combination of reference site visits and presentations/discussions with overseas
sub-contractors.
The general format of each meeting with the service providers was as follows:
e discussion of service provider queries on requirements, with feedback from the
programme where available
e review of risks
e sessions on specific topics (planned in advance)
e review of service provider documents
e review of outstanding actions
e planning of agenda for following week
As a general rule the two areas held separate meetings with the suppliers (although
generally on the same days), although certain meetings were combined, in particular
those at the start and end of the stage. If meetings were held on the same site,
opportunity was taken during the day for at brief shared session to handle any
significant issues.
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5.2 Requirements Queries
Each meeting gave the service provider the opportunity to pose requirements
queries to the team. Where the team were able to give a “steer” as to the likely
answer, this was provided, but all queries were logged and passed to the
Requirements Team via the Risk Register Team. The responses from the
Requirements Team was generally “steer agreed”, or in some cases to raise an
issue with the sponsors. Any responses were fed back to service providers at the
first available opportunity.
Although it was originally intended that the demonstrator team would handle queries
on issued requirements, the opportunity did not exist as main part of the
demonstrator phase had ended before many of the formal requirements had been
issues. Instead, many queries were handled directly with the Requirements Team
as part of their meetings on Solutions with the service providers.
5.3 Risk Register
The content of the Service Providers Risk Register was generally reviewed at each
meeting. This included both risks inherited from before the start of the
Demonstrator (such as those raised at the original Rugby evaluation), as well as
those raised as a result of demonstrator activities. Service providers were generally
warned in advance of the intention to raise a risk though the RAP, and where a
paper was required to be able to recommend the clearance or reduction of a risk,
this was discussed and planned with the Service Provider.
Feedback on the actual state of the SPRR, including formal clearance, was handled
directly with the Service Providers by the Risk Register Team back in Terminal
House.
The SPRR files, including the register itself and an audit trail of actions and decisions
on each risk are available for reference from Alan Fowler, the Risk Register
Manager.
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6. Documentation
Detailed notes from each demonstrator meeting were taken in real time by the
BA/POCL attendees, either on paper or directly onto portable computer, with these
notes being subsequently (usually same evening) turned into the Meeting Reports
which were filed in the Demonstrator records (and are also available now on the
BA/POCL file server). Copies of the meeting reports were also passed to the other
interested strand leaders, with copies to Tony Johnson and to the Supplier Liaison
Manager (SLM) team.
Requirements and other queries from the service providers, together with any steer
given by the Demonstrator team, were documented in tabular form in the notes.
These queries were faxed into the programme after each meeting, from where they
were handled (by the Service Provider Risk Register team)
Where meetings (in particular site visits) were shared with other strands, the
meetings were generally only written up by the mutually agreed “lead” strand,
although the notes were reviewed by the other party.
7. Reporting
Reporting of demonstrator activities back to the programme took two main forms:
e notes from demonstrator meetings were copied to Tony Johnson, with other ad-
hoc reporting to Michael Berg and Tony Johnson by telephone or fax as required.
e Verbal reporting at weekly “Thursday evening” demonstrator strand leader
meetings (generally in hotels in West or Central London).
8. Relationship with the Assessment Phase
The Demonstration Phase led into the Phase 3 Assessment Phase, with the strand
leaders basing much of their assessment activities on the knowledge gained during
the Demonstrator. The juxtaposition of the demonstrator and requirements/solution
activities, and the subsequent drift (post-demonstrator) of the service providers
solutions did have some obvious impact on the validity of this knowledge. The
assessment therefore had to be supplemented by the relatively sterile examination of
individual solution responses, which did not include the same opportunity for detailed
exploration of the solutions as occured during the demonstrator proper.
The audit trail and other documentation for the assessment process, including the
scoring mechanism and actual scores at each iteration, is held by Michael Berg
(Assessment Stream Leader).
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9. Constraints and Lessons Learnt
There were a number of constraints, which, despite the best efforts by all concerned
(both BA/POCL and suppliers), may have had an adverse effect upon the efficacy of
the demonstrator phase. These are listed here for future reference.
e the demonstrator phase started at the same time as the requirements phase, and
the two ran in parallel. Although the general outline of the requirements were
known (from the SSR, and from the early work on contract schedules in
September 1995), many of the formal requirements were not agreed and issues
until well into the demonstrator - and indeed, many were not issued until after the
formal end of the demonstrator.
e the timescale for the demonstrator was actually somewhat shorter than that for the
requirements - as the requirements (and solutions) activity continued right up to
the issue of the ITT. Although the ITT date and its associated activities were
effectively slipped by two months, the demonstrator continued to its original
timescales, and this further aggravated the problems with parallel running.
e due to the compressed timescales and the workload during the demonstrator
period, there was insufficient opportunity for “cross-strand” discussion on the
content of the solutions. This let to some confusion where aspects of a solution
affected multiple areas, and where the service provider was changing their
solution.
e there was a conflict between the service providers work on preparation of formal
solutions (against a very aggressive timescale) and their work for the preparation
of documentation for the demonstrator. This impacted the quality of the outputs
being produced by the service providers for demonstrator purposes.
e the demonstrator was brought to a halt about 6 weeks before ITT, with the
majority of detailed activity completed by the start of December - almost 3 months
before the issue of the ITT. As there was there was no “design freeze” by the
service providers (neither during the demonstrator or up to the ITT), there was
significant solution drift in certain key areas during the last 2 months.
e by the time of the ITT (and ITR) responses, the solutions had shown further drift
from those which had been demonstrated by the service providers and had
therefore been evaluated by the demo team.
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A. CardLink
A.1 Technical Infrastructure Area
A.1.1 Style
Meetings with CardLink were generally held within the boardroom at their ShowCase
in London, although one meeting was held at the premises of their network supplier,
BT MNS, in Apsley.
CardLink provided typed agendas for each meetings, based on discussions from the
previous week. They would have generally prepared a number of formal
presentations for each meeting, with corresponding handouts and papers being
available. Action points, both on CardLink and programme staff, would be tracked
from week to week on their minutes from the meeting, which were generally
circulated to the demonstrator staff in advance.
Demonstrations of equipment were performed in the boardroom, with access being
available to the ShowCase if required.
The meetings were generally attended by a fairly large number of CardLink staff;
key individuals were Khan Busby and Mark Harrison, abetted by a junior member of
staff to take notes, and (at times) Tim Hyde as Client Manager. Specialists for
particular area were generally on hand and contributed both to presentations and to
on-going discussions - these included individuals like Yvo Dubous (network and
modelling) and John McSherry (hardware) from CardLink, as well as staff from
consortium companies such as Datafit.
CardLink were generally happy to produce papers in response to specific queries or
risks, although this enthusiasm did drop at one stage towards the end of the main
demonstrator phase. Papers were produced to good quality, with evidence internally
reviewed before formal issue, although they were also prepared to let us have “draft”
copies for early comment if requested.
A.1.2 Meetings
Meeting Date Location Purpose/Main Topics
Reference
Introductory 18/10/95 I CardLink Introductory cross-strand planning meeting
Southwark
CLK/JFO/001 23/10/95 I CardLink Opening meeting. Scene setting.
Southwark e requirements queries
¢ Office Platform hardware
CLK/JFO/002 2/11/95 CardLink ¢ Office Platform hardware
Southwark
CLK/JFO/003 9/11/95 CardLink e Network (suitability of TermLink)
Southwark ¢ Counter Architecture
CLK/JFO/004 17/11/95 I CardLink ¢ Network sizing and modelling
Southwark ¢ System Management
CLK/JFO/005 23/11/95 CardLink « TMS Overview
Southwark ¢ Datafit Presentation & Overview
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CLK/JFO/006 30/11/95, BT MNS « Wide Area Network (BT MNS)
Apsley « TS
Cross strand 1/12/96 CardLink Cross strand day
Southwark
Site visit 2 14/12/95 I CardLink Presentation by Allders International, prior to
Southwark site visit
15/12/95 I Allders Intl Allders International, Copenhagen Airport -
Copenhagen Datafit reference site.
Cross strand 21/12/95 CardLink Cross strand day
Southwark
CLK/JFO/007 10/1/96 CardLink Closing meeting. Main topics:
Southwark ¢ Equipment (esp ALPS and APPU)
« Counter Security and Resilience paper
« Network proposals (including packet radio)
¢ Failures in office
Jeremy Folkes attended three meetings with CardLink under the Design Assurance demo strand,
prior to the Demonstrator reorganisation - an introductory meeting on 30/8/95 and two substantive
meetings on 19/9/95 and 10/10/95. These meetings included discussion on a number of issues of
relevance to the POCL Infrastructure Strand, including in particular the Wide Area Network,
modelling, software distribution and response times. The notes related to these meetings are held
within the documentation for the End-to-End Strand.
Jeremy Folkes (as a member of the CCIG Working Group and the Security Review Panel) also
attended the CCIG Demonstrator meeting with CardLink on 2nd October, again prior to the
Demonstrator re-organisation.
A.2 Support Services Area
A.2.1 Style
Steve Grayston’s main contacts within the Cardlink consortium were Celia Chernin
and Nigel Smith.
Cardlink always appeared to be well organised - agendas were prepared for each
meeting; papers and reference documents were produced to time and without fuss;
questions were answered in a full and frank manner; and site visits were well
conducted and informative.
A.2.2 Meetings
Meeting Date Location Purpose/Main Topics
Reference
CLK/SGR/001 23/10/95 Cardlink Initial meeting / overview of process / risks.
Southwark (J Folkes also attended for BA/POCL)
CLK/SGR/002 27/10/95 I Cardlink Outline discussion about processes and areas
Southwark for discussion in terms of POCL support
service provision.
CLK/SGR/003 02/11/95 I Cardlink Provision of assumption details used in
Southwark solution / ‘walk through’ of support area /
discussion of aspects of support service
solution.
2 Joint visit with POCL Applications Strand. Documented by John Meagher.
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CLK/SGR/004 09/11/95 Cardlink Discussion about aspects of schedules
Southwark C(OP)3/C(TMS)3 / ‘out of hours’ calls /
structure of Help Desk solution /
communication links.
CLK/SGR/005 17/11/95 Cardlink Questions and clarifications relating to solution
Southwark / position of current POCL infrastructure assets
/ data & security within support service area /
escalation / maintenance.
CLK/SGR/006 23/11/95 I Cardlink Clarifications of solution / Welsh Language Act
Southwark / ‘tone’ phone coverage in Network.
CLK/SGR/007 30/11/95 Cardlink Update of assumptions information / Papers
Southwark discussed and requested / clarification of
issues arising from proposal.
CLK/SGR/008 07/12/95 Unisys Site visit - engineer management, current
Milton Keynes I customer Help Desk support operations /
warehousing - logistics management / areas to
be utilised for BA/POCL support / data centre.
CLK/SGR/009 10/01/96. Cardlink Clarification of outstanding POCL infrastructure
Southwark issues / office equipment failure scenarios /
risks,
(J Folkes / B Booth also present from
BA/POCL)
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B. IBM
B.1 Technical Infrastructure Area
B.1.1 Style
Meetings were generally held in a conference room at IBM's offices at Bedfont
Lakes.
The meetings were only attended by a minimum possible number of IBM staff - the
core IBM attendee was Richard Hopkins (who was the designated liaison contact for
both of the POCL strand), joined in later meetings by a junior member of staff to take
notes. This single point of contact was extremely effective, except for one meeting
where Richard dropped out at the last minute; in this case, the lack of continuity was
very noticeable.
IBM produced a draft agenda, presented at the start of each meeting on an overhead
projector, based on discussions from the preceding week, and although no minutes
were circulated, action points were reviewed at each meeting. IBM already
presented their view of outstanding risks as part of each meeting.
Meetings varied from fairly low key discussions with Richard Hopkins, to more formal
presentations by specialists from IBM and their consortium members (eg Thorn SSI,
Logica). These presentations were usually followed by a wider discussion, giving
IBM the chance to pose questions.
IBM were happy to produce papers, which were generally of a high standard and
showed evidence of review before issue. Some papers were updated a number of
times during the demonstrator as their thinking progressed; this gave some
confidence that the papers were actually being used “in-house” and were not just for
external use.
B.1.2 Meetings
Meeting Date Location Purpose/Main Topics
Reference
Introductory 20/10/95 Terminal Introductory cross-strand planning meeting
House
IBM/JFO/001 31/10/95 * IBM Opening meeting, scene setting.
Bedfont Lakes Requirement queries
IBM/JFO/002 7/11/95 IBM
Bedfont Lakes
Failure scenarios
Resilience in the office
Software distribution overview
IBM/JFO/003 14/11/95 IBM Network Overview
TMS Functional Spec Review
IBM/JFO/004 21/11/95 IBM
Bedfont Lakes
Office Platform Hardware
TMS Performance Modelling
Review of Systems Management
.
.
.
.
.
Bedfont Lakes I ¢ System Management
.
.
.
.
3 First IBM POCL Infrastructure meeting postponed one week due to sickness
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IBM/JFO/005 28/11/95 IBM « OSs/2
Bedfont Lakes I ¢ StorePlace DDS
¢ Watermark Readers
IBM/ISDN-D/001_ I 14/12/95 BT Milton Gate I e BT ISDN-D
London
Cross strand 4/12/95 IBM Cross Strand Day
Bedfont Lakes
Site Visit + 7/12/95 Raleigh, NC IBM StorePlace and PostPlace
USA presentations
8/12/95 Woolworths, Reference site visit to Woolworths (first
NY USA user of StorePlace)
Cross strand 19/12/95 IBM Cross Strand Day
Bedfont Lakes
IBM/JFO/006, 12/1/96 (am): Racal e Wide Area Network (ISDN-D),
Chineham involvement of Racal as the D channel
(pm) IBM VASS.
Bedfont Closing meeting, including:
¢ Two tier solution
B.2 Support Services Strand
B.2.1 Style
The initial point of contact was outlined to be Barry Pilkington, however, this
responsibility was passed to Tony Mancell. Steve Grayston was unable to meet
with any representative from the IBM consortium with regard to POCL support
services until well into the Demonstrator phase. Following the escalation of the
matter a meeting was arranged. It appeared that IBM were under resourced in this
area and had not, initially, considered it as an area of particular importance.
Once Tony Mancell had been established as the contact point a series of meetings
were conducted. As a significant amount of Stage 3 time had elapsed the meetings,
especially the early ones, were a case of ‘catching up’.
Site visits were made to the FDR facility, IBM NCMC, and an IBM Service Point.
These were well conducted with relevant representatives the IBM consortium
present to answer questions.
Papers and reference documents were produced when requested. Clarifications and
discussions in general were open.
4 Joint visit with POCL Applications Strand. Documentation compiled by John Meagher.
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B.2.2 Meetings
Meeting Date Location Purpose/Main Topics
Reference
IBM/SGR/001 26/10/95 IBM Processes / discussion about Applications
Bedfont Lakes I aspects of solution / CLI / ‘tone’ phone
coverage in Network.
IBM/SGR/002 31/10/95 I IBM Discussion about technical aspects of IBM
Bedfont Lakes I solution / risks / processes for future meetings.
(J Folkes also attended for BA/POCL)
IBM/SGR/003 28/11/95 I FDR Site visit - overview of FDR position in
Basildon consortium / tour of facility / area to be utilised
for support of BA/POCL automation / questions
arising from solution.
IBM/SGR/004 21/12/95 IBM Roll out plans & interaction with support /
Bedfont Lakes I maintenance / escalation / customer
satisfaction / IBM service centres.
IBM/SGR/005 12/01/96 I IBM Clarification of outstanding POCL.
Bedfont Lakes I Infrastructure issues / office equipment failure
scenarios / software distribution / Racal-BT
relationship within solution.
(J Folkes / B Booth also present from
BA/POCL)
IBM/SGR/006 16/01/96 IBM Site visits - demonstrated capability and
National Call processes in dealing with engineer activity /
Management approach to customer support / current support
Centre, service operations / communications links /
Havant. IBM dual site - back up capability.
Service Point
& Parts Bank,
Winchester.
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C. Pathway
C.1 Technical Infrastructure Area
C.1.1 Style
Meetings with Pathway took place in the meeting rooms at their offices in Feltham.
Unlike the other two suppliers, the meetings were fronted by sales orientated rather
than technically orientated staff - initially Liam Foley, and then Martin Johnston - and
these representatives also took the notes/actions from the meetings.
Numbers at the meetings varied, but core members of the team included Dave
Cooke, David Hollingsworth, with other staff such as Tony Hayward (network)
becoming involved as the demonstrator progressed. Other people were brought in
at other times, however it was not always clear as to their roles and responsibilities
(eg An Post representatives). More specialist staff, including key individuals from
Escher were available for parts of certain meetings.
The meetings were characterised by less structure and less evidence of preparation
than with the other two suppliers. Some presentations were given, however these
were fairly informal with very few prepared slides, with diagrams drawn on a flipchart
when required.
Papers were initially hard to extract from Pathway, and although this problem did
ease up to a certain extent during the demonstrator (especially when queries were
raised via the Risk Register), a significant amount of chasing was required to clear
the outstanding documentation at the end of the phase. Papers themselves varied in
quality and detail, with less evidence of internal review prior to issue.
Towards the end of the demonstrator phase, Pathway started taking a fairly robust
attitude on risks, with the appearance of their Risk Director (Martin Bennett) at the
start and finish of each meeting to check on the status of risks and actions. Although
Martin took a fairly aggressive attitude towards the demonstrator team, his prime
raison d’étre seemed to be to ensure that the Pathway staff produced suitable
responses. Despite this additional focus, adequate risk responses were still difficult
to obtain, and a number of risks required repeated iterations of responses before
clearance could be recommended.
In the cross stream meetings, Pathway again took a more sales-orientated
approach, with less solution content that with the other two suppliers. This was
evidenced by the demonstration of the somewhat irrelevant Household Budgeting
Scheme, and of demonstrating putting demo team photos on cards, rather than
showing a prototype of their solution to genuine requirements.
C.1.2 Meetings
Meeting Date Location Purpose/Main Topics
Reference
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Introductory 19/10/95, Terminal Introductory cross-strand planning meeting
House
PWY/JFO/001 1/11/95 © I Pathway Opening meeting. Scene setting.
Feltham e Requirements queries
Site visit 3/11/95 An Post Cross strand site visit to An Post, including
Dublin visit to two Post Offices.
PWY/JFO/002 8/11/95 Pathway ¢ Riposte (including Mike Murphy)
Feltham
PWY/JFO/003 15/11/95 I Pathway e Network Overview
Feltham e System Management Overview
PWY/JFO/004 22/11/95 I Pathway ¢ System Management
Feltham e Riposte Architecture Document
e TMS sizing and scalability
PWY/JFO/005 28/11/95 I Pathway ¢ Low volume post offices
Feltham e BTISDN-B
e System Management paper
e Riposte
Cross strand 5/12/95 Pathway Cross strand day
Feltham
PWY/JFO/006 ® I 11/12/95 I Escher ¢ Riposte
12/12/95 _I Cambridge MA
Cross strand 20/12/95 I ICL Bracknell Cross strand day
PWY/JFO/007 11/1/96 Closing meeting
¢ Wide Area Network/Communications
¢ Failure in the office
Jeremy Folkes attended two meetings with Pathway under the Design Assurance Demo Strand prior
to the Demonstrator reorganisation - introductory meeting on 31/8/95, together with a short planning
meeting on 26/9/95. However, due to late arrival of planning documents from Pathway, no
substantive work had taken place with them on Design Assurance before the Demonstrator
reorganisation
12.2 Support Services Area
12.2.1 Style
Stephen Muchow was the Pathway consortium representative who dealt with the
POCL support service aspect.
The impression was given that the methodology by which the procurement was
being conducted was unnecessary and time consuming / costly. Meetings were
conducted in a more ad hoc manner. Papers and reference documents were not
easy to obtain and, when received, were less comprehensive than anticipated.
Discussions, although fruitful, were less flowing than expected.
Asite visit was made to the ICL Sorbus facility at Havant. This was well conducted
with appropriate consortium personnel available for questions / information.
12.2.2 Meetings
° First Pathway POCL Infrastructure meeting postponed one week due to sickness
& Joint meeting with End-to-End Strand. Documentation compiled by POCL Infrastructure.
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Meeting
Reference
Date
Location
Purpose/Main Topics
PWY/SGR/001
25/10/95
Pathway
Feltham
Overview of Pathway Help Desk solution /
staffing level estimations / risk 27.
PWY/SGR/002
01/11/95
Pathway
Feltham
Help Desk staffing assumptions / Help Desk
Staff training / identification of callers / service
management tools / dual site / call
categorisation / call follow up / ‘out of hours’
cover / Help Desk database / security / SSR
call response requirement / second line
support / remote access tools / change control.
PWY/SGR/003
08/11/95.
Pathway
Feltham
Roll out timescales / Pathway Help Desk data
retention / format of trial / remote locations /
training / capability of POCL ‘users’ to deal with
technology.
PWY/SGR/004
22/11/95
Pathway
Feltham
Processes for ‘user’ access to support services
/ Papers / consumables / call volumes / ‘tone’
phone coverage in Network / POCL
infrastructure utilisation / failed equipment
processes & responsibilities / new service
support.
PWY/SGR/005
29/11/95
Pathway
Feltham
Pathway test strategy / system management /
PMS-CMS operations from Bootle & Wigan
centres / data centre resilience.
PWY/SGR/006
13/12/95
Pathway HQ,
Feltham
Queries re requirements / Pathway process
plans / Papers discussed / POCL infrastructure
usage.
PWY/SGR/007
11.01.96
Pathway
Feltham
Clarification of outstanding POCL
Infrastructure issues / risks / request for
Papers / office equipment failure scenarios /
ACD interconnectivity / engineer
communications.
(J Folkes / B Booth also present from
BA/POCL but not at sub meeting undertaken
for POCL Help Desk issues)
PWY/SGR/008
18.01.96
ICL Sorbus
Kent
Engineer management / processes &
management approach / to provision of
customer Help Desk support / customer
satisfaction / staff motivation / areas to be
utilised for BA/POCL support service.
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