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Bringing Technology to Post Offices and Benefit Payments
TERMS OF REFERENCE - TECHNICAL ASSURANCE FORUM.
Author: Dick Long/Jeremy Folkes Version: DRAFT B
Authority: Terry Austin/John Meagher 9th December 1998
Reference: _jf/torfor~2.doc
Contents Page
1. PURPOSE OF PAPER......
2. BACKGROUND
3. OBJECTIVES AND ADVANTAGES.
3.1. Primary Objective...
3.2. Other Advantages of this Approach
4, APPROACH AND ETHOS.....
5. OUTPUTS
6. METHOD OF WORKING .....
6.1. Meetings
6.2. Topics
6.3. Style..
7. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS .....
1. PURPOSE OF PAPER
This paper defines the Terms of Reference and proposed Method of Working for the
Technical Assurance Forum to be set up between POCL Horizon and ICL Pathway.
Nothing contained within this message shall be deemed or construed as affecting
existing contractual obligations between ICL Pathway, the DSS and/or POCL.
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3.1.
3.2.
BACKGROUND
One of the responsi ies of the Product Assurance Group within the POCL
Horizon programme is to make a recommendation to the Release Authorisation
Board (RAB) for each release of the Pathway service as to the fitness for purpose of
that release for its intended environment. One of the viewpoints for this
recommendation is from the Technical Assurance angle, and in particular covering
the (as opposed to functionality) characteristics of the service in four key areas, viz:
. performance and scalability
. integrity
. service availability and resilience
. security
Although the Technical Assurance team’s primary visibility of the solution is
through its work on Acceptance, it has been acknowledged this the timing of the
acceptance activity (concentrated on a decision at the end of “Live Trial” prior to
National Rollout) does not provide the information required to make an informed
recommendation for other sittings of the RAB, and in particular for the RAB
authorising the entry to Live Trial.
It has therefore been agreed between ICL Pathway and POCL Horizon to constitute a
Technical Assurance Forum, under the auspices of the Joint Working approach with
ICL Pathway, to enable the assurance team in POCL Horizon to gain the visibility
needed to discharge their obligations to the RAB.
OBJECTIVES AND ADVANTAGES
Primary Objective
The primary objective of the Technical Assurance Forum is to provide adequate
visibility of the service characteristics of the Pathway solution to enable the
Technical Assurance team on Horizon to make an informed recommendation on
fitness for purpose for the Release Authorisation Board.
Other Advantages of this Approach
Although the primary objectives of this work is above, a number of other advantages
are seen as emanating from this approach, including:
(a) de-risking the achievement of both an authorised release of the ICL Pathway
service and of contractual acceptance in the relevant areas, through provision
of early warning of areas which may prove problematic.
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(b) _ provision of an additional “independent review” of certain aspects of the ICL
Pathway service, which may benefit ICL Pathway
(c) provision of a route for ICL Pathway to gain clarification of the technical
requirements and/or of other related aspects of sponsor domains
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4. APPROACH AND ETHOS
It is intended that this form of joint working be conducted in a fully co-operative
manner, with the objective of both ICL Pathway and Horizon participants being to
further a solution capable of authorisation for the stated release, in a “can do”
manner. In particular, it is intended that any concerns in the relevant areas will be
openly shared and discussed through the Technical Assurance Forum, with the aim
being to achieve their resolution rather than purely to escalate “issues” to senior
management.
5. OUTPUTS
The Technical Assurance Forum itself will primarily provide output on an “exception
basis”, as in issues that arise from the review activity. The main purpose of the
activity, however, is to enable Horizon Technical Assurance Group to achieve their
output, which is their Release Authorisation Board recommendation.
6. METHOD OF WORKING
6.1. Meetings
The Forum will be focused through meetings held every two weeks between ICL
Pathway and POCL Horizon Technical Assurance. The meetings will be chaired by
Dick Long (ICL Pathway) and Jeremy Folkes (POCL Horizon). The meetings will
normally take place in Feltham on Wednesdays from 2pm to 4pm.
The meetings will follow a standard agenda consisting of:
. relevant actions from previous meetings
. main topic of the meeting
. topic actions/activities to be completed by next topic session
. AOB and next meeting
6.2, Topics
The meetings will cycle through the four main topics of:
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. performance and scalability
. integrity
. service availability and resilience
. security
to ensure that adequate focus is brought to bear and to ease time pressures on
individual attendees.
The topics to be discussed will be published in advance in a meeting schedule.
The working group may be asked to review topics which, although within scope, do
not immediately fit the meeting schedule, for example topics arising from testing.
The AOB agenda item will be used to ensure what topics are tabled at the earliest
opportunity.
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6.3. Style
The meetings will adopt a “workshop” style, with an open and interactive approach.
No formal minutes will be produced, but agreed actions will be documented. Notes
may be produced by the Horizon attendees, as part of their audit trail towards
Release Authorisation, and may be shared with ICL Pathway to ensure factual
accuracy.
6.4. Non-Disclosure
Any ICL Pathway documents provided to Horizon under the auspices of this Forum
will be subject to the existing NDA arrangements
6.5. Issues
Any issues arising from the meetings will be held on a shared list with a common
agreed definition of an individual issue. For any issue, it will be key to assess the
issue in the context of the next major programme event (eg Release Authorisation
Board) to understand the risks perceived, to quantify the issues as far as possible (eg
frequency of occurrence within the scope of that release) and to agree any mitigation
actions.
6.6, Escalation
Any issues which the Forum is unable to resolve will be escalated to the joint
working group sponsors in ICL Pathway (Terry Austin) and POCL Horizon (John
Meagher).
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HORIZON
PRODUCT ASSURANCE GROUP
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7. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
The critical success factor of this Forum will be that the Horizon Technical
Assurance Group are able to make an informed decision to the Release Authorisation
Board for each release.
A secondary factor is that there are a minimum number of unresolved issues
remaining within the scope of Horizon Technical Assurance at the time of the
Release.
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