[CMC] A word about Working Groups

[Adrian J. Hooke]

ADs and DADs: Table 3-1 of the restructuring document "shows the proposed 
new restructured CCSDS organization in its initial form, with either WGs or 
BOFs created according to their current level of maturity."

The WGs in Table 3-1 were intended to be a candidate (not mandated) set, in 
accordance with repeated statements in Section 2 of Volume 3 to the effect 
that "the Area Director will have the prerogative to define the precise set 
of work units that this Area will contain". Accordingly, you are free to 
create the actual WGs and BOFs that you feel are necessary to execute a 
current program of work in accordance with your charter.

However, please observe the general rules about WGs when creating them:

    "WORKING GROUPS (WGs) ... are charted to produce specific standards on 
a specific
    schedule and within specific resource envelopes, and then go out of 
business."

    "Each Working Group has a specific published and approved charter and 
schedule
    that it is required to follow, and a set of associated resources to do 
the work
    that must be committed by a sponsor. This is important: no WG will be 
initiated
    by CCSDS unless a credible resource plan has been prepared and someone has
    agreed to provide the necessary support. The charter states the scope 
of discussion
    for the Working Group, as well as its goals and deliverable products. 
When a WG
    has fulfilled its charter, it is supposed to cease operations. The WG's 
activities
    are supposed to focus on just what is in the charter, and not to wander 
off on
    other "interesting" topics. In fact, some WG charters will specify what 
the WG
    will not do, particularly if there were some attractive but nebulous 
topics brought
    up during the drafting of the charter."

The intent is that a WG is a tightly-focused entity, with a single clear 
deliverable or a closely-integrated small family of deliverables for which 
separate WGs would be inefficient. However, a WG is *not* a standing entity 
that exists to catch and ingest random new work as it goes along. In 
general, once a WG charter is approved, new work that is not directly 
within the its scope and charter will require the formation of a new BOF to 
develop a charter for a new WG. This need not be a tedious process - a BOF 
can form overnight and do its business overnight by e-mail, so a proposed 
WG charter could be created in a matter of days, and if approved by the 
CESG and CMC (again by an electronic process) the WG could be in operation 
very quickly.

Let me give you an example of the kind of problems that we can get into if 
we are not strict about this process. Within the broad mandate to operate 
"File Transfer Protocols" WGs within the SIS Area, Bob Durst created a 
"CFDP Interoperability" WG with the specific focused goal of completing the 
CFDP Blue Book 2 interoperability testing that has been scheduled to finish 
by October. Meanwhile, some other folks have identified some technical 
changes that they would like to make to the CFDP Blue Book. However, in 
this particular case the changes are *not* in the scope of the "CFDP 
Interoperability" work and they therefore require separate chartering. This 
need not be an onerous process, but observing a strict discipline about not 
randomly collecting and piling-on new work is critical if we are to be 
going to manage the standards process so that focused deliverables are 
produced on-schedule and on-budget.

Please then, as you prepare your WG charters, keep them very simple and 
very focused on specific deliverables with specific schedules. A good 
charter should be at most a few pages long and, based on a suggestion 
recently made by Nestor, I propose that it should contain the following 
five standard components:

    1. Executive Summary
         - A one paragraph statement of the problem being
           addressed and the proposed solution
    2. Objectives
         - A statement of the plan of work and specific deliverable(s)
    3. Schedule
         - Final deliverable(s) and interim milestones
    4. Risk Management Strategy
         - identification of uncertainties and fallback options
    5. Resource needs
         - identification of the proposed lead and participating
           Agencies, and an estimate of the necessary staffing levels

Remember, as ADs and DADs you are all required to personally review and 
approve *all* of the WG charters before they go to the CMC for approval, so 
everyone's future lives will be simplified if we observe a strict 
discipline in terms of keeping the charters short, sweet and highly focused.

Best regards
Adrian