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Subject: EDXL-AT & Situational Awareness
Hi Tim, fellow SCers, I am not assuming this is true, but recent emails make it appear likely that we are going to get a formal submission for an EDXL-AT, though I hope it is through the Infrastructure SC. This is, if it happens, I assume, separate from Situational Awareness (it certainly SHOULD be since Assets are only one type of Situational Factor Category). Three things must be taken into account as this process moves forward: 1. Absolutely clear and unambiguous definitions of ASSET and RESOURCE, using the work already done on EDXL-RM "MUST" be written. This is simply not optional, and when people start getting hinky about it, just let them know that they will have nice, messy free text DESCRIPTION fields to make all the ambiguous shaghetti they feel they need. They can be counter-productive on their own dime in their own time. No amount of assurance that they "know" best is going to prevent some of us from finally digging in our heels and refusing to accept candidate specifications no matter how long or conscientiously any group or set of groups has diligently and expertly worked on them. 2. We are not accepting Candidate Specifications. Regardless, whether it is AT or Situational Awareness, or both we need to make it PAINFULLY clear to our SMEs that we are NOT looking for candidate specifications anymore. Please make sure they have our Requirements Specification Template. It remains in the RC Document Repository, I know because I sent it to the International Health Continuum TC this week for the same purposes reiterated below. We need them to build their Use-Cases as was done for EDXL-RM, and then build a rigorous set of requirements from those Use-Cases (diagrammed in UML if possible) with CONFORMANCE language built into it, e.g. "MUST," "MAY" and "SHOULD." EDXL-HAVE, in my opinion, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that accepting candidate specifications by groups of SMEs is almost always a mistake. SMEs rarely fully understand how broad, yet rigorous, the specification-writing process needs to be. We have now had to PAINFULLY deal with the consequences of being persuaded that the SMEs know their area best and that means they are the best group to write a specification for that area, instead of carefully working through a rigorous requirements-writing process. 3. We are working toward developing a unifying EDXL Reference Information Model. Unfortunately, we don't have an EDXL-RIM yet, and that is the only thing that would make building and submitting a candidate specification marginally feasible. When we do develop and OASIS approves EDXL-RIM, we can ask them to conform to it, if they think they absolutely must waste their time and ours by writing another candidate specification. If at all possible, even if it means spending a lot of time in a crash project, we should build EDXL-RIM before or concurrently with any new specs. We need to get that EDXL-RIM sucker done yesterday! Lastly to repeat and rebeat this dead horse, regardless of how well SMEs write a candidate specification and how well their collective experience in the area informs them, anything they write is not going to be organized in the way we have developed, nor is it likely to conform to the specialized techniques and processes we have developed. I really don't want to go through this PAIN or these discussions and debates again, We have learned this lesson three times now. Let's not continue building the case for the necessity of Formal Requirements from Use-Cases. Trying to take a Stitch in Time, Rex -- Rex Brooks President, CEO Starbourne Communications Design GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison Berkeley, CA 94702 Tel: 510-849-2309
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