Report on Oversight Committee Meeting, 24/03/06 - Paul Dauncey ============================================================== As you may have heard, generally this was not a particularly smooth meeting. The OsC had only received copies of our 2005 proposal on the morning of the meeting and so wanted to know about a lot of issues which we had assumed were known to them. They also lapsed into re-peer reviewing the proposal at times (asking about radiation hardness, magnetic field effects, etc) which is not supposed to be the point of this committee. This wasted a lot of time and the meeting was quite rushed as a result. However, they did raise several relevant points which we need to address, the first by mid-May: o They do not like our management structure, which is basically a UK Spokesperson chairing the Steering Board, which oversees the five WPs lead by five WP managers. They stated the more usual structure has two people at the top, a Spokesperson and a Project Manager (PM). The PM is then responsible for making sure the WPs deliver, so the WP managers report to the PM. This shares the overall responsibility, with the Spokesperson being more "outward facing" (in the usual PPARC jargon) and the PM more "inward facing". (Mike Green points out that this "usual" structure does not exist for either Atlas or LHCb, which both have a similar structure to us!) They would like us to justify the current structure in a written submission by around mid-May and, if we convince them it is OK, then we can keep it; otherwise we may need to find a PM. The particular issues they raised which we will need to answer were how will we monitor progress within the WPs (here, I assume they mean independently, i.e. if the WP leader is not willing to admit things are going wrong) and how we would decide on whether we need to move funds between WPs if a high priority task hits problems and needs more funds. I would be the last to claim our management is some well thought out and highly developed structure, so I have no major opposition to a PM (and certainly would love to offload some of the general work like the budget!). The issues are more than this is extra beaurocracy and could be quite a bit of work for the person who is the PM. Note, any PM would need to be independent of the WP leaders and so could not be one of the five who attended the meeting. They would also be the person who accompanies the Spokesperson to the next OsC. This needs to be the main topic of the Steering Board meeting mentioned at the top of this email. o They want us to be more specific on the overall strategy to the TDR and beyond. In particular, they said we needed to answer "What questions will be asked at the TDR to decide on the ECAL technology and how are you going to be in a position to answer them?". This then needs to be tied in the the WP work and explained how it gives clear WP objectives. o They want much more information on the big picture for the next meeting. In some ways, the long term strategy seemed to be more important than the actual progress of the particular WPs; the idea seems to be that the current work is to establish our competence within the ILC groups and so as long as we make a name for ourselves, the actual results we obtain are of secondary importance. o They want us to add much more detail to the information given in the annexes. We need to clarify the deliverables and milestones to make them much more quantifiable (and hence failable); they were said to need "more edge". Ditto with the risk register; they claimed we were "risk averse" and need to add more risks with more details on each. o They want named responsibles for each WP task (or equivalent for WP3). These should not (necessarily) be the people doing the work, but the people who make sure it gets done. This should be passed by PPARC before the next meeting to check it is at the right level of detail. The WP leaders should already be thinking about the right people for this. o They want a table of the named FTEs for each workpackage; we have the these numbers so this should not be a problem. o They want a GANNT chart, specifically done in MS Project with the critical path(s) shown. (Dave said Manchester have a licence and some experience of using this, so it may not be too painful.) o The financial tables will need to be redone in a new format before the next OsC; PPARC will send us the new proforma at some point. There were specific comments on individual WPs: o WP1: The deliverables should include something quantifiable. The milestones should be e.g. to get a particular number of events at a number of energy points and with the complete ECAL. We need to make a list of the critical measurements and results to be made with the beam test data, both at DESY and CERN. (Note, the DESY beam test will be finished and the CERN one 2/3 complete by the time of the next OsC.) o WP2: They did not like the words like "flexible" and we will need to give a significant amount more detail on what this means in the next submission. They are concerned about the (small) degree of influence we have on the French ASIC design and what we will need to provide for the EUDET beam tests. (Note, EUDET is outside the remit of the OsC but they view it as closely enough coupled that they want to consider it.) Also, there need to be quite a few more milestones; this is one of the bigger WPs but has no milestone before the next OsC meeting. o WP3: The testing period for the sensors was thought to be short and the specific tests to be done should be documented. In particular, the division of testing between RAL/EID ("basic" tests) and the Universities ("detailed" tests) should be very well defined to ensure there is nothing missed. There also needs to be a well-defined sign-off procedure for the fabrication, where the physicists ensure they have input; what the RAL and University groups regard as functional might be different. o WP4: They said this section read like an LoI and needs to be completely rewritten for the next report. One other item which was discussed: o If we run overbudget, the working allowance (WA) can only be used with the agreement of the OsC. This will only be done after reoptimisation between the WPs has happened. Following this, if the WA is not sufficient and the contingency is needed, then this requires PPARC approval (and the OsC makes a recommendation to them). However, if we decide (with the OsC's approval) to use the WA to increase the scope of the project (the specific example mentioned being to put funds into the WP4 endcap design work), then this is basically a statement that we will not need any contingency. Hence, we would no longer be able to call on this if we hit problems later. I think this means we would have to put off asking for such an increase in scope for several years. However, the OsC themselves undermined this somewhat. There was a discussion on evalulation of conductive glues in WP4 and the question was asked about what we would do if we found glue will not work. They said we would then have "failed". I think the appropriate answer, which we tried to make, is that the task we set ourselves is to evaluate glues and if we can prove they are not a usable solution, this is a success; it would prevent anyone trying to build a prototype with glue and having it fail due to aging (or whatever). Failure for us would be not to know whether they are usable or not by the end of the grant. The OsC basically said we should start evaluating other solutions, such as bump bonding. However, as this was not mentioned in the proposal and would not be able to be done with zero cost, it seems to be an increase in scope. I think we need to be careful we are not forced into taking on extra work unless we are sure we can do it with the available effort and that it will not jeopardise our access to WA or contingency. The next meeting of the OsC will be on Fri 29 Sep, again at Swindon. Whoever attends from our side will again be needed from 11.30 onwards.