Support Activities

Provide technical support to the deployment project's processes, to help manage the as-deployed configuration and its quality.

Introduction Activities Roles and Responsibilities Artifacts Additional Resources

- Developmental Configuration - Operational Configuration - IT Products and Data - Support Plans - A-TARS Configuration Management Activities Quality Assurance Activities - Configuration Management Team - Quality Assurance Team - Change Control Board - Other Key Stakeholders - Deployed Configuration - IT Archive - IT Products and Data - Support Plans - Process and Product Evaluations - Status

Introduction

These support activities can be performed within the context of each deployment project, or as a single project providing support services to many other projects (a CM or QA project). These activities provide technical support to the management, engineering, and acquisition activities by:

• Managing changes to the IT products and data in the developmental configuration as they are adapted to each deployment site (e.g., counties). This establishes the deployed product baselines and supports piloting where multiple versions of applications are in use across many sites.

• Objectively reviewing and auditing the deployment project's processes and products to establish expectations about the quality of the deployed products and deployment services.

These support activities are similar to those performed for technology fabrication projects. See those support activities for additional information.

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Activities

The basic fabrication support activities also apply to deployment projects. You may refer to those activities for additional detail. Actions applicable to deployment projects are described below:

• Configuration Management Activities. The Configuration Management Team will consider the unique aspects of the deployment, such as:
  • Concurrently supporting multiple pilot teams across many sites.
  • Creating and maintaining each site's unique configuration, noting adaptations from a common development configuration, and supporting multiple versions in use across sites. Documentation should be kept consistent with each version.
  • Organizing and tracking operational test data and live-test results for each site (e.g., test decks and external system interfaces with live data)
  • Auditing each site's deployed configuration (what was actually installed).
  • Supporting critical CCB decisions by ensuring that what was intended to be installed actually was installed.
  • Maintaining documentation and auditing use of external system interfaces.
  • Archiving previous IT products and data that were retired from the operational environment, as needed.
  • Propagating developmental configuration changes to the appropriate site's deployed configuration (e.g., propagate common bug fixes to each site).
  • Tracking and appropriately handling emergency fixes made in the field, ensuring that they are reported and used to update the developmental configuration.
  
  

• Quality Assurance Activities. The Quality Assurance Team will consider the unique aspects of the deployment, such as:

  • Reviewing deployment processes to ensure all critical deployment activities are performed in accordance with the documented procedures.
  • Reviewing key automated functions on a periodic and event-driven basis to ensure that they work as intended in the actual usage environment (e.g., checking computer-generated reports and notices for correct information using real-data).
  • Providing insight into technical or other risks to the CCB as needed to support the decision to cut over to the deployed technology.

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Roles and Responsibilities

The key roles and their responsibilities are as follows:

• Configuration Management Team. These individuals have primary responsibility for performing the CM activities for one or more projects.
• Quality Assurance Team. These individuals have responsibility for performing the QA activities for one or more projects.
• Change Control Board. These executives approve the release of IT products for each site. They also review and approve changes to IT products after they are released. Individuals on the Board may include the IT Decision Makers, the IT Evolution Manager, the HS Program Manager, and other interested parties.
• Other Key Stakeholders. Any group or individual with a vested interest in the performance or status of the support activities. Stakeholders also include the Pilot Team, the IT staff, user representatives, or others who interact with the support personnel. The IT Project Manager, the IT Evolution Management Team, and other senior managers (the CIO) and technical persons ( Chief Architect) also will have insight into the status of these activities, as necessary, to understand the deployed configurations and their qualities.

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Artifacts

The following information is used or produced by these activities. Templates, examples, and checklists for identifying and documenting these items are available through the Additional Resources section at the end of this page.

• Deployed Configuration. This is a major output of these activities-the initial as-deployed set of IT products and data, which was adapted from the developmental configuration for each site, as needed.
• Developmental Configuration. This is a major input to these activities. The IT Products and Data. in the developmental configuration may be adapted for each site and incorporated into the deployed configuration.
• Operational Configuration. When a technology item is retired from use, it may be necessary to retain it in an accessible form for a period of time in case it is needed (e.g., saving data files and a way to access them if needed to support legal cases).
• IT Archive. When IT items are taken out of service and cannot be immediately destroyed, they will be archived and controlled.
• IT Products and Data. These are adapted from the developmental configuration by the engineering activities (e.g., for a specific site) or are procured by the acquisition activities. These items are placed under change control, as needed. These products and related process data are subject to QA review and auditing actions as noted in the Quality Assurance Plan.
• Support Plans. All support tasks are managed formally according to their appropriate specialty plans, such as the Configuration Management Plan or the Quality Assurance Plan. These specialty plans augment the overall Deployment Project Plans. Project or product requirements allocated to the support tasks are referenced in the support plans.
• A-TARS. Applicable parts of the A-TARS will influence the support activities. The A-TARS: Technology Guidelines may include process-specific requirements that QA activities will review or audit.
• Process and Product Evaluations. The results of QA reviews and audits are distributed to the appropriate individuals. Issues that cannot be resolved at the working level are elevated to deployment project and IT Division. or other executive management, as necessary.
• Status. Technical progress and issues are forwarded to the project management activities. Status is checked against the tasks in the appropriate Support Plan.

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Additional Resources

Resources applicable to this activity are cataloged below. Some items from the fabrication project support resources also may be used to perform the deployment project support activities. Lists of all available resources may be found in the Resources portion of the IT Planning and Management Guides.

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