Attachment E - HFPL Architecture Standard Operating Framework 20210311.docx

OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Health Services DevSecOps PWS – Attachment E

OFFICE OF

INFORMATION

AND TECHNOLOGY

Health Financial Solution Architecture Standard Operating Framework

Last Updated: March 8, 2021

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Table of Contents

Introduction Purpose In its plan to modernize the methods used to manage IT investment, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) Health Financial (HF) Product Line (PL) has committed to organizing its teams and efforts using the Product-Line Management (PLM) approach modeled after the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe©). Using this industry best practice to align IT investment and activity with the stated needs of the business requires a solid and transparent understanding of the business and IT architectures that support it.

The purpose of this document is to describe the Standard Operating Framework that the HF PL Solution Architecture Team will use to support the OIT HF PL PLM Objectives. These objectives include:

· Improve Health Financial wide visibility and collaboration on Solution Architecture Requirements, Decisions, and Roadmaps

· Establish regular communication channels for Solution Architecture with product team(s), HF management, OIT department teams and VHA OHF Stakeholders

· Standardize Solution Architecture processes and products

· Support adoption and use of Lean and Agile development concepts

· Rationalize and manage the HF PL Architecture evolution consistent with established HF PL design imperatives and Enterprise directives.

· Balance intentional up-front, top-down design with emergent design

Scope This HF Architecture Standard Operating Framework will govern how system architecture is designed, reported, and changed within the HF PL. This includes all systems and product teams assigned to the HF PL, its support Project Management Office (PMO) and partner organizations.

The HF PL current comprises over 30 unique systems or ‘products’ that been built to support specific requirements and deliver defined value to Veterans, Health Care Team and the VHA. The System baseline for the HF PL has evolved over time to include custom developed systems, COTS, GOTS and SaaS solutions.

The stakeholders involved in managing the HF PL System Architecture include:

· Product Line Solution Architects

· HF PL Intake Team

· Product Team Solution/Software Architects

· Sub-Product Line Managers

It is essential for rapid and efficient system delivery and transparent communication of status, issues and opportunities that all stakeholders in HF System Architecture understand and follow the guiding framework tenants described in this document.

Document Updates When there are changes to the HF Solution Architecture Roles and Responsibilities, the HF PL team will issue a new version of this document.

The Version History table contains information on all changes made to this document. The table contains the following fields:

· Version: The version number consists of a number followed by a decimal point, then two more numbers. The number to the left of the decimal point describes the number of formal reviews that have occurred from the initial document issue. The numbers to the right of the decimal point describe the number of minor amendments from the time of initial issue or from the last review.

· Date: The date the version was completed.

· Authors: Name of author of the most recent change.

· Version Details: A description that outlines what has changed in the version of the document and (typically) the reasons for the change.

Version History

Table 1 Version History

Standard Operation Framework

Product Line Architecture Runway and Roadmaps Architecture Runway The intent of the HF PL leadership is to optimize the overall global architecture of the HF family of systems to accelerate the ability to provide frequent, independent releases of the products to meet business objectives. The intent is to support delivery of business value by aligning the HF architecture to support end-to-end value streams. This enables the business to achieve its goal of continually delivering value in the shortest possible lead time(2). The HF PL Solution Architects will lead this process by supporting “just enough” architectural design work to maintain the architectural-runway and support evolving business needs.

This “just enough” definition is a SAFe© concept describing the balance between prescriptive and emergent architecture. The intent of the Architecture Runway development is to provide a plan to ensure the needs of the customer are being addressed and have been consciously allocated to various product teams, while allowing the implementation teams the flexibility to design specific solutions that address atomic requirements and Product Owner guidance.

It simply isn’t possible for all teams to anticipate changes that may occur well outside their environment. Nor can individual teams fully understand the entire system and avoid producing redundant and/or conflicting designs and implementations. Simply put, no one team in a larger Enterprise can see the whole picture or reasonably anticipate all the changes headed their way—many of which arise outside their local control. For this reason, teams need some intentional architecture—a set of purposeful, planned architectural guidelines that enhance solution design, performance, and usability—and direction for cross-team design while syncing implementation.(2) As a companion to the Architecture Runway the PL Solution Architecture team will develop a PL roadmap in collaboration with the PL Leads, to provide a high-level view across all the value streams in the PL. It will build the larger picture for communicating to the enterprise and to portfolio stakeholders how the PL vision is planned to be achieved over time. It will show a coarse-grained view of the Epics allocated to each value stream.(2) The HF PL Solution Architecture team will publish the HF Architecture Runway for all stakeholders and will update it, iteratively, as new requirements, directives and constraints are identified.

Product Roadmaps Product Team Architects will work with the Solution Architecture team to build out product roadmaps, system designs and associated artifacts, such as Interface Control Documents (ICDs), that support the identified Architecture Runway and business features assigned to the product team.

The Product roadmap is an artifact that will consist of assigned features and their planned development increments (commonly called Program Increments). Any design or enabling Architecture planning work will also be displayed, with any external (to the Product Team) dependencies or constraints noted.

Product Team Engagement PI Planning Product teams will invite PL Architects to their PI Planning meetings to allow them to understand the set of business and technical capabilities being planned for the next PI. If integration architectural changes are required for the new capabilities, then the architects will schedule time to design any required changes and communicate them to the Product Team Architects.

Named Architecture Resources Product teams will identify a specific individual or group to assume Product Team Architect(s) role responsibility.

Support HF PL Architecture Runway The Product Team Architects will adopt and support the implementation of the HF PL Architecture Runway and will communicate regularly the same. Where deviation from the plan is necessary or as ideas/design emerges from the team requiring change to the runway the Product Team Architect will proactively engage the HF PL Solution Architecture Team to update the Runway and identify any up-stream or down-stream system impacts.

Architecture Change Elements While developing solutions and rapidly deploying releases to meet business needs there will inevitably be changes that impact the overall system design. The HF PL Solution Architecture team invites emergent design and is postured to continually update the Runway as new requirements and pressures demand. To facilitate these rapid updates the Product Team Architects must communicate product-level changes that may have an impact on the overall Runway design. The following “Architecture Change Elements” will serve as a guide for changes that need to be communicated and resolved with the HF PL Solution Architects.

Any changes to the following:

· Creation or deprecation of a system

· High level integration design/architecture

· Interface types, scope, definition

· Changes to the types of stored data (authoritative or cached)

· Data Definitions

· Significant changes to the business capabilities provided by the product

· Deployment Architecture

· Security Posture

· Disaster Recovery Plan (as applicable)

Roles and Responsibilities of the Solution Architecture Team The HF Solution Architecture Team will be comprised of individuals who are subject matter experts on the Health Financial Information Technology architecture and associated Products. In general, these Architects will be assigned a Product Line (PL) architect role. These assignments will serve to delineate the scope of the Architect’s analysis, reporting and recommendation responsibilities.

Product Line Solution Architects The Product Line Solution Architects are responsible for:

1. Creating, updating and maintaining the global integration architecture of the HF PL.

2. Creating, updating and maintaining models and appropriate documentation describing the global integration architecture

3. Working with requirements intake processes to evaluate new business and technical requirements and to offer assistance and advice on the global integration architecture (even for designs spanning products outside the HF PL).

4. Working with the Product Architects on integration-architecture changes for their set of Products

5. Communicating the global integration architecture to Product Architects and to management and stakeholders (as requested).

6. Monitoring updates to the set of Products in their product line

7. Reviewing integration architecture related documents for the set of Products in their product line

Product Team Solution/Software Architects The Product Team Solution/Software Architects are responsible for:

1. The software architecture of their product

2. The deployment architecture of their product

3. Informing their Product Line Solution Architect of business or technical requirements which come to the Product Team

4. Assisting the Product Line Solution Architect in creating an integration model of their product

5. Creating and maintaining a core-set of documents describing their product e.g.

a. An ICD for each integration with another system

b. A single SDD describing the entire product

References

1) https://www.scaledagileframework.com/agile-architecture/ © Scaled Agile, Inc.

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