Conduct the Integration design review
The Integration design review workshop will be facilitated by the solution architect, but the expectation is that the implementation team will present the integration design information. Each section of the agenda should be assigned an owner within the implementation team. At the beginning of each section, that owner should present an overview or summary of the scope and plans, including designs that apply to that aspect of the integration design. When all topics in the planned agenda have been discussed, the remainder of the time should be reserved for questions and answers with the solution architect.
During each session, you can expect that discussion about the scope and approach will occur. As part of that expectation, the solution architect might provide guidance directly within the meeting. However, these sessions are not intended to be design sessions but rather review sessions. The provided feedback might alter the current plan or design, but the detailed work in those areas will be carried out by the implementation team after the workshop.
Integration design review outputs
The output of the Integration design review workshop is a findings document. This findings document is a response to information that has been provided as preparation for the workshop or during the workshop. These findings will generally be one of three types:
- Assertions – Assertions relate to specific aspects of the integration design that the solution architect wants to call out as significant. These assertions are factors that might not represent a specific risk or issue but are foundational to the integration design and should be noted because, if changed, they will have significant impact. These assertions might relate to specific scope items, design aspects of the integration, or implementation approach or technique.
- Risks – Risks represent an aspect of the integration design or implementation approach that constitute a risk that should be tracked on the project. These risks could relate to existing plans, approaches, or designs that have an observed potential for negative outcomes. They could also be related to areas of the integration that have not been adequately explored yet, and as such, represent a risk that something unexpected could come up. These findings will be accompanied by a statement of what is viewed as a risk along with recommended mitigation steps.
- Issues – Issues represent an aspect of the integration design or implementation approach that constitute an issue that is negatively impacting the implementation, or if not corrected, will have a negative impact in the future. These findings will be accompanied by a statement of what the impact is or will be, along with recommended resolution steps.
The findings document will be distributed to the customer and partner organizations, and a review meeting will be held to review the findings in detail. The document will go to the implementation leadership and executive sponsors in both organizations. In some cases, these findings documents can be lengthy, in which case, an executive summary that highlights key and critical findings is provided for better consumption by executives.