Sub-group User Requirements Management

1. Introduction

After a market consultation of three months, the User Requirements Document (URD) was agreed by the ESCB decision-making bodies and thus constitutes the reference for the future phases of the T2S project. However, during the project life, the URD must evolve to take into account market evolutions, changes in the legal framework, clarifications of requirements, consistency between requirements, addition or modification of functionalities, etc. To manage these changes, the URD needs to be under strict management control and the document should not be changed without formal agreement of the involved bodies . The Advisory Group (AG) decided at its meeting on 9-10 October 2008 to create a sub-structure - Sub-Group on T2S User Requirements Management - in order to delegate the review of change requests prior to their approval and to give guidance to the ECB T2S Project Team for costly, complex, conflicting, ambiguous change requests.

2. Mandate

As defined in the URD Change Management process, the AG mandates the Sub-group to intervene at two steps in the process. At an early stage to give guidance to the ECB T2S Project Team due to the complexity, limited benefits, possible conflicts with other requests, or other significant reasons; and at a second stage to (i) study the change requests; (ii) check the completeness of the change requests (iii) prepare the decision of the AG. In addition, the Sub-group may request the production of new consolidated versions of the URD. The mandate of the Sub-group expires at the end of 2009 and may be reviewed and renewed as required.

3. Composition

The Sub-group will be composed of:

• The Chairperson, appointed by the AG Chairperson
  The Chairperson shall (1) decide on the frequency, format and agenda of the meetings; (2) conduct the Sub-group meetings; (3) invite external experts and/or T2S Project Team members to the Sub-group meetings on specific topic; (4) report to the AG.
• The Rapporteur
  The Rapporteur shall be a member of the T2S Project Team and (1) co-ordinate the organisation of the meetings and relevant documents; (2) support the Chairperson in the preparations for the Sub-group's meetings; (3) draft the outcome of the meetings; (4) support the Chairperson in preparations for reporting to AG.
• Members, appointed by the AG Chairperson
  Members shall (1) represent expertise on both functional and non-functional aspects of securities settlement processes relevant for T2S; (2) have good knowledge of the T2S URD, (3) preferably participate also in other relevant European bodies and initiatives. Participants in the Sub-group shall provide adequate resources anticipated for achieving progress within a short time period. Participation to the Sub-Group is on a strictly personal basis. Should a member be unable to attend a meeting, she/he will in general not be able to designate an alternate. Exemptions to this rule can only be granted in exceptional cases by the AG Chairperson. In addition, regular attendance is a pre-requisite for membership in the Sub-group and membership will cease should a member be absent for a total of more than two meetings.
  

Whenever a member has left the entity he/she represents, his/her membership will cease with immediate effect and his/her entity may propose a substitute member to the AG Chairperson.

4. Working procedures

Meetings
The T2S User Requirements Management Sub-group should meet as regularly as required to fulfil its mandate. The exact frequency and form of the meetings is ultimately a decision of the Chairperson of the sub-group. When considered feasible, written procedures may be applied. The amount of work of the T2S User Requirements Management Sub-group will be driven by external events, and is therefore difficult to assess.

Change management process and interaction with other forums
As described in the URD Change Management process, the ECB Project Team submits to the Sub-group the change requests together with a business analysis. Upon analysing the change requests and business analyses, the Sub-group should decide:

1. To close the change request;
2. To request further business assessment from the requester, ECB T2S Project Team or from an involvement of the relevant National User Group;
3. To request the ECB T2S Project Team to conduct the required detailed assessment with the relevant bodies (requester, 3CBPlus, legal services, etc.).

In principle, all change requests should be transmitted to the Sub-group to prepare the AG decision.

Mini-consultations
The T2S User Requirements Management Sub-group may decide to issue mini-consultations or questionnaires and involve NUGs on dedicated topics in order to better reflect the market needs in standardising T2S functionalities.

Transparency
All documents that are discussed by the sub-group are posted on the ECB website to ensure full transparency. In exceptional cases, the Chairperson may decide not to post individual documents on the ECB website if she/he considers such documents to be of confidential nature.