OCE.12:5.3 - Agree a first interface and return when its support disappears

This constructed engineering case concerns a new interface to an operating service. The customer requests the complete interface by day 20. The engineer cannot obtain the evidence needed for automatic control before day 28. After protecting the old service, support has sixteen hours weekly available for change, eight of which are already allocated to an internal improvement. These conditions leave a promise of the complete interface by day 20 unsupported.

A capable facilitator works with participants who agree to explore a joint proposal but have not adopted the CB.13 team protocol. The customer representative can accept a reduced first scope and expenditure. The service owner can allocate change time while preserving old service; the improvement owner must decide any displacement. The engineer provides technical judgement and the provider commits the support it supplies. Operators contribute the conditions for using the interface. Their participation and consultation time are allocated before negotiation.

The facilitator asks what would fail without the complete interface on day 20. The customer confirms that the first necessary result is usable daily data without interrupting production; automatic control is desirable but need not arrive then. The support team objects that an unspecified temporary interface could consume capacity needed by the old service. The engineer retains the evidence constraint. These answers expose an alternative worth investigating: a limited read-only first release with a defined support arrangement.

The parties consider three proposals. Full automatic control on day 20 lacks evidence. Postponing every useful result is unacceptable to the customer. The read-only proposal needs evidence of technical feasibility and an offer of support. The participants authorized to fund the inquiry pay for a bounded technical probe and request a provider offer; this preparation is additional to the implementation price. The probe asks whether the limited configuration can return the required daily records without sending control commands or interrupting the old service. Its conditions and authority cover the inquiry, not production use.

In the stipulated outcome, the qualified engineering team obtains the required records and confirms those isolation conditions in the permitted probe. The result supports the limited read-only configuration within the examined conditions. The provider offers six weeks of support for 15,000 currency units, requiring twelve local hours weekly. The revised proposal gives the customer the read-only first scope on day 20, subject to the separate introduction decision; automatic control awaits a later decision with its own evidence. The proposal includes the provider’s six weeks, twelve local hours each week, protected old service and reconsideration by the affected parties if support changes. The proposed agreement covers those six weeks of limited use; continued use needs a further supported agreement. It promises no automatic-control date merely because day 28 is the earliest evidence date.

The service owner can supply twelve hours only by taking four of the eight hours assigned to improvement: eight unallocated plus four displaced gives twelve, leaving four for improvement. Over six weeks that displaces twenty-four hours. The improvement owner explicitly accepts that loss. The customer accepts the reduced first scope and expenditure; the provider accepts its support terms; the service owner accepts the twelve-hour allocation with old service protected; the engineer confirms the limited technical basis. Operators confirm the proposed reading task and operating conditions within their authorized work. Each party responds to the same complete version, including the displaced improvement work and the support limit. The case stipulates these acceptances; the probe supplies the engineering evidence. If the customer instead retains full automatic control by day 20 as a non-negotiable condition, this proposal remains unagreed.

The result gives the product and organization decision makers coordinated conditions for use with OCE.7, the engineering decision maker a supported limited alternative, and those responsible for promises accepted terms for use with OPS.13. These participants must still obtain separate permission for introduction and perform their contributions. Preparation and consultation, the probe, reply delays, implementation, monitoring and possible revision remain costs of the whole arrangement in addition to the quoted support price and local hours.

Now the provider withdraws before introduction. Replacing its contribution locally would require thirty-six hours weekly against sixteen available even if all improvement work were displaced. Another provider can begin only on day 27. The customer refuses that delay. None of these alternatives supplies an agreed, supported day-20 introduction. The facilitator returns the changed proposal to the affected parties. The engineering decision maker reconsiders the first configuration; those arranging support revisit its provision, using OCE.7 to coordinate product and organization decisions; the party responsible for the existing promise uses OPS.13 to obtain an authorized response to the customer. Permission to proceed cannot rely on the withdrawn support. The independent probe result and the protected old service remain useful; the earlier promise has not been automatically cancelled.