Phase 2 Highlight Report

Progress againsts deliverables

Phase 2 of Fab set out to demonstrate the key technologies required. These were delivered to the desired quality level nearly to time. Some difficulties were encountered but none beyond expectation of a project of this type.

The full phase 2 technical report contains further details.

The end of phase 2 is also marked by a move of project documentation to Github from Met Office SharePoint.

What's going well?

• The project team is working well together.
• The use of github as a development platform is progressing well.
• The research carried out in earlier stages appears to have been worthwhile.

What could be improved?

• Ensure that support for developers is in place, especially with future prospect of a more diverse developer pool.

Risks & Issues

The risk and issue log has recently been reviewed.

• Staff resourcing has been elevated to an issue to reflect reduced capacity due to COVID-19. Urgency is low and no mitigations can practically be implemented.
  • There is a known resource challenge approaching in August, which may be mitigated by taking a 1 month pause, timed to occur at the end of phase 3. This is not crucial but is an easy welfare win.
• Risks are all under control. The main one to watch is managing collaborators as we approach the phase 4 (nominally from August 2020).

Next Phase

The proposal for phase 3 of Fab is documented on the project plan page. It is summarised as "consolidation of the Fab architecture and prepare the ecosystem for opening out to a wider developer pool", running to the end of July 2020 and maintaining the same resourcing.