Project and technical reviews office

Responsibilities

The office’s specific responsibilities for project reviews are to:

• propose policy and guidelines for conduct of reviews
• prepare and update the overall schedule of reviews in all Programme Directorates
• prepare and coordinate with project managers the participation of the Directorate of Technical and Quality Management and staff from other projects as independent reviewers
• participate as review board co-secretary, reviewer, and/or review leader

Where needed, the office is also responsible for performing special tasks for Technical and Quality Management that deal with specific technical and management issues within the directorate's responsibility. Such tasks include reviews of technology developments, and technical and operational infrastructure.

The office is active in the network of technical centres covering staff exchanges for project reviews (known as PRINCE). It has contributed to the definition and subsequent successful completion of a qualification phase. It also continues to act as ESA's network correspondent for exchanges involving ESA project reviews and/or staff from other national space centres in the current operational phase.

In 2000, the Inspector General established an inter-directorate group of senior managers to deal with technical quality issues that require a common approach across the Agency. The office acts as secretary to this Technical Quality Internal Network (TQIN). The group has been responsible for (re)defining the ESA policy on project reviews, and is currently establishing the processes for a future lessons-learned system for ESA. Once established, this system will be the responsibility of the Project and Technical Reviews office.

Background information

Reviews are an essential element in effective management of projects. All ESA projects are subject to a review process at several stages in their life cycle. Project reviews constitute technical, programmatic, and often, contractual milestones for an individual project.

The basic policy for project reviews is to perform a thorough overall examination of the technical and development status of the project. This examination covers the work of all participants in a project (that is Industry, ESA, and other participants) and takes into account the documented mission and project requirements and good engineering practice. The review process applies to all levels of ESA projects: from the mission level, (involving spacecraft, payload, operations ground segment, user facilities, data processing and dissemination, and so on) down to the level of individual equipment or units.

Major reviews at mission and spacecraft level involve the senior management of the Agency including ESA's Inspector General and the responsible Programme Director, and the review team includes staff who are independent of the project team itself.