In January, we reconvened Stream’s Technical Advisory Group. This group comprises subject matter experts from water companies and other industry stakeholders, with the role of advising and supporting the project partners as they commence work on Stream’s Implementation Phase. 

Since the MVP launch in December 2023, the Stream partners are working towards a key milestone of delivering a functional platform in April 2024.

January’s AG meeting aims:

  1. Participants to understand how the Trust Framework workstream relates to the other Stream workstreams.
  2. Advisory Group members to understand progress made in Stream workstreams, and how AG input is incorporated into them.
  3. Members to understand how the lessons learned from MVP are being incorporated into Day One.

Key Insights:

  • Since the MVP went live in December, feedback includes suggestions for future features such as API access, and gaining access to APR reports.
  • The Data Triage Process has been reviewed, tested and implemented for assessing datasets and inputting them onto the Stream platform. Water companies have also been encouraged to develop their own data triage processes, creating standardisation.
  • An update was given on the Data Standards Workstream:
    • Since November, the Data Standards have been created and developed for Stream. Phase 2 is in planning and will run until the end of March.
    • It was discussed that Shapefile has been chosen as the standard having been used in the MVP and will act as a base to move forward with.
  • The Data Standards workstream has defined a proposal for Stream’s Data Standards.
    • The proposal was presented to AG2 for feedback.
    • It was agreed that the proposed Data Standards recommendations will be taken forward to the Steering Group for approval, with the caveat that there was an update on the scope of current work, which has been updated to include: “These standards currently only specify the standards used within the initial Stream development work (the “MVP”). It is expected that the data standards documentation will be updated over time to include data standards used in delivering all future datasets via Stream.”.
  • A high level overview of the Trust Framework Plan was delivered:
    • Q1: Register as assured organisations
    • Q2: Publish assurable open data
    • Q3: Publish assurable shared data
    • Q4: Review & revise: design processes for scale
  • An update was given on the Legal Workstream, including key milestones for legal analysis; risk identification and licence selections; review of data sharing agreements and template development; and preparing a draft of the consortium agreement for future Business Model.
  • With regard to the Operating Model workstream, governance is being developed with IB1 and the ODI, and will also involve legal input.
  • An introduction to Esri’s platform build, objectives and timescales was delivered. Esri are currently in Sprint 1 which aims to demonstrate an initial operating capacity based on the MVP. Next steps will involve syncing up with the data team and offering training when data upload activities commence.

Stream’s Technical Advisory Group will reconvene in March 2024.