Once all the items were validated the panels were free to adjourn. The animal systems
group worked well together, and completed validating items a few hours ahead of the plant
systems group. This caused a feeling of anxiety within the plant systems group and resulted in
the panel rushing through the validation process for about one-quarter of the items, not providing
a thorough review of them. This clearly threatened validity of those items and was addressed
before the pilot testing by a separate panel of plant systems subject matter experts. This took
additional time and resources to properly validate the items delaying the set dates for the plant
systems pilot testing.