Subject: Consensus? #733 Outsourcing principle

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:51:03 +0100

Section 3 of draft-ietf-iasa-bcp-03 says, in part:

   In principle, IETF administrative functions should be outsourced.
   The IAD is responsible for negotiating and maintaining such
   contracts, as well as providing any coordination necessary to make
   sure the IETF administrative support functions are covered properly.
   The IAOC is accountable for the structure of the IASA and thus
   decides which functions are to be outsourced.  All outsourcing must
   be via well-defined contracts or equivalent instruments.  Both
   outsourced and in-house functions must be clearly specified and
   documented with well-defined deliverables, service level agreements,
   and transparent accounting for the cost of such functions.

John Klensin suggested the following text for the first sentence, and Scott 
Bradner supported the idea:

In principle, IETF administrative functions should be
outsourced. Decisions to perform specific functions
"in-house" should be explicitly justified by the IAOC
and restricted to the minimum staff required, with these
decisions and staffing reviewed by the IAOC on a regular
basis and against a "zero base" assumption.

We have to adjust the second sentence (referring to "such contracts" would 
become ambiguous), so the total paragraph becomes:

   In principle, IETF administrative functions should be
   outsourced. Decisions to perform specific functions
   "in-house" should be explicitly justified by the IAOC
   and restricted to the minimum staff required, with these
   decisions and staffing reviewed by the IAOC on a regular
   basis and against a "zero base" assumption.

   The IAD is responsible for negotiating and maintaining outsourcing
   contracts, as well as providing any coordination necessary to make
   sure the IETF administrative support functions are covered properly.
   The IAOC is accountable for the structure of the IASA and thus
   decides which functions are to be outsourced.  All outsourcing must
   be via well-defined contracts or equivalent instruments.  Both
   outsourced and in-house functions must be clearly specified and
   documented with well-defined deliverables, service level agreements,
   and transparent accounting for the cost of such functions.

Is that OK with everyone? Case closed?

                       Harald

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From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:08:45 +0200

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> John Klensin suggested the following text for the first sentence, and 
> Scott Bradner supported the idea:
> 
> We have to adjust the second sentence (referring to "such contracts" 
> would become ambiguous), so the total paragraph becomes:
> 

Works for me.

--Jari

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 07:29:27 -0500

> basis and against a "zero base" assumption.
"Minimum staff required" is a little difficult.  One can do anything 
with existing staff if quality and timeliness don't matter.  The IAOC 
has to determine those parameters as part of deciding staffing levels.  
I suggest "minimum staff required to perform the functions 
satisfactorily as determined by the IAOC", or something along those lines.

Scott

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:44:39 +0100

--On onsdag, januar 12, 2005 07:29:27 -0500 Scott W Brim <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> "Minimum staff required" is a little difficult.  One can do anything with
> existing staff if quality and timeliness don't matter.  The IAOC has to
> determine those parameters as part of deciding staffing levels.  I
> suggest "minimum staff required to perform the functions satisfactorily
> as determined by the IAOC", or something along those lines.

I thought that was implied by "required"...... if we don't like "required", 
I think we should drop the subsentence, leaving us with:

>> "in-house" should be explicitly justified by the IAOC,
>> with these

Less is more....

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 07:57:42 -0500

On 1/12/2005 07:44, Harald Tveit Alvestrand allegedly wrote:

>
>
> --On onsdag, januar 12, 2005 07:29:27 -0500 Scott W Brim 
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> with
> I thought that was implied by "required"...... if we don't like 
> "required", I think we should drop the subsentence, leaving us with:
>
OK

> Less is more....
Apparently so.

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Bradner)
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:00:52 -0500 (EST)

harald asks

> Is that OK with everyone? Case closed?

ok by me

Scott

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 07:11:43 -0600

>>> basis and against a "zero base" assumption.

Isn't the "zero base" assumption the critical thing? If so, the 
decision to outsource/in-house is a consequence, not a principle...

Maybe

"In principle, the decision to perform IETF administrative functions 
"in-house" should be explicitly justified by the IAOC, with these 
decisions and staffing reviewed by the IAOC on a regular basis and 
against a "zero base" assumption."

Spencer, who isn't sure we can "outsource" something that's never been 
"in-sourced" anyway

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:37:40 -0500

I like this resolution.  I think the "review against a zero base 
assumption" captures the essential goal, and the minimum staff was a weak 
restatement.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: EKR <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:22:27 -0800

> Is that OK with everyone? Case closed?

Sorry to be difficult, but no.

I'd like people to explain why they think that the BCP should impose a
bias towards outsourcing as opposed towards doing things in the
most efficient way possible.

-Ekr

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:01:44 +0100

> most efficient way possible.

I have sympathy with that view, especially since outsourcing can lead
to egregious results if you do it wrong (just think "billable hours").
But on the other hand, we want to discourage egregious bloat of direct
staff posts (I could give some examples, but then I would probably
get sued). And if we just say "do things in the most efficient way
possible" we've said very little. So I ended up thinking the proposed
text was OK.

    Brian

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 06:43:42 -0600

I can't promise I'm interpreting the discussion correctly, but my 
understanding is that our bias is not in favor of outsourcing, but 
against empire-building and bloat. As long as we say "zero-based", so 
that we're giving the right clues about not spending lots of money in 
ways that create the expectation that we'll continue to spend money 
the same way next year, I think we've said what needs to be said.

Without tying our hands if we ever decide we need two employees in 
order to be efficient.

Spencer

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:37:22 -0500

--On Wednesday, 12 January, 2005 08:22 -0800 EKR <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> I'd like people to explain why they think that the BCP should
> impose a bias towards outsourcing as opposed towards doing
> things in the most efficient way possible.

Personally, I've never been convinced that outsourcing is going
to be generally optimal.  It isn't clear that it saves money in
the general case and may create additive management (including
accounting and administrative) cost overheads -- our (the
IASA's) costs to manage the oursourcing organization (*see
footnote) and that organization's costs to manage the people
doing the work.  

In addition, for the key standards secretariat functions (I
refuse to use "Clerk" here because I think it prejudges what
those functions should be in our environment), I think we may
discover that we need to have those functions in-house, not
because of costs, but because we may want to be in a position to
have the IAD (or Exec Dir) apply very specific close supervision
of individuals and, in the worst case, single someone out and
say "you are not doing your job, correct it or you are out of
here".  With an intermediate organization, you generally can't
do that without firing the organization itself (although you can
hold a lot of nice meetings trying to get the organization to
correct the problem) and, if you can do it, you risk a
"statutory employee" situation, which is usually the worst of
all possible worlds.

So we probably agree: my preference would be to drop all of the
"outsourcing bias" language, retain the notion of zero-basing
everything on an annual basis, expect the IAOC to be public
about the reasons for any employee slots or contracts and why
they are the best (optimal, which may go beyond "efficient")
ways to accomplish those functions, and stop there.

I suggested the text that Harald adapted because my impression
at the time was that a decision had already been made to play
out the "one employee" doctrine as a primary principle and that
we weren't going to get unstuck from that mentality, even if
there were a few more employees than that.   But perhaps this is
than and that is now and we should reopen this.

    john

*footnote: I think the document may be confusing (I hope not
confused, and I trust it isn't deliberate) as to whether all of
these pointers to "outsourcing" imply

	-- hire an organization, with its own staff, etc., to
	perform a particular function, or 
	
	-- hire a collection of individuals, but on a putative
	independent contractor basis, rather than employees

I have generally assumed that we are talking about the first
model because it does transfer some group management functions
out of the organization, with the IAD needing on "only" make
sure the organization is doing its job and because it ought to
be possible to write contracts in which the organization gives
us some protection against people dropping out or being subject
to truck fade without our having to assume all of the marginal
or contingency expenses.    It can work especially well when the
nature of the role, reflected in the outsourcing agreement, is
(as with the RFC Editor today) "we reach agreement about the
job, go off and do it and determine details more or less as you
see fit, and we will review things a few times a year".

The second looks nice on paper, and _may_ permit faster
terminations if there are problems. But it usually turns out to
be a negative experience when someone is doing a job that
requires regular interactions, calibration, and review/ signoff
of individual decisions.  But it rarely saves money and may
increase aggravation costs unless those conditions are met and
provides us zero protection against truck fade since the IAD
isn't even in a position to organize cross-training, etc.,
without an extremely high risk of having the contractors treated
as employees for tax, benefit, and working conditions purposes.

If we are going to leave "outsourcing" language in the BCP, it
might be good to explain what is intended, or at least to add
to the list of expectations of the IAOC that they will document
and justify those decisions.

---

From: EKR <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 07:42:50 -0800

Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> writes:

> get sued). 

We definitely do want to discourage egregious bloat of direct staff
posts, but we also want to discourage egregious bloat at the
contractors we outsource to. I'm not sure why people think there
is more risk of one than the other.

> And if we just say "do things in the most efficient way
> possible" we've said very little.

Agreed. But saying something correct is complicated. Indeed, there
have been entire books written about the topic. So, I'd rather
say nothing than something that seems wrong.

-Ekr

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:08:28 +0100

--On torsdag, januar 13, 2005 10:37:22 -0500 John C Klensin 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> model

So had I.