Subject: WG management

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:26:10 -0400

I suspect each regular IETF participant knows WGs that are well-led  
and others that could stand improvement. WG chairs are crucial in  
ensuring progress, but there doesn't seem to be any real, transparent  
evaluation of their efforts. Some possibilities:

(1) It is hard to "fire" WG chairs - they are often friends and  
colleagues. Unfortunately, many stay on when their job  
responsibilities have changed and they can no longer dedicate the  
necessary time.

Solution: Institute WG chair term limits of (say) one or two years.  
That way, there is an expectation of change and the possibility for  
more people to prove themselves. With two chairs, staggering terms  
ensures continuity.

(2) Some chairs are primarily active during the 3-week period prior  
to the IETF meeting and moderate the meeting. They should consider  
themselves project/product managers, not primarily as meeting  
moderators.  WG chair training needs to involve basic project  
management training or WG selection should favor individuals that  
have demonstrated their ability to deliver projects and products and  
to manage people in doing so. If necessary, those with mostly  
technical interests can serve on directorates.

(3) All WGs should have a WG secretary as a "junior chair", keeping  
track of deadlines, LC comments and the like. WG secretaries need to  
be listed on the WG web page. The expectation is that a good WG  
secretary will be promoted to chair, thus providing an incentive.  
Some WGs do this today, but it seems rare. (I don't think any are  
listed on WG pages.)

Henning

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Ietf mailing list
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---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:43:25 +0200

Henning,

Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
> I suspect each regular IETF participant knows WGs that are well-led  and 
> others that could stand improvement. WG chairs are crucial in  ensuring 
> progress, but there doesn't seem to be any real, transparent  evaluation 
> of their efforts. Some possibilities:
> 
> colleagues. Unfortunately, many stay on when their job  responsibilities 
> have changed and they can no longer dedicate the  necessary time.
> 

I hope you don't mean a term limit. Making chair appointments annually
renewable might work - but limiting the pool of talent by imposing
term limits would be self-inflicted damage, IMHO.

> 
> (2) Some chairs are primarily active during the 3-week period prior  to 
> the IETF meeting and moderate the meeting. They should consider  
> management training or WG selection should favor individuals that  have 
> demonstrated their ability to deliver projects and products and  to 
> manage people in doing so. If necessary, those with mostly  technical 
> interests can serve on directorates.

Yes. But don't forget we need on the order of 200 WG (co)chairs at any
time and we cannot afford to deplete the pool.

> track of deadlines, LC comments and the like. WG secretaries need to  be 
> listed on the WG web page. The expectation is that a good WG  secretary 
> will be promoted to chair, thus providing an incentive.  Some WGs do 
> this today, but it seems rare. (I don't think any are  listed on WG pages.)

Very often this is done by one of the co-chairs; it's a WG choice whether
they do it that way or appoint a secretary.

    Brian

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:18:41 -0400

> term limits would be self-inflicted damage, IMHO.

At least in the WGs that I know, there are a fairly large number of 
people who would be capable of leading the WG. Clearly, this may not be 
the case everywhere. I don't think a strict term limit is needed, just 
an expectation that chair positions are temporary and time-limited, with 
regular review and explicit re-appointment. Having the chair report to 
the community at such intervals might be part of the re-appointment 
process. Meeting milestones would presumably be part of the reporting.

> they do it that way or appoint a secretary.

Unfortunately, the secretary position seems to have no standing and does 
not appear to be listed on the WG page. I'm suggesting upgrading and 
recognizing the position, while not requiring it. Small WGs can probably 
function well without it.

---

From: "Theodore Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:44:22 -0400

> term limits would be self-inflicted damage, IMHO.

How about limiting the term of working groups, instead?  If a working
group stretches beyond about 2 years, there is a lot of value in
limiting its scope, shunting new work/extensions into a new working
group or groups, and trying to shut it down in the next 12-18 months.  

						- Ted

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:35:58 -0400

> process. Meeting milestones would presumably be part of the reporting.

IMO, there is a quite a lot to be said about the above.

What we really need to do is _change_ the current culture, in which
chairs are sort of assumed to have the job for life (so long as they
want it), and having ADs make (involuntary) chair changes is painful
enough that it mostly only happens in extreme situations.

What would help is:

1) clear expectations of what the chair is supposed to do.

2) Regular/periodic performance review. I.e., is the chair doing what
   is expected of them? Are there clear metrics that show this (like
   concrete progress on documents, meeting milestones, etc.)

3) regular/periodic review of what type of chair the WG actually
   needs, and whether the current chairs are still the best for the
   job. (WGs go through different phases, and the skills needed to
   make progress during the various phases varies.)

I am not personally a fan of term limits -- they have significant
downsides. But I do think that we should be more aggressive in moving
chairs around, and the community should both demand results from the
chairs and put pressure on WGs to perform better when they are not
meeting expectations.

Thomas

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:33:58 +0200

> group or groups, and trying to shut it down in the next 12-18 months.  

Very much a case of YMMV, I think. But if a WG's milestones have to keep
being extended for no good reason, that should be a red flag.

    Brian

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:03:47 -0700

>enough that it mostly only happens in extreme situations.

This has been seen in multiple IETF WGs. The chairs were doing a 
barely-passable job (or a bad job), but the ADs didn't want to 
replace them because doing so would be an insult. The output of those 
WGs were, in some cases, pretty terrible.

>    concrete progress on documents, meeting milestones, etc.)

During the periodic performance review, it would be useful for the AD 
to ask the WG "Do you as individuals think that the chairs are 
meeting this set of expectations?" and "If not, do you think you 
could do the work necessary to meet them better?" I think 
self-nomination instead of other-nomination would help prevent 
political schisms and leave it as "are you willing to do all the work 
necessary instead".

And, yes, I know that the result of this could be insulting to some 
under-performaing chairs, including me. On balance, however, that 
personal insult is worth it if the result is better WG output under 
more effective leadership.

A side-effect of this would be that, even if a particular chair is 
not removed (such as if she/he agrees to meet the chair goals 
better), the AD will have a larger pool of people who have expressed 
interest in chairing. This could be useful for other WGs in the area.

>chairs and put pressure on WGs to perform better when they are not

The performance review is input to the AD about the WG. If the WG is 
floundering, most people don't think the chairs are doing a good job, 
and no one is willing to take the lead, that is valuable information 
about the work being done.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Steve Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:16:32 -0400

One possible tool to consider is a "slip chart" which plots the  
estimated date of delivery against the date the estimate is made.  If  
successive estimates of when a milestone is going to be reached are  
all the same, then the project is on track.  If successive estimates  
keep sliding into the future, this shows up vividly.

I have to admit that whenever I've tried to impose this discipline on  
groups I've managed, what happens in practice is the people being  
measured try to change the game and argue the new estimates apply to  
completely different milestones than the original ones...

Steve

Steve Crocker
[email-masked]

On Jun 16, 2005, at 11:33 AM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

>>>> responsibilities have changed and they can no longer dedicate  
>>>> the  necessary time.
>>>>
>>>> Solution: Institute WG chair term limits of (say) one or two  
>>>> years.  That way, there is an expectation of change and the  
>>>> possibility for  more people to prove themselves. With two  
>>>> chairs, staggering terms  ensures continuity.
>>>>
>>>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:20:48 +0200

> process. Meeting milestones would presumably be part of the reporting.

Indeed. But please remember that even if we need to get serious in the
way you describe, if we make the requirements too onerous, it will
become hard to find willing WG chairs. But personally, I'd be in favour
of an explicit re-appointment requirement.

> function well without it.

It does have standing; section 6.2 of RFC 2418 (BCP 25). They can be listed
on the charter page. But I agree it's little used.

    Brian

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:00:52 -0700

>  downsides.

What are those downsides, for the situation under discussion?

>  under-performaing chairs, including me.

Which means that it would be nice to find a way to deal with the current 
concerns that does not run into the considerable and mutual pain of a 
rejection process.

>  estimated date of delivery against the date the estimate is made.

We need to be careful that we do not focus on creation of clever tools 
while ignoring more strategic -- and frankly pretty simple -- issues:

1.  An IETF effort that succeeds does so because of substantial 
community need and activity.  If either are lacking, the effort will 
fail.

2.  For something on the scale of the Internet, "substantial community" 
must almost always translate into a big number. If an IETF effort cannot 
muster such levels of involvement, it needs to question whether the work 
really is appropriate for the global Internet.

3.  The concept of rough consensus means that no one person is 
essential. Neither to contribute nor to veto.  This should translate 
into the ability to replace chairs easily.

4.  If an effort cannot come up with alternative chairs reasonably 
easily, again we need to question the appropriateness of the effort.

5.  The question of whether a working group is making timely and 
productive progress ought to be pretty easy to assess.  Milestones are 
relevant, but careful analysis is probably not nearly as important as 
seeing whether it just plain "feels" productive.

Consequently, automatically (not conditionally) replacing chairs every 
two years is actually a pretty reasonable idea.

Similarly a zero-based working group renewal process every two years 
makes quite a lot of sense.  In other words, the assumption is that it 
won't get renewed.  The working group needs to make a case that its 
efforts have been productive enough to warrant continuation.

To date, we treat most of the IETF process as uinsg free resources.  
Hence we do no real scheduling of valuable resources, except by fifo and 
congestion behaviors.  Is that really any way to run a major standards 
group?

  d/
  ---
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  +1.408.246.8253
  dcrocker  a t ...
  WE'VE MOVED to:  www.bbiw.net

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:06:14 -0400

> group or groups, and trying to shut it down in the next 12-18 months.  

I think this goes back to the distinction I made between the "classical" 
  "big-ticket" IETF working group that has a single major deliverable 
and the ever-more-common "maintenance" working groups that have a steady 
stream of protocol-related work. I don't see much point in re-starting 
the DHCP working group every other year, to pick an example of one of 
the longer-lived working groups.

I certainly agree that for the "big-ticket" working groups, an 
annual-or-similar explicit review (visible to the community) would be 
helpful. This is very common for subgroups in technical societies (ACM, 
IEEE), for example.

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:16:25 -0400

> on the charter page. But I agree it's little used.

Creating a culture of grooming secretaries to become WG chairs will 
help, in my opinion, to deal with the chair supply problem and will 
allow evaluation of possible chairs ahead of time, plus presuambly 
increase the motivation of the secretary to perform above expectation.

Again, similar arrangements seem very common in the various technical 
subgroupings of major societies (ACM Sigcomm, IEEE ComSoc technical 
committees).

I suspect that one could even argue that there's a need for an area 
secretary/manager (or two), with explicit process acceleration 
responsibilities, rather than technical review.

I'm sure others will correct me here, but I believe that the IEEE 802.* 
organizations have similar arrangements. A random example includes 
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/19/

Henning

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:21:20 +0200

Dave,

> congestion behaviors.  Is that really any way to run a major standards 

To be blunt, I believe this is a direct consequence of our open door,
individual participation ethic. If you want firm resource commitments,
you have to ask corporations and other organizations, not individuals,
to make the commitment. When you have firm corporate commitments, you can
do resource planning. It becomes a different game. This is definitely
a case of being careful what you wish for.

     Brian

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:34:42 -0400

> a case of being careful what you wish for.

At least in the areas where I hang out, almost all participants are paid 
for by (large) companies. The work is being done on company time and 
companies often claim credit for their contributions to standards 
bodies. We are not the local soup kitchen where people serve for 
charity's sake. One would hope that somebody taking on significant 
resource commitments clears this with their management if it is not 
already part of their job description.

Given the effective monopoly of the pen granted to authors, the 
community has, I believe, a right to expect timely delivery in return. 
This is no different from, say, being asked to chair a conference in the 
IEEE and ACM - unpaid volunteers, but there's a very definite 
expectation of performance, and mechanisms to "encourage" such performance.

There is the old saw about the "bias of low expectations". We compete 
for time with other commitments authors (and WG chairs) have. If we 
convey the message, implicitly at least, that our work can wait, it will 
wait.

Henning

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:25:56 -0500

Agree with Henning, with one addition - some IETF participants DO 
participate on their own time and on their own dime, but even 
participants who are paying their own way want to see progress.

Please, ask for these commitments. If a company moves someone and they 
are no longer able to meet the commitment, it's easier for them to ask 
to be relieved if the alternative is failing to meet explicit 
commitments. We don't have to have corporate commitments to have 
commitments.

If we send the message that a specification is needed "eventually", 
why would anyone - sponsored or not - make it a priority?

Spencer

Henning Schulzrinne wrote:

> At least in the areas where I hang out, almost all participants are 
> paid for by (large) companies. The work is being done on company 
> time and companies often claim credit for their contributions to 
> standards bodies. We are not the local soup kitchen where people 
> serve for charity's sake. One would hope that somebody taking on 
> significant resource commitments clears this with their management 
> if it is not already part of their job description.
>
> community has, I believe, a right to expect timely delivery in 
> return. This is no different from, say, being asked to chair a 
> conference in the IEEE and ACM - unpaid volunteers, but there's a 
> very definite expectation of performance, and mechanisms to 
> "encourage" such performance.
>
> There is the old saw about the "bias of low expectations". We 
> compete for time with other commitments authors (and WG chairs) 
> have. If we convey the message, implicitly at least, that our work 
> can wait, it will wait.
>
> Henning

---

From: wayne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:11:48 -0500

In <000601c57340$18daa290$0500a8c0@DFNJGL21> "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]> writes:

>>> To be blunt, I believe this is a direct consequence of our open
>>> door, individual participation ethic. [...]
>>
>> serve for charity's sake.

In the particular areas where I hang out, a great deal of the most
active participants are not being paid to do the work.  I, personally,
volunteer my own time to try and help fix certain problems on the
Internet and all of the costs come out of my own pocket.

> participants who are paying their own way want to see progress.

Indeed, I think those of us who have donated a significant amount of
our own time and money are *more* interested in seeing progress.  We
can not afford to have things drag on for years.

-wayne

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:11:39 -0700

Brian,

> >  To date, we treat most of the IETF process as uinsg free resources.
....
>  to make the commitment. 

You could not be more wrong.  The open door policy might call for some 
creativity in resource management, but it in no way guarantees that we are 
unable to manage our aggregate resources.

I made a particular point that I believe you entirely missed.  It is fundamental 
and it is really quite simple.  

Embrace it, and quite a bit of IETF management becomes pretty simple.  Ignore it 
and we are pretty likely to have the kind of chaos and erratic behavior that 
dominates the IETF today.

The point is about the real meaning of rough consensus.  

Rough consensus is about a strongly dominant constituency in favor of something.

If there is a strongly dominant constituency in favor of something, then that 
something gets done.  And, by the way, it gets done in a timely fashion or else 
the constituency evaporates.

Require that an effort begin with -- and continue to demonstrate -- a serious 
constituency in terms of numbers and activity, and most of our problems 
disappear.

Ignore that requirement and we are, instead, we are left with congestion, 
individual idealism and vetoes... and a belief that there is nothing we can do 
about it.

  d/
  ---
  Dave Crocker

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 07:39:39 -0500

Hi, Henning,

This was the most thought-provoking of your recent posts for me, so I 
spent a little time thinking before trying to contribute to the 
thread...

You have served us well by pointing these problems out. The meta-issue 
for me is, of course, how we move forward on any of these problems.

Spencer

> more people to prove themselves. With two chairs, staggering terms 

This is actually several conflated topics -

- working group chair selection
- working group chair term limits
- working group chair accountability

all of which matter, and all of which could probably be improved.

My thoughts are:

- if we were asking for (periodic re-)commitments from working group 
chairs, would we still be asking for term limits?

- we are all also aware of people in leadership roles who continue to 
commit and continue to miss commitments. How long does it actually 
take to figure out that a WG chair "can no longer dedicate the 
necessary time?"

- every working group is different, and every {1,2,3} set of of WG 
chairs is different. We can give guidance on WG chair selection, but 
hard boundaries are probably harder - it's easy to say "at least one 
WG chair must be experienced", but how much experience is enough, etc. 
It does not help that some of the goals are conflicting (developing 
new chairs vs. chair continuity). Would a BCP on WG chair selection 
(and reselection, if we thought of WG chair services as terms) be 
helpful, or just process silliness?

> technical interests can serve on directorates.

Two related problems here, as you pointed out in another posting - 
when the WG is only active for six weeks per year, and when the WG 
chair is only active for nine weeks per year. I don't see how we can 
focus on this with our current milestone tracking ("no, really, we'll 
finish that draft by the NEXT meeting, this time for sure"), so your 
comments in the "front-end delays" thread apply here as well.

> Some WGs do this today, but it seems rare. (I don't think any are 

It is irritating that our process explicitly allows for WG 
secretaries, but almost no WGs use them. Perhaps if people contacted 
WG chairs and volunteered, instead of waiting for WG chairs to wake up 
and stop trying to take their own minutes, etc?

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:24:13 -0400

> chairs, would we still be asking for term limits?

I doubt it if it is a more formality.

> commit and continue to miss commitments. How long does it actually take 
> to figure out that a WG chair "can no longer dedicate the necessary time?"

There are, I believe, two answers to that:

(1) It's too difficult and conflict-inducing to try to evaluate this for 
each WG, so a term limit acts as a safety mechanism, limiting the damage 
and allowing a face-saving retreat.

(2) I supect most of us know which WGs are well-run and which just kind 
of exist, with brief spurts of activity, so asking the members might be 
one step. If we were serious about meeting deadlines, we could have 
measurable metrics of achievement (see previous message).

> hard boundaries are probably harder - it's easy to say "at least one WG 
> chair must be experienced", but how much experience is enough, etc. It 
> does not help that some of the goals are conflicting (developing new 
> chairs vs. chair continuity). Would a BCP on WG chair selection (and 
> reselection, if we thought of WG chair services as terms) be helpful, or 
> just process silliness?

Based on personal experience, the problem has not been with the 
selection of WG chairs initially in most cases. Since many WG chairs, by 
definition, do this for the first time, it is very difficult to predict 
how well they do in that role. Personally, I wouldn't appoint somebody 
unless they have non-IETF project management or other significant 
second-level management experience, but I'm not sure you would want to 
institute that as a rule.

The problem is that perfectly nice and technically capable people
- lose interest
- change companies
- get promoted
- underestimate time required (or overestimate time available)
- underestimate the tedium of dealing with administrivia and keeping 
dozens of projects (drafts) inching along
- underestimate the non-technical skills required to do the job

All of these are hard to predict ahead of time. I'd much rather give 
more people a chance to prove themselves, but with the expectation that 
the chance is either strictly time-limited and/or performance-monitored. 
I think that's a more open way to run an organization rather than trying 
to establish criteria for taking on a position (and hoping that these 
are predictive of success).

> Two related problems here, as you pointed out in another posting - when 
> the WG is only active for six weeks per year, and when the WG chair is 
> only active for nine weeks per year. I don't see how we can focus on 
> this with our current milestone tracking ("no, really, we'll finish that 
> draft by the NEXT meeting, this time for sure"), so your comments in the 
> "front-end delays" thread apply here as well.

I think we agree that performance-tracking would make these "seasonal" 
WGs more obvious to the community and the AD management.

> 
> It is irritating that our process explicitly allows for WG secretaries, 
> but almost no WGs use them. Perhaps if people contacted WG chairs and 
> volunteered, instead of waiting for WG chairs to wake up and stop trying 
> to take their own minutes, etc?

This is an incentive thing: Currently, besides the goodness of one's 
heart, there is no real incentive to do this. Other volunteer 
organizations have expected chains of succession, i.e., a technical 
committee secretary/vice chair/treasurer has a good shot at the corner 
office job. This only works if the marquee jobs are time-limited.

Henning

---

From: "Soininen Jonne (Nokia-NET/Helsinki)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:20:55 +0300

Hi,

I think that despite if the people are working with company money or
their own they should be able to estimate if they can have enough time
to spend on the effort. 
Also they should have an "easy way out" when they notice that e.g. for a
change in their lives they cannot commit that much time anymore. 
For instance, there are some people that are better than others in the
beginning phases of a draft (great innovators, leaders, who can drive
new things), however, they may not be the best to drive out the last
nits of a draft. Maybe there should be an easy way to handover the draft
editorship without feeling that you have let the whole community down.

Cheers,

Jonne.

-- 
Jonne Soininen
Nokia

Tel: +358 40 527 46 34
E-mail: [email-masked]

---

From: "Soininen Jonne (Nokia-NET/Helsinki)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:26:45 +0300

Henning and Spencer,

first of all I think Henning's idea is a nice one. I think that there
should be some kind of a way to both get rid of chairs that are in the
way of progress in a humane manner and they do not understand it
themselves. However, I think (or at least hope) these kind of people are
in the minority.

I think also there should be some check points where chairs that feel
that they do not have the time or interest to devote to their WG anymore
could jump safely out without loosing face or having a feeling that they
let the WG down. If there would be a natural way to do this and possibly
a natural candidate (the WG secretary) maybe people would do it more
often.

Cheers,

Jonne.

-- 
Jonne Soininen
Nokia

Tel: +358 40 527 46 34

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:34:48 +0200

--On 20. juni 2005 07:39 -0500 Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> only active for nine weeks per year. I don't see how we can focus on this
> with our current milestone tracking ("no, really, we'll finish that draft
> by the NEXT meeting, this time for sure"), so your comments in the

Let me offer a simplistic metric.....

if a WG chair has posted nothing to the WG mailing list for a week, and 
that WG chair has not told the WG he's on holiday, that WG chair is 
probably not doing his/her job.

If NOBODY's posted to the WG mailing list for a week, it's time to close 
the WG.

                 Harald

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:57:40 -0400

Actually, based on experience in effective and ineffective working groups, 
I don't think the 1 week (or even two weeks) suggested below is a 
reasonable measure of activity.

When I was a WG chair, there were often multi-week periods when I did not 
post anything to the list.  Sometimes this was because nothing was 
happening.  Sometimes it was because the design teams were making good 
progress.  Note that this could mean that the design team was working to 
get something coherent to post to the list, and therefore nothing appeared 
from anyone on the list.
In other working groups I have been in,  there have often been multi-week 
periods where the work is going well and there are plenty of posts on the 
list, just none from the chairs because there is no need for them to post.

So, I think measuring the chairs posting rate is not a good measure of 
anything.

Measuring activity on the working group mailing list is probably 
sensible.  But a one week time horizon is usually wrong.

Yours,
Joel

At 10:34 AM 6/21/2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

>--On 20. juni 2005 07:39 -0500 Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

---

From: "Soininen Jonne (Nokia-NET/Helsinki)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:14:01 +0300

Hi,

I agree with Joel. Though, the metric is simple (and in that regard
possibly good to track) I believe it measures the wrong thing. I think
that if the WG does work and there is no need for drawing conclusions on
the WG mailing list, or the WG chair has chosen not to contribute
technically - possibly to stay impartial in a technical argument where
he later has to do conclusions.

However, I think measuring the timeliness of a WG based on the WG
mile-stones and how they are kept measure the right thing.

In these kind of problems, often measuring something is enough to
correct the problem or at least address it: If you measure how many
mails the WG chair sends, he will send more mails. On the other hand, if
he is measured by the WG milestones, he has the incentive kick his
editors or WG to do the work in time. 

Cheers,

Jonne.

-- 
Jonne Soininen
Nokia

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From: John Leslie <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:16:26 -0400

> probably not doing his/her job.

   Much though I remain a staunch fan of Harald, I must call this too
simplistic.

   There are certainly last-call situations in which it is inappropriate
for a WGC to offer too many opinions.

   There are also ordinary situations in which it's clear that discussion
is active, but shy of any issue being ripe for a consensus call.

> If NOBODY's posted to the WG mailing list for a week, it's time to close 

   Tempting, certainly... ;^)

   But unwise. (In context, to be fair, Harald was replying to Spencer's
comments about WGs which wake up two weeks before each IETF meeting and
promptly resume their slumber after the meeting closes.)

   Nobody should post to a WG mailing-list just for the sake of maintaining
an appearance of activity. Counting the posts is simply the wrong metric.

   Also, one week is the wrong timeframe. Many human-relations issues
can benefit from a two-week cooling-down period.

   I do believe there's some benefit if the Edu team were to list some
prodding techniques that a WGC could use when activity seems too low.
But only if a WGC chair fails to try _any_ of those would I opine s/he's
not doing his/her job.

   Harald also fails to consider situations where's it's appropriate for
a WG to have no immediate agenda items, but be available for an expected
future item. I hope folks won't ignore the benefit of such situations.

--
John Leslie <[email-masked]>

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:44:11 +0200

>    Much though I remain a staunch fan of Harald, I must call this too

yes, I did not think very much before sending out that message.... and as a 
WG chair, I have often fallen silent for long periods of time too. But 
usually I think that this was not a Good Thing.

This is based on trying to see the WG from the viewpoint of the working 
group *participant*. People don't remember longer than one week - and the 
job of "swapping in context" from notes, files and drafts is an expensive 
one. So after a period of silence, it is hard to come back up to speed.

The WG chair should, to my mind, have committed to *always* knowing the 
state of the group - what's going on, who's doing work, what's expected to 
happen next week. But we cannot expect all participants to retain the same 
knowledge at all times - and when they want to remember, they go back to 
the mailing list, look at the last few messages, and think that whatever is 
said there is "the truth".

If something has happened in the last 7 days on the list, there is usually 
the need to sum up and draw conclusions. If stuff has happened off the 
list, there's reason to tell the list what's been happening, and when they 
can expect results. And if nothing has happened, there is reason to remind 
the list why nothing is happening, and what the consequences of nothing 
happening are.

After having considered the matter again, I stand by my comments.

Seven days.

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 19:59:07 +0200

Dave Crocker wrote:
> unable to manage our aggregate resources

It pushes us into a significantly less predictable situation than with
committed resources. That's guaranteed.

> something gets done.

Of course. But I don't see the connection with rough consensus. Exactly the same
is true in voting standards bodies - if there is no majority constituency,
nothing gets done.

   And, by the way, it gets done in a timely fashion or else
> the constituency evaporates.

Exactly the same in a voting organisation. Except (and I don't
personally like this) they tend to meet deadlines by holding
votes on whatever text they have at that time.

> constituency in terms of numbers and activity, and most of our problems 

Exactly the same in a voting organisation.

> individual idealism and vetoes... and a belief that there is nothing we can do 

So if you have a WG with only 6 active participants whose only job is a large
MIB, do we deem it too small and too inactive? Whereas a WG with 100 active
partcipants and 30 drafts in progress but no drafts reaching the IESG is OK?

     Brian

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:40:55 -0700

>>   The open door policy might call for some 
>> creativity in resource management, but it in no way guarantees that we 
>> are unable to manage our aggregate resources
> 

Ahh.  I think I see where we differ.  You are focusing on whether the IETF can 
make guarantees about when it will deliver things.  Whereas I am concerned 
with placing limits on the folks who seek to consume IETF resources.

No, we cannot guarantee when things will complete.  Yes, we need reasonable 
flexibility.

But if some folk come to the IETF and ask to consume IETF resources, we have 
more than a right to require that they consume those resources reasonably and 
productively.  We have a responsibility.

They consume IETF secretariat time, IESG time, meeting rooms, etc.  They 
congest our queues.  They draw from our talent pool (such as it is.)  So we 
definitely have a responsibility that they consume our resources productively.

I've heard rumors that ADs -- and maybe even IETF Chairs -- sometimes feel as 
if their workload is a bit high.  Perhaps it would be less so if the groups 
that were trying to work here were actually responsible for doing timely 
productive work, rather than dragging things out for hefty fractions of a decade?

And we have plenty of history of refusing such folk or of terminating such 
folk, when we feel that their consumption is not (any longer) warranted.  We 
refuse to charter groups who lack focus.  We shut down working groups that 
fail to produce.

What WE have failed to do is to apply this performance demand with much rigor.

My suggestion is merely that we be more strict in applying exactly those 
demands that we have applied many times in the past:  We need to require that 
a group that is chartered show enough commitment -- by virtue of participation 
-- and enough focus -- by virtue of crisp clear charters, documents, etc -- to 
make it likely that their work will be timely and useful and that they then are.

>> If there is a strongly dominant constituency in favor of something, 
>> then that something gets done.
> 
> Of course. But I don't see the connection with rough consensus. Exactly 
> the same is true in voting standards bodies - if there is no majority constituency,
> nothing gets done.

Actually it is often quite different.  A voting body can allow itself to make 
a decision when virtually nobody participates, depending upon their rules for 
a quorum.  More importantly, voting usually makes a decision based on whether 
  more than half of those involved say yes.

By contrast, the IETF pattern is to require that there be a body of seriously 
active folk and that their decisions have at dominant coherence (somewhere in 
that mystical space that is much more than half and maybe less than unanimous).

How many people compose "a body of seriously active folk"?  Beats the heck out 
of me.  But let me suggest that if we make a point of looking honestly at an 
effort during its formation and as it is prosecuted, we will typically see 
very clearly whether the activity is of a few folk pursuing a personal -- 
albeit possibly appealing -- whim or is of a seriously active industry 
constituency.

Asking the question honestly is the hard part.

> votes on whatever text they have at that time.

Real projects meet deadlines by delivering what they have committed to.  And 
when they fail to do that, their existence is legitimately threatened.  Real 
projects that succeed to not get to commit to 2 years of effort and then 
linger for 5 or 8, producing no measurable benefit to their customers.

>> Require that an effort begin with -- and continue to demonstrate -- a 
>> serious constituency in terms of numbers and activity, and most of our 
>> problems disappear.
> 

Brian, you seem to be resorting to the voting model as if it somehow relates 
to my point.  I think it doesn't.

First, there is nothing that says that the IETF model must have nothing in 
common with membership/voting organizations.  It merely says that there are 
important differences.  Second, no matter how a group is organized, it has to 
be productive.

Frankly the tone of your responses to this topic seem pretty consistently to 
be one of a hopeless shrug, as if to suggest that there is nothing proactive 
(or even reactive) that can be done to *require* timely productivity.

This, of course, is a good way to keep a pleasant tone in the group, but it 
also seems like it risks letting the organization simply die from lack of 
relevance.

One might even predict that there will be less and less participation and that 
it will take longer and longer to produce work that has less and less impact.

Oops.  That is what is already happening.

>> Ignore that requirement and we are, instead, we are left with 
>> congestion, individual idealism and vetoes... and a belief that there 
>> is nothing we can do about it.
> 
> 

Who is expected to use that MIB?  Why do we think that these 6 people 
represent those people well enough to make the use likely?  Is the work 
progressing productively?

"no drafts reaching the IESG" would seem to answer the question of 
productivity rather directly.

/d

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:02:37 +0200

At 21:40 23/06/2005, Dave Crocker wrote:
>How many people compose "a body of seriously active folk"?  Beats the heck 
>out of me.  But let me suggest that if we make a point of looking honestly 
>at an effort during its formation and as it is prosecuted, we will 
>typically see very clearly whether the activity is of a few folk pursuing 
>a personal -- albeit possibly appealing -- whim or is of a seriously 
>active industry constituency.
>

May be a ratio would be to consider: the participation curbs. If you see 
there is an attrition of initial participants (for example, to the Charter 
identification analysis/road map consensus period) to the benefit of the 
same final small number of participants, you may consider a consensus by 
exhaustion, organised by an affinity group which only draw IETF resources 
to label their own pet position. If there was no common Charter analysis it 
is also a good indication.

A participation analysys tool should not be complex to develop (number of 
participant over a sliding period of one week, participation pattern, 
etc.). A famous case on an @large list permitted me to identify the 
existence of specialised servers to help people wanting to organise a "Deny 
of Thinking" on a mailing list; and to detect some of the people being used 
or maniplulating the list. They use such tools.

jfc