Subject: 10 a.m.

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 00:56:47 +1200

Hi,

Where do I find the discussion and subsequent rough consensus to switch the
starting time of the IETF f2f meeting days to 10 a.m.?

As far as I'm concerned that is a big mistake, wasting an hour every day
and making it (even more) difficult to relax in the evenings.

(If there is some local peculiarity in Buenos Aires and Berlin that makes
this more practical, it would be interesting to know.)

Regards
   Brian

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:10:42 -0400

Brian,

In Buenos Aires, the dinner times are substantially later and the schedule
was
adjusted to accommodate local conditions.  There was a lot of positive
feedback
about the later starting time.

I'm sure you remember the Paris meeting where the IETF tried a different
evening
schedule & it was very popular.

So, in response to the feedback and as an experiment, the starting time is
later.
I believe Alexa included that this was an experiment in announcements.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:36:22 +0100

> and making it (even more) difficult to relax in the evenings.

An hour here, and evening there, half-a-day next...

I'll suggest that this ought to be part of a basic discussion about the 
overall time budget for the entire week.

For example, there were some comments when Bits n' Bites was first 
proposed that the week was already over-full with IETF activities and 
that taking a way one more evening with a scheduled activity was 
actually counter-productive.

In spite of being a community that must do its engineering based on 
fundamental resource constraints -- this was, after all, an essential 
motivation for inventing packet-switching -- we schedule our week with 
little consideration of trade-offs and limitations.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:49:41 +0100

Hi,

I share Brian’s concern on this.

> On 11 Jul 2016, at 14:10, Alia Atlas <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Brian,
> 
> In Buenos Aires, the dinner times are substantially later and the schedule was
> adjusted to accommodate local conditions.  There was a lot of positive feedback 

Was this one of the questions in the post-meeting survey, and if so what was the result?

> I'm sure you remember the Paris meeting where the IETF tried a different evening
> So, in response to the feedback and as an experiment, the starting time is later.

I’m not against experiments, but I don’t recall any open list discussion on conducting it, which would have been nice to have, or did that happen?

Tim

> Regards,
> Alia
> 
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 8:56 AM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> Hi,
>

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 06:54:18 -0700

My experience of this was that I heard at the plenary that it was popular
and that we would try it again, but did not hear a proposal for when
(although I may be misremembering that).   And then when I found out about
it on the agenda, it was news to me.   And I'd bought my tickets assuming a
9am meeting start time and assuming I wouldn't be able to make the last
meeting on Friday, and then realized I wouldn't be able to stay for the
whole first meeting either.

So on the one hand, I think this was pre-discussed.   But on the other
hand, the messaging wasn't sufficiently effective _for me_.   I just looked
in the registration announcement and the "meeting information"
announcement, and there's nothing there.   The first I noticed it was when
I looked at the preliminary agenda.

I am painfully well acquainted with the vicissitudes of IESG life, so I
feel it would be churlish to point fingers, but I will say that if we do
this again, the information should be at the top of both those
announcements in large, friendly letters.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 6:49 AM, Tim Chown <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I’m not against experiments, but I don’t recall any open list discussion
> on conducting it, which would have been nice to have, or did that happen?
>
> Tim
>
> Regards,
> Alia
>

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 15:00:14 +0100

On 7/11/2016 2:54 PM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> So on the one hand, I think this was pre-discussed.

I thought that IETF decisions were supposed to be made online and that 
what takes place at the f2f meeting is preliminary, not final...

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:04:37 -0400

Hi Ted,

It was announced on June 17 when the preliminary agenda was sent out.
Since that is when one
looks to figure out when sessions might be, it seemed appropriate.

"NOTE: We are continuing the experiment to have sessions begin at 10:00
based on positive community feedback."

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 07:09:45 -0700

Nope, that's not soon enough.   Peoples' flights are often booked by then
(mine was).

---

From: Theodore V Faber <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:10:26 +0000

On 7/11/16 05:57, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Where do I find the discussion and subsequent rough consensus to
> switch the starting time of the IETF f2f meeting days to 10 a.m.?

I'm not very active at F2F meetings these days, but I recall being at
a 0800 meeting with Bob Braden once who huffed that this was a
mistake.  "All Internet meetings start at 9," he told me.  I've
adopted it as an axiom.

(Personal axioms do not always make good policy guideposts, but I had
to share the story.)

- -- 
Ted Faber <[email-masked]>
Engineering Specialist
Computer Systems Research Department
310-336-7373

---

From: Jared Mauch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:15:16 -0400

> On Jul 11, 2016, at 10:09 AM, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Nope, that's not soon enough.   Peoples' flights are often booked by then (mine was).
> 

my strategy is often the following when involving intercontinental travel:

a) arrive to attend IEPG Sunday
b) leave sometime on Friday to arrive home on Friday.

Travel is booked 45+ days prior to the meeting, so anything on Friday will just be missed, and I will properly use the WG lists to provide feedback.

In the case of locations in the states, eg: Dallas, I can usually get home the same day and can book much closer to the meeting date and not end up with a rear middle seat impacting QoL.

Of course, this is my own strategy.  I know many people who book early based on upgrades or to get travel authorization for business class seats approved.

- Jared

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 16:38:01 +0100

I don't know about relaxing in the evening, although finishing an
hour earlier might help those with jet lag.

I am more concerned that we have wasted five hours of meeting time
that could have been used to reduce meeting conflicts, and thus
enable better cross area review.

Stewart

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 11:45:06 -0400

The meeting sessions are running an hour later than they otherwise would
have.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 03:50:22 +1200

Hi Alia, thanks for responding.
On 12/07/2016 01:10, Alia Atlas wrote:
> adjusted to accommodate local conditions.

Yes, I did wonder about that (and I remember non-IETF meetings in Portugal
and Spain where a similar schedule shift would have been appropriate)

> There was a lot of positive feedback

Beats me. As I said, from my PoV it is an hour wasted each day. (I understand
that many people have breakfast meetings. I have at least three myself.
But they're simply going to start an hour later; no win there.)

> schedule & it was very popular.

Not sure which Paris meeting you're thinking of, but I do recall that
for IETF 63 we completely rejigged the traditional schedule to move the
meal breaks an hour later, but still starting at 9. That was designed to
match restaurant serving hours in Paris. You can see that schedule at
https://www.ietf.org/meeting/63/agenda-overview.html. iirc it worked
reasonably well.

> I believe Alexa included that this was an experiment in announcements.

Yes, but as others have pointed out that was weeks after many people made
their travel bookings. (Personally that isn't an issue.)

Well, I'll give it a try ;-)

Regards
   Brian

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 11:57:41 -0400

> their travel bookings. (Personally that isn't an issue.)

Hi Brian -

AFAICT, an hour difference in ending probably only affects Friday 
sessions, and - YMMV - if you were going to attend Friday sessions 
already, you were probably sticking around until either late Friday or 
leaving on Saturday.

I would be surprised if this change has much interaction with booking 
travel except for possibly the folks coming from within a very short 
distance from Berlin.  For the rest of us, this 1 hour change is pretty 
much in the noise.

Mike

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:05:30 -0400

Brian,

My point with the Paris meeting was that after IETF 63, folks really liked
not
having to come back to an evening session - and now we don't.

Personally, I'm up late anyway chatting - so getting an extra hour to sleep
was
quite nice.

Alia

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:12:36 -0400

--On Monday, July 11, 2016 16:38 +0100 Stewart Bryant
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I am more concerned that we have wasted five hours of meeting
> time that could have been used to reduce meeting conflicts,
> and thus enable better cross area review.

FWIW, the justification for a half-day Friday session was that
it was necessary to schedule so much work that there was simply
no way to do it in four days.  There have been comments in this
thread (and the many prior versions of it) about the
desirability of getting home in Friday (which, in turn, may
interact with decisions about bringing families to meetings as
well as with both participant and IETF costs).   If we really
have potential surplus meeting hours, is it time to reconsider
the Friday decision, trying to use possible meeting slots
(including time recovered by reducing the number of plenaries)
efficiently enough to return to a four-day schedule?

   john

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:12:57 -0700

I think for Americans (either continent) the later start time will be
slightly more comfortable anyway, so it's a good thing.   And experiments
always trip over issues.   I do not oppose this change, and I definitely
don't want to beat anybody up about it.   My remark earlier was simply to
the point that the IESG should publicize the start time in announcements
prior to the announcement of the agenda so people have more time to plan.
I personally don't think I'll get caught by this again--I usually stay
Friday night anyway, but this IETF I decided to roll the dice to get an
extra day in Paris.   Next time that idea pops into my mind, I'll take the
later (more expensive) flight. :)

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 9:05 AM, Alia Atlas <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Personally, I'm up late anyway chatting - so getting an extra hour to
> sleep was
> quite nice.
>
> Alia
>
>> switch the

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:14:10 -0700

Yes, but that would require a serious rethink about how we run meetings,
and suggestions to that effect have not gone far.   I think we need to add
a new working group to discuss it in more depth and bring it to
consensus....

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:23:42 -0400

John,

We are closer to the opposite - needing to expand Friday to a longer day.
This IETF, again, we had to ask WG chairs to seriously consider and reduce
their
requested session time.  We also added another parallel track to one day to
make
the schedule work.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 20:07:08 +0200

John,

> If we really

Lets talk about the concept of surplus hours, and constraints around that.

The experiment in Buenos Aires and now in Berlin is to move the meeting one hour later, but not to change the length of the meeting. This may or may not work well, depending on whether you tend to stay up late and wake up late, local restaurant schedules vs break and dinner times, etc.

But it doesn’t change the amount of meeting time, so no time wasted/gained as such.

However, there’s clearly a tradeoff between having longer days vs. longer week. Although, of course, there’s some human limits on how long people in practice can go on (+ the design team dinners, directorate breakfasts, and such).

And there’s another tradeoff between more compressed WG time vs. length of the overall meeting time.

I have some personal opinions about these things, but ultimately, what does the community want to do?

Jari

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 20:22:17 +0100

Hi,

> On 11 Jul 2016, at 19:07, Jari Arkko <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

Can we make sure this question is asked explicitly in the post-meeting survey? That would allow feedback to be collated in an efficient way.

I’d just add a data point on overall meeting time, comparing Berlin to the previous two European meetings:

Berlin (July 2016)

Mon 10.00am - 8.00pm
Tue 10.00am - 6.20pm
Wed 10.00am - 8.10pm
Thu 10.00am - 7.30pm
Fri 10.00am - 1.20pm

Prague (July 2015)

Mon 9.00am - 7.50pm (+50 mins)
Tue 9.30am - 6.40pm (+50 mins)
Wed 9.00am - 7.40pm (+30 mins)
Thu 9.00am - 7.10pm (+40 mins)
Fri 9.00am - 1.20pm (+60 mins)

So Prague had 3 hours and 50 minutes extra session time, but two plenaries.

London (March 2014)

Mon 9.00am - 7.50pm (+50 mins)
Tue 9.00am - 6.40pm (+50 mins)
Wed 9.00am - 8.20pm (+70 mins)
Thu 9.00am - 8.40pm (+130 mins)
Fri 9.00am - 1.20pm (+60 mins)

And London had 6 hours extra session time, but also an extra plenary.

So we do seem to have cut down on overall meeting time by shifting to a 10am start, having not recovered the time ‘lost’ to one plenary. And our meeting has 6 hours less session time than we had in London for IETF 89.  (And that is a Friday’s worth…)

Tim

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 15:34:05 -0400

--On Monday, July 11, 2016 20:22 +0100 Tim Chown
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I have some personal opinions about these things, but
>> ultimately, what does the community want to do?
> 
> Can we make sure this question is asked explicitly in the
> post-meeting survey? That would allow feedback to be collated
> in an efficient way.

Remember that post-meeting surveys historically do not reach
anyone who does not attend in person.  To the extent to which
this is ultimately a strategic decision that affects the
community (and, to some extent, who can participate effectively
in the IETF), everyone needs to be asked (and, as Dave Crocker
points out, asking in a plenary doesn't do the job either0.

    john

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 20:42:03 +0100

> On 11 Jul 2016, at 20:34, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

Sure, but asking on the survey gets a valuable indication of the impact of those who did attend, and who experienced the experiment.

Tim

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 15:41:58 -0400

​I think we have rather bigger problems than deciding the start time. But
the way we have slid into picking the start time is symptomatic of a
broader problem.

​I find a large number of WG sessions to be very unproductive because they
consist of status updates that could be sent in an email or discovered by
looking at the tracker. What I am interested in is working through the set
of action items that need discussion.

Yes, cross area work is nice. But I don't think our current format achieves
that and I am not convinced it is as desirable as people think. The purpose
of a layers abstraction model is so that people working at one particular
level only need to consider their own layer and the interfaces to the
layers above and below them. If something in applications depends on
something in routing, well something is wrong. And something is really
wrong if the interfaces between the layers has to shift more than once a
decade or so.

One major benefit of the new approach is that I can now schedule meetings
in the mornings before everything else starts. That is especially important
if you have a 9am Monday meeting and someone isn't going to be at the
location in fit state till the Monday of the meeting.

Contrawise, I don't see any good reason to delay the start on a Friday. In
fact I would prefer to start an hour earlier.

So my incremental improvement schedule would be:

Mon: 10am
Tues: 9/10 (slight preference for 9)
Wed: 9/10 (slight preference for 9)
Thurs: 9/10 (slight preference for 9)
Fri: 8 am.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:45:39 -0700

Yup, if we have to schedule meetings on Friday, starting earlier would be a
happy thing for most everyone, I think.   By that time those of us with jet
lag are probably over it, and Friday is always a weird day at IETF anyway,
since only the die-hards are still there, and everybody is tired.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 12:41 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> Yes, cross area work is nice. But I don't think our current format
> achieves that and I am not convinced it is as desirable as people think.
> The purpose of a layers abstraction model is so that people working at one
> particular level only need to consider their own layer and the interfaces
> to the layers above and below them. If something in applications depends on

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 22:29:36 +0100

On 7/11/2016 8:22 PM, Tim Chown wrote:
> Can we make sure this question is asked explicitly in the post-meeting survey?

What is 'this' question?

Surveys need to ask the right questions and they need to ask them very 
carefully.  My guess is that 'this' is actually a set of questions.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Sandy Wills <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 16:51:04 -0500

Notes from an innocent bystander who has yet to attend an IETF in 
person.....

On 7/11/2016 4:29 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:
 >> post-meeting survey?
 > Surveys need to ask the right questions and they need to ask
 > them very carefully.  My guess is that 'this' is actually a
 > set of questions.

The following questions are about the recent change in starting times 
for IETF meetings:

1)  Did you notice this schedule change?

1a)  If you answered "Yes" to question 1, when did you notice?

2)  Did you attend this IETF in person?

3)  Did you attend this IETF remotely?

Note to survey takers:  Most participants will only be able to reply 
"Yes" to at most one of questions 2 and 3.
If you answered "Yes" to both questions 2 and 3, please ensure that 
these answers are correct.

4)  If you noticed this change before the meeting started, did this 
change affect your decision to attend?

4a)  If you answered "Yes" to question 4, please attach a short 
explanation of the change.  To help the survey analysis, please identify 
the language you use for this essay.

5)  If you only noticed this question after your plans had been fixed by 
financial decisions, did noticing this change affect your blood pressure 
or need for medications?

6)  If you did not notice this change until after you arrived onsite for 
the IETF, did this schedule change affect your normal IETF-related 
activities?

...and so on.

(If I can't participate in any meaningful way, I'll participate in a 
non-meaningful way.)

-- 
Sandy Wills
(727) 267-8037
[email-masked]

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 23:07:15 +0100

> On 11 Jul 2016, at 22:29, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Surveys need to ask the right questions and they need to ask them very carefully.  My guess is that 'this' is actually a set of questions.

Indeed. 

Tim

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 00:25:37 +0200

> I am more concerned that we have wasted five hours of meeting time

Actually, we have won five hours of productive time that can be used by
small groups to get work done together before going into the WG meetings.

(And, by the way, 11:30 is not lunchtime in most parts of Germany, so
the Argentina timeshift makes sense in Germany as well.)

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 23:31:11 +0100

> small groups to get work done together before going into the WG meetings.

cancel the morning meetings and you can get an added 2.5 hours of 
productivity.  this all suggests a relatively straightforward, logical 
progression for scheduling...

or we could step back and consider the IETF meeting in strategic and 
tactical terms and decide on basic allocations of time and basic 
purposes for them.  /then/ we could decide on such things as start and 
end times.

but debating an hour here or an evening there, as independent decisions, 
seems to be more fun.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:43:35 -0400

It's easier, at least!

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 6:31 PM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> tactical terms and decide on basic allocations of time and basic purposes
> for them.  /then/ we could decide on such things as start and end times.
>

---

From: Mikael Abrahamsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:27:53 +0200 (CEST)

> based on positive community feedback."

I am all for 10:00 starting times in countries where this is the norm. 
Germany isn't one of them.

I was extremely surprised when I noticed the general move to 10:00 and I 
am opposed to it. I do not feel this was adequately communicated and 
discussed. First it was announced as a temporary move because of B.A local 
customs, then now all of a sudden it's said to conitnue without notice of 
such.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: [email-masked]

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 23:14:37 +0200

FWIW, for the sake of understanding where we are, I did a small calculation of the available meeting time for the last few meetings, and thought it would be interesting to share.

The number to watch for is the session hours, i.e., time that we’re in regular IETF meetings. That time doesn’t include breaks, lunches, Sunday events, etc. Those session hours get used in different ways, sometimes we break them into shorter sessions, sometimes it is used for 8 parallel WG sessions, sometimes it is used for 1 joint plenary meeting, etc.

But of course, us individuals do have other things beyond the regular IETF meetings, say design team or IESG or other side meetings, may not attend all sessions (shock!) and so on.

The data is presented without any particular conclusion. I’ll just point out that we can independently adjust:

* length of day, implying longer or shorter full days (incl. side things)
* timing within the days, start at 9 or 10
* parallelism, i.e., number of tracks that will impact conflicts but also our capacity to host meetings that the WGs have requested
* number of plenaries (with the recent trend being 1 plenary) which affects joint vs. WG time split

Here’s the data on available session hours. (Disclaimer: there’s always the danger of me having miscounted somewhere.)

89:
sessions		21
session hours		38.5

90:
sessions		18
session hours		35.5

91:
sessions		18
session hours		35.5

92:
sessions		18
session hours		35.0

93:
sessions		19
session hours		36.0

94:
sessions		16
session hours		33.0

95:
sessions		18
session hours		33.0

96:
sessions		17
session hours		33.0

I also counted how many WG meetings and meeting hours there were. So for instance, if we had 10 sessions and each one of them was 2 hours long and had eight fully occupied tracks, that would be 10*2*8 = 160 hours. Again, as I just did a quick count, I could have missed something or miscalculated somewhere. And I didn’t change the counting due to cancellations.

89:
WG meetings		140
WG meeting hours	256.0

90:
WG meetings		126
WG meeting hours	246.0

91:
WG meetings		128
WG meeting hours	257.0

92:
WG meetings		128
WG meeting hours	244.5

93:
WG meetings		134
WG meeting hours	249.0

94:
WG meetings		118
WG meeting hours	236.5

95:
WG meetings		131
WG meeting hours	238.0

96:
WG meetings		128
WG meeting hours	244.0