Hi,
- Save the planet through less flying.
- Improved engagement at in-person f2f meetings.
We've always trusted the WG chairs to make that determination, and use the different available participation venues (mailing list, in-person and remote interims, in-person meetings, etc.) in ways that is most effective for their WG for their current work items. While some chairs are certainly better than others in doing this, I believe this decentralized approach has a lot of value and is generally working OK.
You just wrote that there is a demand for more plenary time from
some WGs, and I just posted demonstrations of show and tell. And
I didn't look that hard. I participated in other WGs remotely
that had this same problem: there was no need for an in-person,
because there was almost no controversy. In scim, paging was the
hot topic and there were barely any comments, and even in emu,
where we did have a healthy discussion, everyone came to the right
conclusion even with remote participation. The chairs are
modeling their behavior on what they think will be success (Bob
posted a good example of this, although he and I differ on what
success looks like).
John's approach is incremental. Earlier I would have been okay
with that, but I don't think we have the time. We need to be
bolder.
Involving the ADs in this process might seem attractive in terms of oversight and/or to establish a common approach - but it also further increases the AD workload (c.f. the current discussion on the that). There are severe downsides to that.
There are clear downsides of not doing anything, which is the path from which we must depart. I would argue that the risks of AD overload can be mitigated, albeit not eliminated, through clear and transparent processes that ADs themselves can follow.
Tooling could help. For example:
- No agenda => no meeting request.
- First time after recharter or BoF?
- 1 slot.
- For all other WGs, each agenda item, some justification:
- Has draft been proposed on mailing list or discussed at an interim?
- No
- No slot
- Yes
- First time?
- Yes
- A brief slot <= 20 mins**
- No
- No slot
- Is there lots of discussion on a topic on a mailing list a/o at interims (draft or no draft)?
- Yes (explain how)*
- As much time as needed up to $max, chairs' discretion.
- No
- No slot
- AOB?
- Only if there is time.
- If total justified time < 1/2 the smallest session time (60
mins), not approved unless there is an exception granted.
- Anything that doesn't fit this bill would be an exception to
be granted only if there is excess time, based on criteria such
as overall list activity, last time a group met in person, or
some other justification.
This is just an example flow that attempts to motivate people to use both mailing lists and interim meetings so as to free up time for WGs that really need it. I could easily see the # of working groups meeting shrink down by at least half who could better use the time.
Want to try it for one meeting?
Eliot
*Oddly, this discussion has enough heat that it might benefit from some in-person dialog.
**One could also imagine a requirement that TWO interim virtual meetings be held to introduce work, so that f2f time isn't required for that purpose.
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