Melinda Shore wrote:
However, while slides do tend to lead to a presentation-type meeting format, I think there are other factors substantially contributing to that, as well.
Yes. Another factor is the ratio of work items to meeting time. If there are 5-6 or even more items per a two-hour slot there isn't really that much time left for each one... and there's some constant overhead in every presentation to bring in the context. Chairs taking care of all status things in their document status report, minimizing unnecessary non-controversial things in presentations, etc. help this of course. Interim meetings, private meetings within a draft author group, etc. can help to increase the amount of available discussion time. So does cutting unneccessary work items, but that can be hard in a large group that is developing widely used technology with a lot of demand for new functions.
And Pekka Savola wrote:
a) about 5 slides (or less) of background for the work, some major points, and maybe what has changed, on the last slide soliciting for input on certain specific topics,
b) presentations where the document editor goes through all the open issues in the document (typically sent to the list beforehand, but no comments there), trying to use face-to-face time for discussion and gaining consensus on these items
These are good use of meeting time. Note that type b) presentations range from listing minor issues to major architectural questions.
c) longer presentations which often result in focus getting lost.
I did not quite see what the difference between c) and others were, except
that c) was longer and the focus got lost. I'm not sure "longer" is necessarily
bad, particularly if the issues in question are central to the WG.
In my experience the main indicators of successful discussion are that it (1) there's some controversy or problem left so that it makes sense to have a presentation about it, and (2) the presenter and other participants have done enough preparation so that they have a reasonable chance of making progress on the issue.
In any case, what I've seen in a dozen or two IETF presentations I made during the last year or so that people don't usually jump up and start discussing, unless you have a contentious topic or phrase the questions really well (in a contentiuous manner)? Or maybe it's just my bad presentations..
I have sensed this too. Not sure why.
--Jari
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