Thomas, > When I think of successful WGs, they have a number of things going for > them, that go beyond the charter. They include: > > 1) Having a shared view/understanding of the problem and the general > outline of a solution. ... > 2) Building/having a "team", that serves as the critical mass and > "core competency" ... > a) project manager ... > b) good editors, ... > c) someone who follows the mailing list in real time and "manages" > discussion by closing off ratholes... > d) someone who is familiar enough with basic internet architecture > (and what other WGs are doing) to prevent the WG from making > decisions that are unlikely to be well-received by folk outside > the WG... > e) quality reviewers > f) A real push from a "customer" of the work... I like your list. It also happens to be in line with the contents of (I think Section 2) of the Working Group Guidelines RFC, although there are bits that go beyond it nicely. Although they often are essential, reviewers are not required 100% of the time. Working groups often have sufficient expertise and focus, as well as other forms of feedback, to get away without formal review. However many working groups suffer from lack of such sanity checking early in their efforts. The benefit of having an architecture expert is both essential and dangerous. Essential for the reasons you cite, as well as to improve the likelihood of developing a solution that will work long-term and in large-scale. Dangerous because it has the potential to insert a block -- the reviewer -- who is too abstracted from the actual demands of the topic, thereby missing the adequacy of a proffered solution. Item c is probably the most seriously missing component from problematic working groups. Given the diversity of current participation, list discussions DO need to be managed, in order to assure some assemblance of focus and (forward) progress. > Thus, a good charter is _necessary_ (usually), but by no means > sufficient by any means. right. d/ --- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking +1.408.246.8253 dcrocker a t ... WE'VE MOVED to: www.bbiw.net _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf