Re: draft-klensin-nomcom-term-00.txt

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On 8/1/05 at 4:47 PM +0200, Eliot Lear wrote:

Pete Resnick wrote:
I personally would like to see more people get experience on the IESG and get some IESG brain cells back into the community before they're completely burned out, so I kind of like the proposal.

Why discourage the NOMCOM from picking the best person for the job?

First of all, it's naive to think that comparing incumbents to newcomers ends you up "picking the best person for the job". There's the "devil you know" effect: People are much more inclined to pick someone who they know (even if they have known faults) over people who are unknown quantities because you can rather gather enough information to convince yourself that the new person *is* the best person for the job. In fact, I've seen ample evidence (not conclusive information since NomCom negotiations are confidential) that NomComs will pick people who have demonstrable problems being ADs on the grounds that they couldn't convince themselves someone else was better.

Second, we have the problem of people who *are* the best person for the job not even applying solely on the grounds that they don't want to challenge the incumbent (i.e., "the Jeff Schiller effect"). We have a pool of people in the IETF that is large and deep with ability. If incumbents re-upping causes us not to be able to use that pool, that's WORSE for the IETF. I think we'd get more people who were qualified to jump in if they knew that the likelihood was low for 2+ term folks to get re-upped.

Finally, by dint of human nature, NomComs don't always select the best person for the job. On the not-so-great side, sometimes there are feelings of loyalty involved or people are put into positions because other positions (to which they were better suited) were not open. But more importantly, being "best" is not a binary quality: Sometimes there is someone who is "best", but for reasons of leadership development might be passed over for someone who is less optimal, but there are hopes that eventually they will be best. I think it is a good thing for the NomCom to be encouraged out of falling into natural human patterns of re-upping people and getting some fresh blood into the leadership.

It's easy for the IESG members to get back into the community before they're completely burned out: don't reup.

Nonsense. All sorts of personal feelings (felling that stepping down is some sort of failure, feelings of "needing to do the right thing for the IETF", and even less positive things like career implications or pride in being in the leadership) can cause people to do things that are not in the best interest of the community, even if their intentions are good. I can point to several examples (which I won't publicly) of people who were way passed burned out who, for whatever internal reasons, continued to stay on despite diminishing returns.

I don't see that the IESG will improve simply with new blood

Again, it's not just about "improving the IESG" (though I do think new blood is usually a pretty good thing). It's about leadership development. It's about giving the NomCom a reasonable way out of some pretty natural but problematic decision making patterns. And it's about getting experienced people who've been on the IESG back onto the front lines where I honestly think they'll do more good than they do now.

and what I do see is an attempt to fix a vague problem by spraying bullets indiscriminately.

I don't see any of the above as "vague problems".

Call them guidelines or preferences or what-have-you, if we write them down it will take a very strong NOMCOM to say, "Really, Bert Wijnen is the man for the job" (for example).

Yup.

pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

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