There seems to be a common perception that a major time sync for the
IESG is reviewing documents and writing up comments.
Sam, thanks for pursuing a line of discussion about where AD time is spent.
You've used the same word that I heard in the plenary, namely "reviewing". I'm
thinking that it was well-chosen, but might be more complicated than it first
seemed.
While it's good to hear that the basic act of reading and commenting is not
necessarily the major time sink that one might have thought, perhaps the
deeper problem is the difference between the role of facilitating IETF efforts
versus the role of acting like a technical contributor. That is, Process
Assistant versus Technical Expert. Both tasks are difficult and both are
usually necessary. And the former also requires reasonably good technical
skills. But it is very different, indeed, from the latter.
So perhaps the deeper issue with "reviewing" is that Area Directors might be
spending too much time as technical contributors and not enough helping
working group chairs and editors ensure timely, solid progress.
When an AD is participating in a working group meeting making technical
comments, they are not performing in the role of process assistant. When they
provide feedback that challenges technical assumptions or state architectural
preferences, they also are not performing as process assistants. They are
acting as technical contributors. However wonderful their insight, the
contribution is NOT one of facilitating working group management.
When the AD is the cognizant AD for the working group, then activity that
looks like technical contribution ought to prompt a question about who is
minding the shop? If the working group is operating to perfection, then the
absence of the cognizant AD as a process assistance is dandy. And we do have
such working groups, now and again.
But mostly working groups need all the procedural and project management
assistance they can get. Usually they are not run by professional managers --
and even when they are, IETF wg management is quite different from corporate
development team management. So the perspective of an AD who is trying to
offer process management suggestions and trying to help the chair navigate
both within and without the working group is typically needed... even when the
wg chairs are experienced.
What is especially problematic is when the working group has late-stage
process and project management difficulties, leading to the obvious question
of what happened in the earlier stage?
Having a non-cognizant AD press late-stage issues leads to the question of why
they did not pay attention earlier? If the topic is important enough for them
to delay the wg output now, why was it not important enough earlier? If the
hassle is, really merely tactical or a matter of engineering preference,
rather than a solid, legitimate claim that the wg output "won't work" or
"won't scale", then the obvious question is why it is tolerated.
The draft document on "discuss" criteria is a really good example of trying to
focus on the primary and essential purpose of late-stage review. But we also
need to decide how to make early- and mid-stage work go better, and I keep
thinking it has more to do with focusing on working group productivity than it
does in having Area Directors operate as active technical contributors.
By way of example: Having EKR get up on the MASS/DKIM BOF and hassle us about
threat analysis is downright painful. But my own experience is that looking
at that sort of strategic value-proposition and resolving it in the early
stage has a vast benefit to the rest of the project. And working groups need
assistance in constantly looking for those sorts of high-leverage questions to
ask.
Now I have no doubt that EKR will perform the technical task of commenting on
the wonderfulness of whatever threat analysis the DKIM group produces. At
that point, he's going to be acting as a technical contributor. However, his
pressing for the analysis to be done is process assistance. He is raising a
strategic question for the group to answer.
--
d/
ps. Our cognizant AD, Russ Housely, has also been pressing us for the analysis
but EKR was, as always, more visible and more theatrical. So he's far more fun
to cite, even without the AD role...
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
+1.408.246.8253
dcrocker a t ...
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