A couple of observations from my personal viewpoint.
I tend to agree with others that we need to think about this in a
top-down fashion, i.e. start from what is the problem that we intend to
solve. I do have a serious concern about the workload for the people
involved, particularly the chairs. But I wanted to make a couple of
additional points.
First, I would not necessarily take it for granted that we have an
infinite supply of people for various tasks. Finding an IESG member with
enough time on their hands to participate the IAOC is not a given. We
could of course always choose from outside the IESG, but again, most of
the IETF participants are not here for administrative work, so while
many can do it, I'm guessing some arm twisting would be required.
Second, even if you do find one, its not given that it provides the kind
of connection between the chair and the IAOC that we want. Olaf pointed
out that its bidirectional information transfer. Only a very small part
of the IESG work is actually talking about IAOC matters, so I'm guessing
that even if the delegate is another AD, the chair would still have to
arrange extra time with this other AD in order to ensure that
information transfer happens.
Third, I forget if it was Bob who noted that if we are strained by the
tasks that we are doing, perhaps its time to outsource a bigger part of
it to paid employees or businesses. For instance, I'm kind of hoping
that 99% of the meeting selection load is on the IAD and the
secretariat, not on the IAOC members. The members should set the policy,
adjust the policy, and monitor implementation. If you are meeting every
two weeks and deciding details then maybe you are on the wrong track. It
should be the board, not the work horse.
Fourth, I think we are bringing on some of the load by our own actions.
We have increased the number of entities that need to have a board and
increased the amount of coordination needed. For instance, the RFC
Editor was at one time one person, and today I'm honestly not sure I
know how many entities it consists of. Of course, we needed much of this
restructuring as the IETF has grown and has changed its operational mode
also in other ways. But we should also watch it and avoid creating
unnecessary structure where none is needed. I'm a little bit scared that
adding a layer of delegation may cause the collective us to have more
meetings, not less.
I also had a couple of thoughts on possible alternative directions to
reducing the problem. Outsourcing more is one approach. Another one is
to not have more people from the IESG and IAB attend the IAOC, but have
people from the IAOC bring more information to these bodies. For
instance, in the IESG we always have an "IAB report" but we don't
normally have a Trust or IAOC report. Should we? A third direction is
separating the role of the chairs as *working* members of the IAOC from
their ability to attend and vote where needed. Would this detach the
chairs too much? I don't know, but I think there might actually be less
detaching than if you delegated your role away for a year. Russ, Olaf,
how much do you normally participate the IAOC work? Are you in the
subcommittees, do you work on details of agreements with our service
providers?
Jari
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