On 1/30/2013 1:15 AM, Adrian Farrel wrote:
I do agree with
Spencer that getting consensus for a process change always looks like a
formidable task. Small changes never address enough of the problem or the right
piece of the problem. Large changes are too much in one go. :-) So, it seems to
be increasingly hard to make changes to our process.
I suspect it's not 'increasingly' but rather that it's always been
extremely difficult...
Let me suggest a different possibility for the challenge in this topic:
We are a diverse community. Absent very, very strong consensus
that a problem is serious enough to warrant a change, the community is
not likely to line up automatically behind a proposal. We will always
have some people who prefer no change and some who offer their
different, favorite approaches, or and some who offer a zillion tweaks.
In the aggregate, that makes for entropy, not consensus.
What makes this process different from what we see in successful
working groups?
I think there are two things:
1. A wg has a committed core of participants who have agreed on a
common goal.
2. A wg process is managed.
On the average, proposals for IETF process change benefit from neither
of these.
Hence I suggest that a proposal needs to recruit a committed core
/before/ going public, and the discussion needs classic group
facilitation, in terms of tracking issues, maintaining focus, and
pursuing consensus.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net