Jari, This was an interesting (and a needed) writeup. I also want to share my view as an IETF newbie who has had a chance to experience IETF document process a few times. Sorry for chiming in late.. For the most part I got the feeling that we have the right tools and a working process already in place. It is mostly about how we treat the process and adjust our habits to it. The thing I dislike is when you ship a camel into IESG and a horse comes out.. and everybody is like "what happened?" ;-) My approach would be simple. If a document gets x DISCUSSes out of y or even a single DISCUSS would substantially change the technical solution of the document, ship it back to the WG - always, no questions asked. The document is not ready and we are wasting IESG's time. The technical work belongs to the WG. Obviously this begs for a much higher threshold for an AD to give a document a DISCUSS instead of a COMMENT. Then about the habits. From my limited experience, folks are used to the think "the document will anyway be reviewed, reworked and can be finished in the IESG" and that occasionally shows. I want to believe this habit changes if the document must be ready for real before leaving the WG. The cross area directorate reviews are great and should have even more weight than they have today. And here is what I would like to see to change slightly. The directorate & expert reviews should all be done before sending the document out of the WG into the IESG. Probably the IETF LC should also happen before sending the document out of the WG. My Z$0.02, Jouni On May 1, 2013, at 6:33 PM, Jari Arkko <jari.arkko@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I wrote a blog article about how we do a fairly significant amount of reviews and changes in the late stages of the IETF process. Next week the IESG will be having a retreat in Dublin, Ireland. As we brought this topic to our agenda, Pete and I wanted to raise the issue here and call for feedback & ideas for improving the situation with all of you. > > http://www.ietf.org/blog/2013/05/balancing-the-process/ > > Jari >