On 10/20/2013 5:02 PM, Dave Crocker wrote: > On 10/20/2013 3:54 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote: >> The obvious risk if one separates WG management from review is that one >> could easily get the situation where the manager, in working with the >> WG, says that the document needs X, Y, and not Z. And then the reviewer >> says "needs Z". And there are more extreme versions of this. >> Currently, the ability for the managing AD to say "no, this won't pass >> muster" is part of his management tool. If he is not the reviewer, he >> seems to have lost an important tool. I hope I am missing something >> that would make this sort of approach workable. > > > "Manager"? > > Who's that? > > ADs do not 'manage' working groups, and frankly neither do Chairs. > > Yes, there's quite a lot of management activity done by both, but you've > used the term manager in a way that reflects classic hierarchical > authority models in typical organizations. > > And that really isn't appropriate for the IETF, where we say that > working group consensus rules working group decision-making and after > that the IETF consensus rules. > > The sort of thing you probably mean is that quality control processes > outside the working group produce concerns and recommendations that run > contrary to, or go beyond, what the working group has done. That's > fine, but that's not (necessarily) done by a "manager". And in spite of > giving ADs a unilateral authority to (temporarily) block progress, the > resolution of concerns is a negotiation, not further unilateral > decision-making by a higher-authority "manager". > > The model that has ADs trying to be content experts, in addition to area > facilitators, is exactly the underlying problem here. > I'm not fond of the word "management" to describe the job either. The role is Area _Director_, not Area Manager, but I do think working group management is a fine name for the task performed, as long as it's understood to be in line with "We reject kings, presidents, ...". The AD *facilitates* the working groups and BoFs by being able to provide and shuffle resources (mailing lists, webex, meeting rooms, etc), by trying to find and keep appropriate WG chairs, and by working with them through chartering, re-chartering, and the later stages of document publication. The AD *directs* the area by being able to encourage or discourage new work (via BoFs and rechartering), to send proposals towards particular working groups, to end working groups when they cease to be productive, and to ballot on work in other areas being proposed in a charter or recharter. To the question of splitting the document reviews from the working group "management" tasks: When I was an AD, I found the document reviews to be very useful in figuring out what was going on in other areas that might be related to working groups in the area I was responsible for, and in calibrating expectations for documents to come out of my area's working groups. If the document review and working group management roles were split, I don't know how the AD doing working group management would maintain broader awareness to avoid too much overlap or conflict between WGs, or to know what the relevant things to look for are in a MIB document, requirements document, etc. that their WGs are producing, before sending them to IETF LC. Certainly they could find other ways to do this than reviewing every document and sitting in the entire telechat though ... -- Wes Eddy MTI Systems