On Tuesday, October 14, 2014, Harald Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Having read this thread.....
- The IESG considers a structural change to its organization of work.
- The IESG considers that the timeframe for figuring out details of this change is on the order of a year.
- The IESG thinks that as part of the details of this change, it's unlikely to add more workload to an area that has quite few groups in the near future.
- The IESG therefore thinks that it should leave an AD position in this area open for a while.
IMO, The change is only in numbers but not much in roles. I think IESG should rethink its structure and relationship with IETF Areas/WGs.
It's clear that the roles and job descriptions on the IESG are described by the IESG. It's perfectly reasonable for them to say "this post needs to be eliminated".
The procedural objections here seem to all be of the form "the IESG should have told the nomcom this when it sent the position descriptions to the Nomcom".
Now consider the timing.
It's October. The new AD (if selected) will be added to the IESG in March, and will be selected for a period of 2 years (unless he resigns). In July, there would not have been a procedural issue with this request at all.
Situations can get worse for IESG with high probability level that many factors can affect performance especially when the IESG members are blocked by world challenges or personal problems or congested with many IDs submitted.
So - we're talking about a lead time of 5 months here, and having a procedural tizzy because the lead time isn't 8 months. For something that (if the person remains on the IESG for 2 years) will have effect 29 months from now.
I'm in a rapidly changing organziation during my day work. When a decision on structure was reached, it got *implemented* on a timeframe shorter than the nomcom getting its brief and the IESG saying that "you might want to consider this point".
The timeframes we're dealing with for changes in the IETF have lost touch with the needs of the world the IETF operates in; the world has become considerably faster, and the IETF has not.
The delay performance with in IESG is due to the increase in WGs/IDs/World_challenges and the shortage in leadership.
I, for one, welcome the signs of change. If the change requested makes sense, do it.
The proposal is change of IESG structure but I think it meant to say the IETF structure. If I want to change IESG structure (which is a world need to increase diversity) I will propose to add more different roles in IESG and add more ADs not related to the number of IETF areas. This will need amending some of IESG procedure which is old. The main problem in IETF is shortage of welling experts to join IESG which may be because of its old structure and overload volunteering load.
Procedures exist to make the organization work better. Not the other way round.
IESG proposed to reduce participation while there may be decrease of IETF participation, but by increasing leadership we will solve many of IESG problems. By changing IESG structure/procedure we well have better delay performance and better output work published.
Best regards
AB
IETF participant from Africa.
Harald