Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking

[John C Klensin]

--On Sunday, December 08, 2002 11:36 AM +0200
john.loughney@nokia.com wrote:

> So, one part of the PACT document I disagree with is the
> setting of experiation dates on WG.  What I'd prefer to look
> at is seeing why WGs miss their targets, is it due to
> inexperience in target setting, divergence from the charter,
> WG / Chair sloppiness or  other factors.
> 
> I do think that some way to enforce discipline in WG is needed
> - whenever new WGs start, there are many people who treat it
> like a land-rush and start setting-up homesteads for the own
> protocols (which may have nothing to do with the charter).
> Also, a fair amount of brainstorming goes on and it is very
> easy to start off in a new direction, which may only have
> tangential relation to the original reason for creating the
> WG.  In many cases, the WG chair acts as an arbitrator /
> fascilitator while the ADs are the disciplinarians.  Perhaps
> this work split needs to be examined more, so that WG chairs
> can enforce WG discipline better.

John,

One of the places where this leads, I think, is to holding ADs
responsible, at the "important criteria for the Nomcom" level,
for having too many WGs that have gotten behind schedule or that
are, to use your terminology, undisciplined.  From at least one
perspective, each of the problems and causes you mention above
can be described as "failure to manage effectively" on the part
of the relevant AD.   The same thing could be said for missed
benchmarks.  WG (or Chair) inexperience, charter divergence, and
general sloppiness and lack of discipline are, in principle, all
things that we expect ADs to manage, whether by education and
leadership, "firing" chairs or WGs, reorganizing, or other means.

But suppose, as I hypothesized in my long response to PACT, that
failure of ADs to handle these sorts of things on a more timely
and effective basis is due primarily to serious overload,
overload that extends all across the IESG.  In that case,
swapping one overloaded AD who isn't effectively managing and
developing leadership (because of that overload) out and
replacing him or her with another one isn't going to help.  It
may even make things worse because the replacement will have to
deal with the read-in process as well as the previous workload.

The IESG has observably not figured out how to reduce the load
to some reasonable level of IESG effectiveness... presumably
because they are convinced that, on a case by case basis, we
have been  telling them that we don't want them to: I don't
think I have ever seen someone stand up and say "while I think
this WG that I'm trying to start is important, there are too
many WGs already, so maybe we should let it go".

And that, of course, is what leads to these draconian
automatic-limit suggestions, whether they be fixed (short)
maximum durations for WGs, or fixed (low) ceilings on the number
of WGs, or automatic cancellation of WGs who miss benchmarks.
At least for me, each has some appeal, but, as I indicated in
that long note two weeks ago, we had best be careful what we
wish for.

    john