18 months

[Andy Bierman]

At 11:14 AM 12/23/2002 -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:
>Brian,
>
>Thursday, December 12, 2002, 2:05:52 AM, you wrote:
>Brian> I don't get how a rigid time limit will make WGs do things better.

Please clarify rule 2 in the PACT I-D:

   Rule 2: A WG gets no more than 18 months to have their first I-D
      approved by the IESG; similarly, a WG gets no more than 12 months
      to have each succeeding document approved by the IESG.

If the WG charter specifies multiple deliverables, then does the
18 month rule apply to the first I-D of that set and the 12 month
rule applies to each of the remaining deliverables in that set?

Or does the 18 month rule apply to all deliverables in the
initial charter and the 12 month rule applies to all deliverables
in the next re-charter of the WG?

If it is the former, then I think the 18 month rule is a good idea.
But I think the 12 month rule could encourage serialization of the
WG effort, which may not improve quality or timeliness, if
these additional deliverables are inter-related.

I don't like the idea of shutting down a WG at 24 months.
The IESG should take into account the impact of phased
deliverables when the charter is approved.  The expected
duration of a WG should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Andy


>Yes, that is a key question.  So here is a rambling attempt to respond:
>
>Do working groups that take a very long time to produce anything do well
>within the IETF? Do they eventually produce something useful? Does it
>eventually become popular in the Internet. I think the answer is clearly no.
>Working groups that go for a couple of years without being productive do not
>tend to get productive later. They lose focus. They lose energy. They lose
>participants. They lose market window. They make bloated, problematic
>specifications.
>
>This suggests rather strongly that the IETF is best for activities that are
>more near-term. If an activity is not yet ready to do near-term work, the
>IETF has demonstrated that it is a very poor venue.  Hence, such activities
>should be pursued elsewhere, and come to the IETF only when they are ready
>to do near-term work efficiently.
>
>The IETF has been having difficulty producing charters that are sufficiently
>crisp for easy guidance to achieve near-term productivity. ("Easy guidance"
>means that it is relatively clear what is in scope and what is out, as well
>as clear what the useful output from the working group should be.) We can
>all wish that this were different, but folks who work on charters and who
>review them are all bright, experienced and well-intentioned. Entreating
>ourselves to 'do better' is not likely to produce better charters.
>
>We are constantly seeing working group discussions that are energetic,
>interesting and unproductive.  This strongly suggests a lack of focus among
>the participants.  In particular, it suggests that participants are not
>feeling a sense of urgency to produce something useful and they often are
>not sharing a common sense of what that useful something should be.  Again,
>we can all wish this were not so, but we do not yet have any other
>suggestions for fixing this bit of entropy.
>
>Deadlines provide focus... if they are enforced.  We have a great deal of
>discussion, now, that suggests we merely need to enforce the milestones in a
>charter.  Such a "change" sounds appealing.  The question is will it work?
>Remember that we tend to produce charters that lack crispness -- often
>including the milestones, and that we have an extremely varied pattern of
>"enforcing" those milestones.
>
>In the face of diversity, variability, uncertainty, etc., it is often
>extremely helpful to find a simple, crystalizing rule that everyone can
>understand and adjust to.  This is, of course, Procrustean.  The nastiness
>of Procrustean rules is clear.  However, that does not mean they are
>inappropriate.  It is remarkably Procrustean to require that everyone making
>IETF standards speak and write English, if they are to be effective.  Yet we
>have found it essential to productivity.
>
>The idea of a universal time limit, for all IETF efforts is intended as just
>such a simple, focusing rule.  The particular number that has been proposed
>tries to allow enough time to fit into the pattern of IETF productivity, and
>to be short enough to exclude activities (or terminate activities) that have
>shown a pattern of non-productivity.
>
>Since the idea of a rule to be productive in 18 months is too onerous, how
>about a rule that says all working groups must undergo zero-based chartering
>every 24 months?
>
>That is, a working group ceases to exist at 24 months.
>
>It may submit a new charter, and that new charter will be viewed on its own
>merits, using current assessments of participant availability, likely
>productivity, and market pressures -- the same as we do for any new working
>group. The previous 2 years of history for the "old" working group would of
>course be taken into account.
>
>(Lest anyone think that the aggregate overhead of such a process would be
>onerous, we should remember just how onerous it already is to have wasteful,
>protracted working groups.)
>
>d/
>-- 
> Dave <mailto:dhc@dcrocker.net>
> Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
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