suggestions

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand]

thanks Marc!

trying to relate your suggestions back to the problems they are meant to 
solve...

--On 21. november 2002 22:26 -0500 Marc Blanchet 
<Marc.Blanchet@viagenie.qc.ca> wrote:

> 2. Considerations and Suggestions
>
>    Proposals are numbered in order to pin-point them.
>
>    o  WG chairs MUST be formed and know the details of the process.
>
>          P1: new wg chairs MUST attend to wg chair "course" on their
>          first IETF as chairs

Problem: WG chairs that do not understand the process cannot use the tools 
available to them most effectively, and may bias or delay the outcome of 
the process.
>
>    o  WG chairs are sometimes busy with their own life/work.
>
>          P2: a wg SHOULD have 2 wg chairs

Problem: Groups work very slowly if the chair is not paying attention.
>
>    o  WG charters and requirements are not clear at the beginning
>
>          P3: before wg is started, the charter AND the requirement
>          document SHOULD HAVE reached concensus.
>
>    o  Find concensus transparently and efficiently.
>
>          P4: have an online voting tool to help sense concensus on the
>          wg between ietf.  I can commit to help set this up if
>          concensus.

for once, a comment on the proposed solution.... I don't think there is any 
need for consensus in order to *try* this. Just set it up, propose to a WG 
that they use it, and see whta happens.

There are lots of little twists around "voting" tools, though....
>
>    o  Pro-active to see in advance issues related to not your area of
>       expertise
>
>          P5: have area experts (i.e.  for each area) pre-assigned to
>          each wg.  They report to the chairs and AD of the wg, not
>          theirs

Problem: The errors in a design that need expertise from other areas to 
catch are caught late in the process, if at all.
>
>    o  Cultivate transparency.
>
>          P6: design teams MUST be avoided.

I violently disagree - I think design teams are essential. We should spin 
up a separate thread on what problems they solve.,
>
>          P7: interim meeting should not happen unless a significant
>          portion of the wg confirmed presence.

I find this problematic, both in theory and practice. For one thing, you 
won't know how many confirm presence before the pratcical details are done. 
Then it becomes messy to cancel.
>
>          P8: have a formal tracking system to track document comments.

Problem: Some comments are lost without being addressed by document authors.
It is hard for others to see what outstanding comments there are.
(AAA seems to have had a wonderful help from their system....)
>
>          P9: any room concensus MUST use hands not humms.  Questions
>          MUST be written on the screen

Problem: Sometimes a WG does not know what it is polling on, and sometimes 
it is hard to tell whcih of several alternatives have stronger consensus.

>
>    o  We are a world organization which bridges languages and cultures
>       and egos
>
>          P10: Chairs and proposers MUST write questions/proposals/...
>          on the screen before any discussion

Problem: Non-English speakers find it easier to read questions from a 
screen than to be sure they understand a spoken question.
>
>          P11: If a wg chair or AD is an author of a wg doc, he should
>          find a co-author and have his co-author make presentations.
>
Problem: <not sure how to formulate this>