Working Group methods

[john.loughney at nokia.com]

Hi Dave,

Some short comments:

> Many groups do quite well on their mailing lists and in their meetings.
> Let's be careful not to "help" them to add unnecessary structure and
> become less efficient.
> 
> I believe our repertoire of group management tools is quite rich. I
> believe the problem is that we do not USE it properly. In particular, we
> often do not have working group management invoke particular 
> tools when needed.
> 
> I would claim, therefore, that our tendency is to fail to notice when
> things are not simple, and to fail to implement *and enforce* stronger
> structure and management in those cases.

Quickly summarizing, I think what we need is more rigor in WG management
/ mailing list management.  We have the tools & processes, what we need
to do is apply them and be more rigorous in enforcing discipline,
when needed.  More education (esp. to chairs and editors) would help as well.

>    My own pet suggestion these days is that meeting agendas need to
>    state their deliverables. What is the purpose of the meeting and how
>    will the group have made progress by the end of the meeting?

I'll buy that.

John