General comment on draft-ietf-problem-statement-00.txt

[Margaret Wasserman]

Replying to myself...

>It's not possible, though, to run such a large group by loose
>delegation, trust and the sincere desire of everyone to do the
>right thing.  A management team of over 200 people requires
>clear delegation of roles, responsibilities and areas of
>authority, or it won't work effectively.

BTW, we do have a mechanism to delegate authority and
responsibility to WG chairs -- it's called the WG charter.

Unfortunately, I don't think we take the charter process
seriously enough.  Many WG charters are badly out-of-date,
some are vague, others don't accurate reflect the work
that is underway in the WG.  And, the community almost
never provides any feedback on a proposed charter.

Also, there is a trend underway for the IESG to
require that charters be smaller and more limited, thus
reducing the amount of power, authority and discretion
that is delegated to WG chairs.  In some cases, this
may be the right thing to do, but it would be
disturbing (to me) to see this carried out across
the board.

Margaret