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

[Harrington, David]

Hi,

I don't feel that having the AD present undermines my authority. 

My primary job as co-chair is to be a resource manager, making sure the tasks that need resources get resources. Knowing how to allocate resources depends on understanding the relative priorities of the tasks to be accomplished to achieve the strategic direction of the WG.

An important part of my job is to try to make sure everybody understands the strategic direction we are trying to folow, and then make sure everyone agrees with the direction within an acceptable margin of rough consensus. 

The ADs bring an important perspective to the direction discussion - that the WG  direction is within an acceptable margin of rough consensus with that of the other WGs in the area, and that of the IETF as a whole.

I think having the ADs present is a good thing. It helps to ensure that the WG doesn't go off in a direction that will later be found to be unacceptable, and the WG will have wasted its scarce resources.

dbh

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Rescorla [mailto:ekr at rtfm.com]

In my experience the best second-level managers meet
privately with their direct subordinates but mostly
don't interfere directly with their second-level
subordinates. The problem with IETF in this context
is that it's pretty much the only time that the
WG chairs have direct personal contact with WG
members [0]. Having the secondlevel manager (in
this case the AD) present at all such interactions
really undercuts the direct manager's authority.