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

[Spencer Dawkins]

I thought about sending this suggestion earlier this morning,
but Margaret gave me a better e-mail to reply to...

Comments at the bottom.

Spencer

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Margaret Wasserman [mailto:mrw at windriver.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 10:16 AM
> To: EKR
> Cc: problem-statement at alvestrand.no; Harrington, David
> Subject: Re: General comment on draft-ietf-problem-statement-00.txt
> 
> Some people are comfortable with the idea that all substantive
> decisions rest with the IESG (with the possibility of appeal to
> the IAB).
> 
> Personally, I think that the IETF probably did work better
> when all substantive decisions _could_ be handled by 13 people,
> but I don't think that model scales to an organization of this
> size.
> 
> Instead, I think that we need to find ways to push (or pull?)
> authority (including substantive decision making) out to a
> larger group.  I don't know what the best way is to do that,
> but some possibilities would include:
> 
>          - Enlarging the IESG, which could be done by:
>                  - Just adding more people (but this has
>                          group dynamics problems discussed before).
>                  - Splitting the responsibilities between more
>                          than one group.
[deleted] ...
>          - Forming an additional "layer" of management between
>                  the IESG and WG chairs with some substantive
>                  authority (maybe to charter WGs within an
>                  area, and approve Info, Exp and PS documents,
>                  or something like that?).
>          - I'm sure that there are many other possibilities...

I guess it's obvious to me that (1) expanding the IESG violates
Keith's sense that the current size is the limit, (2) the best
scalability technique we've ever discovered is hierarchy,
(3) IESG has been using this technique informally for a while,
with multiple ADs per area, area directorates, and expert reviewers.

If we've already got "shepherding ADs", why not formalize the concept
of "shepherd" as a staff addition for an area director, and let ADs 
manage by exception?

I note that the latest WG scheduling round has been wrestling with
trying to get shepherding ADs to their WG meetings without conflicts;
if there were (I'm making up the numbers) four shepherds for each AD,
could the ADs just focus on the WGs where they KNOW there are issues?

Not sure what an appropriate level of delegation would look like, but
maybe there is an appropriate level?

One AD told me several IETFs back that his entire IETF was booked in
15-minute increments (no surprise, right?), so it seems like something
that gives time back might also improve the quality of IESG oversight.

Spencer, who has been waiting for a shepherding AD to say "let's get the 
flock out of here" for a very long time...