Should Problem-Statement WG Examine "What Works?"

Christopher Allen ChristopherA at AlacrityManagement.com
Sat Mar 22 11:24:14 CET 2003


In my presentation on "BEST Best Practices of the IETF" (text just sent to the
list) I mention the following that I'd like to break out into a separate thread.

In the current Problem-Statement WG Charter it says:

    "In advance of trying to change the IETF procedures and rules to
    deal with these problems, the IETF should have a clear, agreed
    description of what problems we are trying to solve."

I believe that we should add to the WG Charter...

    "... and we should have a clear understanding of existing
    procedures and rules which are effective, so that we may
    preserve them."

My reasoning here for this change is that if the purpose of this group is to
advise "in advance" any future WGs that will attempt to solve these problems
identified, they also need to know what we ideally want to preserve, or at least
know that we may be dropping something that some people think is important about
the way we work.

If we take this charter change on, it would require that we either have in one
or both of two existing documents I-Ds a new section on what we want to keep, or
do additional work in a new document to try capture the information.

Another question is how to capture this information. My "BEST Best Practices"
survey only captures what people feel is important. Can we do better then that?
Some type of iterative process like delphic poll? I'm not sure.

-- Christopher Allen

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.. Christopher Allen                            Alacrity Management ..
.. <ChristopherA at AlacrityManagement.com>   1563 Solano Ave. #353 ..
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