Documenting consensus (RE: making strategic problems concrete)

[Christopher Allen]

James Kempf <kempf at docomolabs-usa.com> wrote:
> Many working groups have now started maintaining an "Issues" list
> that contains a list of raised issues, proposed solutions, and
> resolutions once concensus has been achieved.

There are also some answers for this to use our own technology.

The first that I recommend people take a look at is an unstructured tool, called
TWiki (http://www.twiki.org). Basically, it is a web based information system
where ever page has an "edit this page" button, and is extremely easy to edit.
Simple access control makes it easy for a non-admin to control access to
specific pages. RCS is built in, so you can always revert to old versions. It is
free, and easy to install on any web server.

I have been using this with a couple of my companies for years, and it is an
incredibly powerful tool. One company, Skotos, has been using it since 1999, and
as a manager all I have to do is click "changes" to get a list of every document
that has changed in the last few days, giving me a snapshot of what is going on.
I can look at the history of every document, down to its origin 3+ years ago.
Recently, we started making limited areas of it available to our customers,
which has been very successful.

For some examples of people using it, take a look at
http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Main/TWikiSuccessStories . You might also want to
look at www.wikipedia.org (which doesn't use TWiki but a related software) where
they have been creating an encyclopedia using this technology using all
volunteer labor!

There are also more structured technologies, such as IBIS (Issue Based
Information System). As described in
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0104.html :

~-~-~-~
In the 1980s, Horst Rittel developed the Issue-Based Information System, a
hypertext environment for the structured discussion of design issues. This
system uses a stringent classification scheme to organize the data. There are
three node types (issues, positions, arguments) and nine link types
(responds-to, questions, supports, objects-to, specializes, generalizes,
refers-to, replaces). These elements are designed to be used in the analysis of
"wicked problems." According to Conklin:

"Wicked problems lack a definitive formulation; their problem space cannot be
mapped out without understanding the solution elements; in short, the only way
to really understand a wicked problem is to solve it. (24)"

As of 1987, IBIS ran on Apple computers, but did not support graphics, searches,
paths, maps, or link attributes.

Begeman and Conklin later developed gIBIS, a graphical version of IBIS, running
on Sun workstations. This software divides the display into four fixed windows,
simultaneously displaying a map (global and local), index, node contents, and
control panel (256). gIBIS is a sophisticated environment which includes
clusters (here called subnets), context-sensitive menus, multiple indexes
(subject, author, keyword, title), user configurations, link filtering, simple
queries, multi-user access, and pointers to external objects.
The authors have noted some difficulties with this system, most notably the
problem of cognitive overhead engendered by the high degree of structure.

Hashim has published the code (written in Turbo Prolog) for MicroIBIS, a PC
implementation of IBIS which includes maps, anchors, clusters, versioning,
filters, user configuration, and node attributes. He also provides a thorough
discussion of wicked problems (224).
~-~-~-~

This is probably more complex then what the IETF needs (I saw a gIBIS chart once
about building the space shuttle that was huge!), but the ideas behind it are
sound. As TWiki allows for plugins, someone could write a simplified IBIS plugin
for TWiki and you could have both.

So, since the above is a "solution", to pull things back to a problem statement:

* We don't investigate, experiment, and ultimately use various online tools used
by other organizations for collaboration and issue management.

-- Christopher Allen

----------------------------------------------------------------------
.. Christopher Allen                            Alacrity Management ..
.. <ChristopherA at AlacrityManagement.com>   1563 Solano Ave. #353 ..
.. o510/649-4030  f510/649-4034                  Berkeley, CA 94707 ..