Mentoring [Re: "Adult supervision"]

[John C Klensin]

--On Wednesday, 07 May, 2003 08:19 -0500 Spencer Dawkins 
<spencer at mcsr-labs.org> wrote:

> Brian/Edward,
>
> Might a problem statement for this be:
>
> - We don't have a good way to help new participants learn
> "things everyone knows". The "Tao of the IETF" is focused on
> work style, not technical principles. When we try to reveal
> guiding technical principles as part of post-WG document
> review, the input is a "late surprise", and the process does
> not scale.

We also don't have good ways to help people learn how to 
function effectively as a WG Chair on an ongoing, WG-specific, 
basis.  The lunches and training sessions are good steps but are 
almost certainly not sufficient.   Some ADs try to do this job 
on an individual basis but, given all the constraints, it is not 
surprising that some ADs are more effective with some Chairs 
than other combinations and that it rarely gets consistently 
high priority.

And, similarly, we don't have anything resembling skills 
training or mentoring for potential IESG candidates.

So the "new participants" part of the problem is just, IMO, part 
of the problem (perhaps the easiest part, if only because the 
new participants are rarely under fire while trying to fufill 
that role.

    john