IESG spin-up time (was: Re: Charters, "normal process" versus ISOC, etc. (was: Re)

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand]

WRT "6 months":

People's capabilities vary. Some are faster than others - and for routine 
matters, procedures and so on, I think the process goes much faster than 6 
months. But the process of learning the personal, technological and 
organizational interactions in working groups you have not previously 
followed is a significant learning curve - it took me more than one IETF 
meeting after I became managing AD for the SNMPv3 group before I understood 
the interactions there well enough to be an effective AD, for instance 
(sometimes I'm not sure I ever got there in the 1 year I did that job).

--On 20. mai 2003 23:35 -0400 John C Klensin <john-ietf at jck.com> wrote:

> ADs serve a 24 month [initial] term.  Under our present system, we expect
> them to hit the ground running, regardless of their prior experience.  If
> they really take six months to come up to speed, it implies, first, that
> any area in which an AD is replaced is going to be running at reduced
> capability for half a year, which is a huge hit.  And the AD will be
> disfunctional, or at least below acceptable function levels, for fully
> one fourth of the initial term.
>
> I suggest that, if this is what is happening, it is inefficient to the
> point of silliness and that we should get it on the list as a problem and
> build a framework for considering alternatives. Examples: Should we
> expand the initial term to three years so that the spin-up time is 1/6 of
> the term, rather than 1/4? Should we try to alter the transition process
> from "atomic handover after the plenary of the first meeting of the year"
> to some flavor of "AD Elect" or "understudy" model that would permit most
> or all of that six months of acclimatization to before the new AD
> actually had any WG management responsibilities?

The IESG and IAB have tried to alleviate the hit as much as the current 
procedures permit - the new IESG and IAB members are routinely added to the 
mailing lists and invited to teleconferences soon after they have been 
confirmed. But at least in the IESG, the idea of knowing exactly who's 
responsible at any point in time seems attractive.

But if we manage to get around to thinking about new organizational models 
for the leadership, this definitely bears thinking about.

                          Harald