OPEN ISSUE: WG Chair Selection

John C Klensin john-ietf at jck.com
Wed May 21 12:14:03 CEST 2003



--On Wednesday, 21 May, 2003 00:35 -0700 
"Jonne.Soininen at nokia.com" <Jonne.Soininen at nokia.com> wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> thanks for your clarification of this (I have to say) peculiar
> process. I started wondering a bit about a few things.

I don't think it is peculiar at all, given the circumstances and 
the way we organize ourselves.   Perhaps my reflections on your 
comments below will explain better.

> You said that performance issues are fairly common - a few
> times per WG per year. That does sound awful lot to me. How is
> this performance actually measured? I mean, the milestones are
> generally totally off anyways. Does every AD have their own
> measures?

Please don't read too much into either what I said or how I said 
it.  Unhappiness is part of the AD job.  More important, 
worrying about WG performance is part of the job.  And I used 
"performance" broadly: as an AD, I would worry when there were 
clear disagreements within the WG that seemed to be going in 
circles, without convergence, and I would worry when there 
appeared to be too _much_ consensus about areas I believed 
should be controversial.  Does silence indicate that the WG 
membership isn't broad enough?  That people with dissenting 
views have been driven out or shouted into silence?  That no one 
is really reading the docouments?  And so on.

The benchmarks are just part of this: some ADs find them a very 
useful management tool, others don't.  For those who don't, 
putting energy (of either the AD or the WG) into getting 
frequent updates and readjustments is a waste of time and 
effort.   For those who do, concern/discomfort is always 
appropriate, but the question of whether to come down on the WG 
(or its Chair) for getting behind requires, IMO, some judgment, 
not a firm rule.  For example, if a WG is overdue, but finally 
working swiftly toward what looks like a positive conclusion, 
telling them to stop, lose momentum, and start rewriting 
benchmarks would typically (but perhaps not always) be a dumb 
decision.  Conversely, if a WG has lost direction, is wandering 
in the weeds, and is also overdue, focusing on benchmarks may be 
the wrong way to spend energy.

Since I'm good at worrying and thinking about thing can could go 
wrong and what their early symptoms would look like, I'm even 
likely to get concerned or uncomfortable if a WG appears to be 
well ahead of benchmarks (not that this happens very often) -- 
e.g., I wonder whether they are missing or burying issues that 
ought to be taking up more time (similar to my comment about 
"too much consensus" above, but still a bit different).

For some combinations of AD and WG personalities, and general 
styles, the AD might monitor these things actively and interact 
actively with the WG Chairs each time a concern came up.   For 
others, the AD might look in every few months, depending on the 
Chair(s) to raise issues if they showed up in the interim.

Does any of this lead automatically, or even frequently, to 
"shoot the Chair"?  It had better not.  Replacing Chairs is a 
difficult and disruptive process even when it is completely 
voluntary.   A new person has to be found and brought up to 
speed, working relationships and styles with both the AD and the 
WG have to be rebuilt, etc.  "The group is close enough to 
finished" can be an excellent reason to keep a chair on who is 
obviously disfunctional, or even to plead with one who has 
burned out to stay on a bit longer, just because of the effort 
and disruption associated with a change.  (Of course, sometimes 
ADs make bad guesses about how close the group really is, which 
has other bad consequences, but we had better not start 
expecting perfect forecasting or prophecy.)   If we ever have an 
AD would _likes_ firing and replacing Chairs, it will be time to 
ask whether that person had outlived his or her usefulness on 
the IESG.

> Secondly, you say that a non-performing WG could be fired
> totally (closed?). Would that mean that the WG had already no
> meeting, and no participants on the mailing list, or how is it
> determined that the WG is performing so poorly that it can be
> closed down?

We've actually discussed this quite a lot on this list, although 
in slightly different form.  I hope we can avoid rehashing it. 
Under current procedures, the responsible AD for a WG can close 
that WG at any time, for any reason.  In general, there is 
agreement that doing this without warning and prior discussion 
would be a terrible practice.  But it is almost impossible to 
imagine how we could write more specific rules that would cover 
all possible situations without over-constraining the ability of 
ADs to manage or bogging down a process in which the potential 
for decisive action may sometimes be very important.  So we rely 
on AD discretion, good sense, and the ability to appeal such 
decisions.

> I just wonder, if there such occurring performance problems
> maybe the WGs, or the chairs are not alone anymore to blame,
> but the responsibility goes already to the ADs that are
> managing the WG. If there needs to be a change very often,
> maybe the selection criteria of the WG chairs is wrong, or the
> management is inadequate.

We do not change WG chairs very often, perhaps even not as often 
as we should.  Some, perhaps many, of the changes that do occur 
are due to external reasons, e.g., a chair changing jobs and not 
having adequate time or resources to continue effectively.  When 
we do make changes, the reasons are often hard to discern, and 
that is often for very good reasons, as I tried to point out in 
my note.  If we ever had an AD who was routinely selecting 
chairs, removing and replacing them, and then repeating the 
cycle, that AD is probably ready for retirement... but, to my 
recollection, that has never happened.

And I would add to your list/discussion: "maybe the charter was 
wrong and the WG is just hopeless" -- which is the reason I 
wanted to discuss "fire the WG" along with "fire the WG Chair".

But, again, thinking about this in terms of blame is not often 
going to be helpful.   Even in the "weak charter" case, ADs are 
sometimes under a lot of pressure to approve charters. 
Sometimes the right answer is not "try to tune this until 
everyone is happy", but "let them try this, but for a relatively 
short period of time -- if the WG turns out to be unsuccessful 
during that period, either replace the leadership, drastically 
revise the charter, or close or suspend the WG until a more 
realistic plan can be developed".  If the second course is 
taken, the choise among those three options may depend more on 
AD style and circumstances than about any firm or public theory 
about who or what is to blame.

    regards,
      john




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