Subject: [Pesci-discuss] Draft BOF agenda

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:05:12 +0200

For discussion, not yet uploaded to the agenda site.

Name: Process Evolution Consideration for the IETF BOF
Acronym: PESCI
Area: GEN (Acting ADs: Sam Hartman, Bert Wijnen)
Chair: Brian Carpenter

BOF description:

The IETF Chair set up a team called PESCI, Process Evolution Committee of the IETF.

This team has published a draft which includes:

- A list of goals and principles that the team feels should
underly improvements to the IETF process

- A list of next steps that the team feels should be undertaken in
order to get the necessary next process reform steps done.

The BOF seeks input on these two topics. The objective of
the BOF is to determine whether there is general agreement with
the approach, and to start community discussion on the specific
goals, principles and next steps.

The PESCI team will report the conclusions from the BOF in the plenary.

BOF Agenda:

- 5 minutes: Agenda bashing
- 10 minutes: Presentation of PESCI Goals and Principles
- 15 minutes: Discussion of PESCI Goals and Principles
[Question - should we focus less on this and more on next steps?]
- 10 minutes: Presentation of PESCI's proposed next steps
- 15 minutes: Discussion of PESCI's proposed next steps
- 5 minutes: Summary and conclusions

Reading list:

draft-davies-pesci-initial-considerations-00.txt

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From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 05:53:24 -0400

Hi.  I asked Brian to send this here so I could respond on the open
list rather than continuing a private discussion with the team.

After talking to Brian I've realized there are two things going on
with pesci.  First, we're defining a set of principles for how we
handle process change and proposing next steps to accomplish process
change.  Second, at the same time, we're trying to create principles
to seed and direct the process change effort (section 4.2.3 through 4.2.7).  The
hope is that we can focus and limit discussions by having a common
vision of where we are going.  Brian points to section 2.2 of BCP 101
as an example of how this worked for us in the past.  We had a long
discussion on the IETF list on those principles, but once we agreed,
it made the rest of the document easier.

Realizing that we had both of these efforts underway was helpful for
me at least.  I kept trying to figure out why the second
part--deciding on general principles to seed process change--mattered.
It seems like we have a lot of process change proposals around and I
couldn't figure out where these principles would come into play.  It
seemed like either a proposal would work its way through the process
change process and lead to consensus or to failure.  At some level
that's true.  However I can see that the principles will, should they
achieve strong community consensus, be a valuable tool for the
community in focusing its discussion and forming consensus around
specific proposals.

I am still concerned that having a focused BOF that attemptes to get
agreement on both principles for how to conduct process change plus
the next steps for process change and on principles to seedand direct
that process change effort.  I also wonder whether a BOF is the right
forum to really discuss the guiding principles to seed and direct our
process change.  Here are some of the potential failure conditions I
see.  We might spend too much time discussing one part of what we're
trying to accomplish and fail to get consensus or adequately discuss
the other part.  We might find that the BOF is not a good enough
community cross-section for the general principles discussion and that
we end up thinking we've reached agreement only to find in the plenary
we've wasted our time and created bad will.

My inclination is to focus the BOF discussion on principles for
process change and on next steps and to hold the general principles
discussion on the list, in the plenary and probably later on the ietf
list.  However I'm open to other proposals for maintaining bof focus
and for addressing my concerns of the previous paragraph.

Regardless, I would recommend separating the principles discussion on
the agenda.  Please consider discussing the process change principles
(4.1, 4.2.1 and 4.2.2) separatly from the more general principles
(4.2.3 through 4.2.7).  You may consider 4.1.1 to be part of the more
general principles.

Finally, this message has been composed without input from Bert.  I
know that we were in fairly close alignment last week, but my thinking
has changed significantly based on reading the draft and on
discussions via jabber with Brian.  I don't know if Bert will agree
with this proposal.  I was not able to get ahold of him before sending
this message.

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From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 07:42:47 -0400

> (4.2.3 through 4.2.7).  You may consider 4.1.1 to be part of the more

This sounds good to me.

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 15:32:12 +0200

>>(4.2.3 through 4.2.7).  You may consider 4.1.1 to be part of the more

My opinion is that Sam has put his finger on something that has
been hovering at the back of my mind for the last 3 weeks,
but I couldn't catch it. So I agree, and anything that helps
us focus the BOF is good.

    Brian