Subject: [Pesci-discuss] Face-to-face meetings (was: Re: IETF Meeting Venue Selection Criteria)

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 13:35:22 -0500

Brian just posted a couple of notes on the IETF discussion list about 
"income that we badly need" from attendees at face-to-face IETF meetings.

I had the privilege of attending the SHIM6 and Softwires interim meetings 
last week (I guess they needed a note-taker :-), and the leadeship at both 
meetings was saying, "much more productive than an IETF face-to-face 
meeting".

This mode of operation (lock the same group in a room for multiple days) is 
what I see at the IETF meetings in the SIP community, where they start 
meeting together at 9:00 AM on Monday morning, and stay together through 
multiple meetings of SIP, SIPPING, SIMPLE, and only diffuse slightly into 
ECRIT, XCON, ENUM, AVT/MMUSIC, and BEHAVE (what did I leave out?) - and I 
note there's an ad hoc on SIP peer-to-peer scheduled for Friday afternoon in 
Vancouver.

This is very different from what I think is "normal" for the IETF (attend a 
couple of WGs that meet a couple of times during the week, attend a couple 
of BoFs, and spend the rest of the week talking to people). It's a lot more 
like what I think is "normal" for IEEE (the group stays together for the 
balance of the week, during IEEE plenary meetings).

There were several interim meeting participants who were not planning to 
attend in Vancouver, including one serious contributor who may be missing 
three face-to-face meetings in a row. All this would be fine, except that we 
seem to be financially dependent on meeting fees from the IETF face-to-face 
meetings.

Do we think that the IETF face-to-face meetings are sacred cows that we 
can't eliminate without eliminating the IETF completely? If "yes", is this 
only for financial reasons, or are there others?

Disclaimer - I like attending IETF face-to-face meetings, and even talking 
with you guys while I'm there, so I'm not trying to stir up trouble, only 
trying to understand where we're headed.

Spencer

>> Maybe I am an optimist.  I believe the world is a big place, and are
>> lots of venues where the IETF has not yet met, which would work for all
>> of us, and attract a lot of local participation.
>
> Which, BTW, means income that we badly need.
>
>>
>> My sense of why we are discussing "venue selection criteria" is that we
>> wish to encourage people to volunteer to be local hosts for future IETF
>> meetings.  To make the best use of the prospective local hosts' time, it
>> would help if we could articulate the venues that would be acceptable,
>> versus ones that would not 'meet' (pardon the pun) our venue selection
>> criteria.
>
> It will also help the IAD significantly in comparing hosting offers.
> We also badly need hosts for financial reasons. 

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---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 21:46:38 +0200

> "income that we badly need" from attendees at face-to-face IETF meetings.

just my personal take on that remark....

at the moment, IETF is dependent on meeting income to make its budget 
balance. If we lose many attendees, we have to cut secretariat services; 
that's all there is to it.
This isn't part of either a principle or a policy - it's just the way 
things are at the moment.
ISOC's trying to change it - by raising additional revenue so that we at 
least have buffers in place - but any sort of money stuff takes TIME.

I love interims - in ADDITION to the "big ones".

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 08:30:03 +1000

"leadeship at both meetings was saying, "much more productive than an IETF 
face-to-face meeting".

In the case of Shim6, I think the entire set of attendees held a similar view,

- we had 2 days, not 2 hours
- we had folk who wanted to work to achieve a good solution
- we had time to get into the mindset, and then explore the consequences
- we had no distractions

It achieved in a weekend more than I could reasonably expect in one full 
year using only IETF meetings as the face-to-face opportunity.

It does make one wonder, as Spencer already has, what the real role and 
value is of the face-to-face meetings. I suspect that the role of the IETF 
meetings from the perspective of a WG is becoming more of "reporting  to a 
broader audience"  rather than "working in a broader context". However, to 
mitigate that a little, I also think that the BOF review opportunity to 
start work up is uniquely an IETF meeting role, and in this case the 
broader audience for a BOF is indeed a necessarily strict filter for 
chartering new work.

    Geoff

Geoff

At 04:35 AM 21/10/2005, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>meetings was saying, "much more productive than an IETF face-to-face meeting".
>
>This mode of operation (lock the same group in a room for multiple days) 
>is what I see at the IETF meetings in the SIP community, where they start 
>note there's an ad hoc on SIP peer-to-peer scheduled for Friday afternoon 
>in Vancouver.
>
>This is very different from what I think is "normal" for the IETF (attend 
>a couple of WGs that meet a couple of times during the week, attend a 
>couple of BoFs, and spend the rest of the week talking to people). It's a 
>lot more like what I think is "normal" for IEEE (the group stays together 
>for the balance of the week, during IEEE plenary meetings).
>
>three face-to-face meetings in a row. All this would be fine, except that 
>we seem to be financially dependent on meeting fees from the IETF 
>face-to-face meetings.
>

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 18:43:59 -0400

On Fri, Oct 21, 2005 08:30:03AM +1000, Geoff Huston allegedly wrote:
> broader audience"  rather than "working in a broader context". 

My theory up to now was that most of the work is and should be done
outside of the big meetings.  The big meetings are for reaching
agreemetns (and as you say, cross-fertilization).  However, it may be
that the issues many WGs are dealing with are simply too big to get
resolution in 2 meeting slots, and too deep to get resolution by email
or by design teams.  How can we have the focus of the interims and
still have the cross-fertilization?

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 10:42:40 +0300

Scott W Brim wrote:

>How can we have the focus of the interims and
Easy. Do both. Its silly to think that 3 x 2 hrs = 6 hrs
of face time per year will advance any major piece of
technology. In addition, people will need to have
design teams, conference calls, interim meetings,
private meetings, etc. And obviously work on their
drafts and reviews on their own.

Having said that, I don't think the focus of the main
IETF meeting should be just "reporting to a broader
audience" as Geoff put it. I hate status report meetings
packed with 10 minute slots of "we updated the draft
and here are the issues please continue the discussion
on the list". Its true that we do get a broader audience,
both within and outside the WG in the IETF main meetings.
However, the meeting should still focus on discussion
of relevant technical topics, engaging not just
the regular key contributors but also others in this
discussion.

--Jari

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 10:19:48 +0200

> drafts and reviews on their own.

And work on the mailing list, of course.....
In some ways, I see face-to-face meetings as accelerating the work of the 
mailing list more than replacing the at-IETF meetings.

> the regular key contributors but also others in this

Concur. This is very much a chair orientation issue, I think; if the chair 
insists on running the session as a 5-min-per-draft reporting session, 
that's how it will be. The chair has the power to decide this - and the 
chair SHOULD know what the critical issues for the WG are at any given time.

                      Harald

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:01:42 +0200

So, I read this as saying no change of principle here,
which would mean out of scope for PESCI.

    Brian

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> In some ways, I see face-to-face meetings as accelerating the work of 
> the mailing list more than replacing the at-IETF meetings.
> 
> Concur. This is very much a chair orientation issue, I think; if the 
> chair insists on running the session as a 5-min-per-draft reporting 
> session, that's how it will be. The chair has the power to decide this - 
> and the chair SHOULD know what the critical issues for the WG are at any 
> given time.
> 
>                      Harald
> 
> 
>

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 09:33:32 -0400

> which would mean out of scope for PESCI.

Scope?  If this conclusion (about how to conduct our work) has
significant impact on how processes could be changed, then it should
be noted, no?

---

From: "Marshall Eubanks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 10:11:21 -0400

Hello;

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005 18:43:59 -0400
> agreemetns (and as you say, cross-fertilization).  However, it may be

IMHO the primary reason people attend any meeting like the IETF is to meet people
and have conversations in the corridors or at lunch or the bar or ... 

People always laugh when I say that, but it is true; everything else
can be done by remotely. That is why
any attempts to use break times for other  purposes (like shuttling between two
different meetings, or between meetings in widely separated buildings) should be resisted.

> still have the cross-fertilization?

Here is an idea :

Allow for WG working lunches or other  special sessions. By a special session I mean

-  someone (presumably the WG chair  or a delegate or maybe an AD) picks a 
topic that needs to be resolved, appoints someone or several someones to give a review of the
situation, and gives time to the proponents of the solution (or active opponents), and then allows
time for discussion. I have seen this done before and it works, but it takes time and planning.

The focus should be "we are going to come to consensus in this meeting on  a solution that we can
then present to the list."

Note that if you  really want cross-fertilization then IMHO you will have to give time for review of
the situation. You cannot expect people in other areas to get up to speed on something without some
assistance.

To me, this ties into IETF attendance : how do we get and keep people to come ? One reason to come 
(besides meeting people) is to learn about new areas, or to learn more about areas you are
peripherally involved in. The more review that is provided 
(in many WG meetings, there  is none), the
more reason people have to come.

Of course,  with the new IETF-Paris scheduling, the IETF could have after-dinnner tutorials for an
extra fee, and both raise some  money and educate people.

Regards
Marshall Eubanks

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 17:21:47 +0200

> significant impact on how processes could be changed, then it should

Maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't see a conclusion that
pointed towards a change.

    Brian

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 12:14:30 -0700

Jari Arkko wrote:
> private meetings, etc.
...
> audience" as Geoff put it. 

I decided to respond to your note, out of the entire thread, because it 
represents some points of view that seem to dominate the IETF today.  
Further, I believe you do not carry the baggage of the IETF's early 
years, so that your "representation" is a bit more pure.

I note that your lengthy list of "In additions" did not include mailing 
list discussion.  Whether that was unintentional or not, we do seem to 
have lost the original model, namely that mailing lists are where the 
primary working group work is done.   Historically, IETF meetings have 
been used for assessing overall wg direction or for intense focus on 
selected issues that have proved difficult to resolve on the mailing 
list.  That made those meetings rather surgical or rather strategic, 
rather than being used for the bulk of the development detail.

The acknowledged advantage of the mailing list as a primary venue is its 
openness.  Requiring travel to a meeting -- whether interim or IETF week 
-- filters out a great deal of participation.  Maybe folks do not want 
the IETF to be as broadly inclusive as it used to be, but that sort of 
change should be explicit, rather than happen as a side-effect.

As others have noted, the model of doing primary work at face-to-face 
meetings is popular with some other standards organizations.  If the 
IETF adopts that model, too, we might want to ask what makes the IETF 
distinctive and worth maintaining as a separate organization.

The ITU is another group that does its primary work with extended 
face-to-face meetings. Watching it in action showed me another benefit 
to the IETF's original process that is easily missed:  It is more stable.

The IETF process historically has produced a sequence of incremental 
developments to a specification, with plenty of time for wide review.  
Hence development tended to be evolutionary and based on extensive 
feedback.  By contrast, the crucible of a face-to-face meeting 
encourages spontaneous -- rather than deliberated -- problem-solving and 
can produce dramatic changes to a specification, without adequate 
understanding of their impact.  I have watched remarkably massive 
strategic changes proposed and adopted over the course of a few days, 
with perhaps 20 people in the room.  Folks won't be surprised to hear 
that the primary problem was that the adopted solution mostly would not 
work...

The mantra that is likely to be used to response to my concerns is "no 
decision is final until it is approved on the list" however this ignores 
some important differences in earlier dynamics versus now:  It is one 
thing to have an active mailing list that is doing the bulk of the work, 
and then bring occasional, discrete issues back to the list for 
post-meeting approval.  It is quite different to move the bulk of the 
work to face-to-face meetings, essentially stripping the mailing list of 
serious content, and then load the list with a large number of decisions 
to "approve".  It is simply not reasonable to expect the latter to do 
more than catch the most egregious problems.

We used to worry about using IETF meeting time effectively.  Not very 
many years ago, using the meeting for "reporting" was very nearly 
banned.  Reporting can be done on the mailing list. 

At the least, we should be clear about the real purposes of IETF 
meetings, and make sure they make sense.

d/

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 13:07:02 -0700

Dave,

I mostly agree in uninteresting ways, but

> post-meeting approval.  It is quite different to move the bulk of the work 
> to face-to-face meetings, essentially stripping the mailing list of 
> to "approve".  It is simply not reasonable to expect the latter to do more 
> than catch the most egregious problems.

I'm not saying that we are ignoring this mantra, but it seems to me that we 
are skating right along the edge of doing so.

I really liked the amount of work we got done at the recent SHIM6 interim, 
and to be fair, a lot of that work was making design choices between 
alternatives that had been previously discussed on the mailing list, but the 
mailing list summary (http://ops.ietf.org/lists/shim6/msg00952.html) was 
tagged "Design decisions made at the interim SHIM6 WG meeting". Let me add 
immediately that Geoff was a good WG chair and added, "These decisions are 
subject to confirmation by the WG. Your chairs invite you to review these 
decisions and we'd like to understand the level of WG consensus for these 
decisions by the end of next week (Friday 28th October)", but there's a 
spectrum that looks like this:

- all work happens on mailing list
- all work happens on mailing list, but is discussed in face-to-face 
meetings
- most work happens on mailing list, but is discussed in face-to-face 
meetings, and decisions happen on mailing list
- some work happens on mailing list, a lot of work happens in face-to-face 
meetings, and decisions are made in face-to-face meetings and reviewed on 
mailing list
- work happens in face-to-face meetings. and decisions are made in 
face-to-face meetings

and gravity is pulling us downward in that spectrum ...

Let me also note that Geoff is really working hard to get the base protocol 
specification drafted this year, and no one is saying that's the WRONG goal.

> At the least, we should be clear about the real purposes of IETF meetings, 
> and make sure they make sense.

How could anyone disagree? :-)

... but I note that both Dave and JohnK chatted me up fairly recently about 
keeping working engineers engaged in the IETF (if we are all standards 
weenies, we can do that anywhere), and moving downward in that spectrum 
makes it easier for standards weenies to participate, and harder for working 
engineers to participate.

Spencer

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 23:33:03 +0300

Dave Crocker wrote:

> I note that your lengthy list of "In additions" did not include 
> mailing list discussion.  Whether that was unintentional or not, we do 
> seem to have lost the original model, namely that mailing lists are 
> where the primary working group work is done.

Don't read too much into that omission. I omitted it as a matter of
fact, too obvious to even think that it needed to be mentioned...

Also, neither me or to my knowledge no one else in this thread has
proposed that we move into the face-to-face model. Of course, the
world isn't black and white and we do have a need to improve...
what's at question here is not whether face time should take
over list effort or vice versa, but whether we have enough of (a)
face time and (b) list effort and how to improve. From what
I have seen, we have problems on both, and every time we
do something that triggers an improvement in either one
we make a lot of progress.

Examples of where I've personally seen significant
improvements in progress and quality of output:

Face time
- organizing interims
- organizing teleconfs, design teams

List effort
- recruiting reviewers instead of just waiting it to happen
- effective question posing, summary, consensus call tactics
  from the chairs

Also, progress in just one component isn't necessarily
sufficient to really move forward. For instance, the
set of people on the list is different than the set of
people participating in the meeting discussion. Or
when there's a disconnect between people or a hard
issue to understand, face-to-face discussion can get
everyone on the same page fast. Or a detailed review,
which can only be done alone and in written form.

--Jari