Subject: RE: Proposal to reduce IESG load

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 10:02:06 -0500

> I have two alternative suggestions:
> 
> - The ADs could remain responsible for doing adequate and timely
> review of all drafts, but could delegate the task to their
> directorates.
> 
> - The IESG could create a draft review 'directorate' that would
> be composed of literate technical specialists who were willing
> to report to the IESG on draft quality in a timely and adequate
> manner.
> 
> Neither of these suggestions would mean that ADs could not also
> read an i-d, but it would take some of the burden off them
> without creating another level of hierarchy.  In order to speed up
> the work, folks from the directorates (either suggestion) could
> be assigned/volunteered to follow the progress of drafts as they
> made their way through the WG process.  It would be the responsibility
> of WG chairs to notify their ADs of documents that were entering
> the 'solidification' stage so this early intervention could occur.

The "could" in that last paragraph needs to be strengthened.  Having
these sort of outside experts step in at the point where the WG thinks
the draft is done can result in serious upheaval.  To be really
useful/effective, it's important for these sort of folks to get
involved much earlier in the process.  Document 'solidification' sounds
like the latest reasonable stage, and in some cases a much earlier
"are they digging in the right place?" review is needed.

Something along these lines seems to operate in the O&M area for MIBs.
The problem here is that while the ADs probably have the
worst case of overload, the technically clueful folks whom one wants
to serve in this sort of "outside expert" capacity don't exactly have
a lot of "copious spare time" to do this.  This can be compounded by
people in Area X having much more interest in working on things in
Area X versus working on the application of protocols from Area X to
other Areas.

--David

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David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
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[email-masked]       Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 11:12:45 -0500

This problem (insufficient and necessary external expertise, frequently 
applied later in the process than we like) seems to be getting worse.

We understood the importance of having a MIB skilled person involved in MIB 
design and review early  We still try to do that, although there is a 
shortage of people with enough time.

We added the need to have security people involved in advising most working 
groups on the security implications of their work.  Of course, there is a 
serious shortage of security skilled people.

In the Policy Framework group we recently found that it would have been 
helpful to have had LDAP review of some of our work earlier in the process 
(I beleive the specific problems are being addressed.)  But again, there 
are not many of these folks and there are actually a lot of activities that 
could use their skills.

There is a nagging suspicion that if 6 years ago we had managed to get the 
right advisors in the right places we might have been able to do something 
to stem the growth of tunnelling protocols.  We never succeeded.  This is 
emblematic of a tendency for working groups to invent a solution if they 
are not simultaneously informed of the existence of a suitable solution and 
pushed hard to accept the use of existing solutions instead of inventing 
another.

Transport has found that a lot of applications are developing behaviors 
that need to factor in congestion / flow control properly.  Again, finding 
enough skilled advisors is hard.

The problem is not that we don't understand the importance of skilled early 
review.  But having enough people to do the job is much harder.  My 
suggestion is that working group chairs probably need to help their ADs 
find people who that AD can call upon to advise other groups. (Yes, ADs are 
chosen in part for their skill in selecting people and getting them to take 
working group jobs.  That does not mean that they can not use help.)
Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

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From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 20:23:24 -0500

On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 11:12:45AM -0500, Joel M. Halpern wrote: 
> We understood the importance of having a MIB skilled person involved
> in MIB design and review early...
> 
> We added the need to have security people involved in advising most
> working groups on the security implications of their work...
> 
> In the Policy Framework group we recently found that it would have
> been helpful to have had LDAP review of some of our work earlier in
> the process...
> 
> There is a nagging suspicion that if 6 years ago we had managed to
> get the right advisors in the right places we might have been able
> to do something to stem the growth of tunnelling protocols...
> 
> Transport has found that a lot of applications are developing
> behaviors that need to factor in congestion / flow control
> properly...

(Trying to think out of the box....) So, perhaps this is a better use
of IETF meetings than discussing document status.  Perhaps we should
schedule some joint area meetings to inject specialized clue from one
area into a specific working group.  This breaks our usual format
(which is agonizing to change: "what day should we have the plenary
on?") but suppose some of the open areas meetings were used to review
and discuss protocols being developed in other areas?  Of course, the
real work requires more thought than just a single meeting but it
might get folks with the right expertise to read some drafts and ask
some hard questions.  (Aside: One impediment I have when reading
drafts out of areas I'm unfamilliar with is the lack of vocabulary and
context.  Having a protocol overview is a way to get lots of people
familliar with the outlines of a protocol and might motivate some
helpful discussion.)

--aaron

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 17:58:16 -0800

the cross-fertilization/checking issue is indeed *very* important.  many
of my not so fine lunches and dinners during ietf week are mixing folk
from various disciplies/wgs together.  it is also why we drag folk from
various disciplines into directorates.  i have an unverified hypothesis
that the directorates that work better are those with folk from various
disciplines.

similarly, when it comes to document review within the iesg, i find that
the area directors out of my discipline give me more insight and useful
document review/pushback than those closer to me.  this should not really
be surprising, as i am supposed to have already reviewed the document
with the ops mindset.

randy