Subject: Re: IETF process improvement tools (Was RE: area directors at risk)

From: "Faye Ly" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 17:58:59 -0800

Sorry I missed the 'fiasco' :)- Does ADs spend a lot of their
valuable time on tracking document, charters and events?  Or
they are simply tracking too many working groups?

-faye

>From: Olafur Gudmundsson <[email-masked]>
>To: Alain Durand <[email-masked]>
>CC: [email-masked]
>Subject: Re: IETF process improvement tools (Was RE: area directors at 
>risk)
>Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 09:51:24 -0500 (EST)
>
>
>
>On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Alain Durand wrote:
>
> > > What this fiasco tells me is that IETF MUST adopt a common automated
> > > system that tracks documents, charters, and events. Participants in
> > > the IETF process must be able to quickly identify what open action 
>items
> > > are and more importantly what comments have been made in the past.
> > >
> > > I do not want to see each working group going out a picking their
> > > own system, we must pick one so to minimize the learning curve.
> >
> > As I said earlier, I agree we need tools. However I'm not sure we should 
>make
> > them
> > mandatory.  Let's try to make this the IETF "way", through rough 
>consensus,
> > and let the folks who do not want to use it not using it.
> >
>
>All I wanted to say is that IETF must pick one tool, and then
>it is up to working groups/AD's to use that tool.
>What we must avoid is to have each group pick their own tool.
>
>	Olafur
>
>

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 05:12:27 -0500

> valuable time on tracking document, charters and events?

yup.  hence one of our high-priority internal projects is a serious tool-
set upgrade.  possibly the best thing folk could do for the iesg would be
to find or donate a few person-months of a good web/db dev person who has
some clue in the problem domain, i.e. how the ietf works.

> Or they are simply tracking too many working groups?

not really

randy

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 07:24:38 -0800 (PST)

> valuable time on tracking document, charters and events?

We most certainly do. Better tools for doing this is urgently needed. It is
my single biggest problem as an AD right now.

> Or they are simply tracking too many working groups?

No, that's really not a significant problem.

				Ned

---

From: "Dean Willis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 14:17:11 -0600

Hey, draft tracking is my single biggest task as a wg chair. Between two
working groups, I have close to 100 current drafts to track. Add in more
than ten active subteams, a complex mesh of interdependencies, multiple
overlapping review stages, externally-referenced requirements documents, and
so on. We've developed some wg-specific tools and a lot of processes, but
it's still really hard. Even monitoring dratfs announcements for updates
gets screwy -- I just found that I'd missed an update to a draft that is on
the reading list for next week's meeting, so I have to revise an agenda.

So the ADs have my complete, total, and unabashed sympathy. Pity even . . .

I know some developers if anybody feels like funding them.

--
Dean

---

From: Alain Durand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 15:51:53 -0800

Let's meet in Salt Lake to discuss tool requirements.

The agenta is really packed, so I'd suggest Wednesday
at the bar after the IESG plenary.

    - Alain.

---

From: "James Seng/Personal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 13:07:29 +0800

Sound like a good idea. I would support this "BoF", or what we would now
called "informal BoF". :-)

-James Seng

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alain Durand" <[email-masked]>
To: "Dean Willis" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Faye Ly" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 7:51 AM
Subject: Re: IETF process improvement tools (Was RE: area directors at
risk)

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 07:16:25 +0100

> at the bar after the IESG plenary.

FYI: IESG have been working on requirements for a year or so, and have had
two different "volonteers" which have tried to create the tool, but the
people have walked away into something which can be viewed as /dev/null.

Because of this, from my perspective (I have not verified with the rest of
the IESG, but in IESG I have been one of the persons trying to be the lead
in this project):

 - IESG is prepared putting some money into this because Internet Mail
   Consortium is willing to help.
 - IESG is nervous about spending time in a third try which will not
   deliver, so don't take a silence from IESG as "they are not interested".
   IESG is _very_ interested in getting a tool, but at this point in time
   want to know from the ones which want to create the tool that the
   initiative will create some output.
 - IESG have a list of requirements already, state diagrams etc...but
   it would be interesting in seeing what _you_ as wg chairs think of
   the process.
 - IESG already have one tool which is a bit crude, which means that there
   is some code in perl which _might_ be something to start with.
 - As you understand by now, IESG belive it knows what is needed, but
   not at all _how_ to accomplish that goal. I.e. how to get the
   software delivered.

One goal for the meeting you will have (I will unfortunately not be in SLC
-- first IETF since Houston I miss) I would like you to:

 + Check if you _really_ are interested
 + Get the names of the people which are interested so we can add them
   to a mailing list where this is discussed
 + Come up with an idea how the tool should be created, and still
   ensure that something is created
 + Come down with a list of requirements _you_ have as wg chairs on 
   a tool like this

After the meeting, if you want to continue (which I hope), I can send to
the interested people quite some amount of information already.

I.e. keep me in the loop...

       paf