Subject: Guidance and suggestions for BOF description writers?

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 17:46:14 -0500

I'm working on a BOF proposal for Atlanta, and realizing that I have a lot more experience with WG charters than with BOF requests. I've read http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1bof-procedures.txt, which describes the process and is helpful, but doesn't describe what a good BOF request would contain.

Many of you passed through BOF on the way to a WG. What should I be including in my proposal? What are the things I need to include to make the AD's life a little easier?

Are there particularly good BOF descriptions that you've seen in the past?

Thanks for any guidance you can pass along!

Spencer, co-chair PILC WG

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From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 09:47:35 -0400

> I'm working on a BOF proposal for Atlanta, and realizing that I have
> a lot more experience with WG charters than with BOF requests. I've
> read http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1bof-procedures.txt, which describes
> the process and is helpful, but doesn't describe what a good BOF
> request would contain.

First, figure out what it is you want to achieve at the BOF. Is it:

a) to form a WG?
b) just present some stuff, and nothing more?
c) just see if there are folks intersted in discussing possible work?
d) something else?

Once you have figured out your goal, everything should be focused on
that one goal. Everything not directly supportive of the goal should
be viewed as out-of-scope and not be made part of the BOF. (I say
this, because there is a great temptation to have lots of
presentations, even when the presentations are not particularly
relevant to the issues that *really* need discussion time at the BOF).

If the goal is a WG, what would the charter be? What documents would
you expect the WG to produce? What topics/documents would be out of
scope? The goal of the BOF would be to communicate this clearly to the
audience, and get consensus that these goals are the right ones. Note:
it may seem backwards to think about a charter so early in the
process, but it's really not. Understanding what would go into a
charter is critical in terms of understanding what problem needs
working on, which ones do not, and focusing the BOF on what it should
cover and what need to be discussed at all.

Or, stated another way, if you want to form a WG, what problem will
the WG actually solve?  Is there agreement with a written form of the
problem statement? Do a sufficient number of folk think the problem is
interesting, in need of a solution, and one that requires an IETF WG?
Are there actual volunteers to write drafts and/or to review the
documents? Just as important, are there people that think this is a
bad idea? Too ill-formed of a problem to know what the WG would
actually do?  Will the proposed set of documents actually meet your
goals? These are the sorts of things a BOF is supposed to provide
answers to.

Now, much of the above work can and should be done in advance of the
BOF. Some of this work will obviously be done privately by the
organizers. But critically important, there should be a public mailing
list where some of the above can be hashed out in advance of the BOF
(i.e., discussion of IDs, possibly with other participants deciding to
write IDs in response to that discussion). The mailing list discussion
should start to answer the above questions. Note also, in the absence
of such discussion on a mailing list, and AD may be skeptical that
there is even enough interest in holding a BOF in the first place, or
tha that the BOF organizers are in touch with what the community
thinks the problem statement is....

The ADs are probably looking for the same things on the mailing list
as at the BOF itself:

 - is there a clearly stated problem statement?
 - is there general agreement on the problem statement?
 - is there interest in actually doing the work?
 - etc...

Once there has been some discussion, it should become more clear what
the BOF needs to cover. In particular, be sure to focus on the open
issues that have been discussed on the mailing list where there isn't
agreement and talk about them explicitely during the BOF. You want the
BOF to help clarify these issues.

One final observation.  If you are thinking if holding a BOF in
Atlanta, the time to start talking to the ADs is yesterday. It takes
time to do the above (i.e., for IDs to appear and for folk on the
mailing list to read and comment on the IDs), and contacting an AD a
week or two before the scheduling deadling is simply too late to do
the prep work for a good BOF.

Thomas