Subject: WG Chairs Training

From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 18:18:27 -0500

Hi All,

In preparation for Wednesday's WG Chairs Training discussion
and subsequent work, I thought folks might want to familiarize
themselves with our current training course and resources.

The current WG chairs training slides are available at:

http://psg.com/~mrw/WGChairs_Training_Mar03.ppt

And the current on-line resources for WG chairs can be
found at:

http://www.ietf.org/IESG/wgchairs.html

Enjoy,
Margaret

---

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 20:21:53 -0800

Margaret-

Very interesting and generally good.   I have a couple of points of
feedback:

1. No mention of the ID tracker, wg chair's page, wgchairs mailing
   list, RFC2026, and other useful tools/docs.

2. Suggest spending some time discussing finding good reviewers -- it
   can be *very* helpful in generating good discussion and consensus
   on a document.  Choose reviewers wisely.

3. My approach is to make clearly charge the document editor with
   ownership of extracting feedback and consensus from the mailing
   list.  The editor is responsible for tracking and getting closure
   on open issues.  An important part of this is having the editor
   send issue summaries to the list (sometimes with proposed
   solutions, sometimes not).  YMMV.

Hope this helps,

---aaron

---

From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 08:05:26 -0500

Hi Aaron,

>Very interesting and generally good.   I have a couple of points of

Thanks for the feedback!

>    list, RFC2026, and other useful tools/docs.

Good points.

Although we've been iteratively improving the materials, some of our
references are clearly still incomplete/out-of-date.

One thing to think about is: What material is best presented face-to-
face, and what is best presented through other means?  I've been
thinking that most of the "administrivia" section could be reduced
to a pointer to the WG chairs web page.

And, what do folks think of the idea of having a reading list of
material to read in advance of the training -- presumably RFCs
2026 and 2418, among others?  That way we could hit on the
highlights/decision points of the process, and the parts of our
processes that modify/extend those RFCs.

>    on a document.  Choose reviewers wisely.

Good idea.  The materials tend to be rather heavily influenced by
what we have found that we needed to know as chairs, and this is
certainly something that has fit my experience.

>    solutions, sometimes not).  YMMV.

I agree.

One of the things that I have been wondering about is whether
we should do similar training for document editors...

One of the tricky parts of doing training like this is that
the IETF has not officially adopted/encouraged internal WG
processes, and the role of WG chairs, editors, etc. can (and
does) vary by area, specific AD, scope of the WG, etc.

I think that it is actually important for a large organization
to have more consistency in roles and processes than the IETF
has right now (without eliminating the ability to scale to
fit).  This allows people to move between groups more effectively,
and for us to communicate more clearly across the organization.
But, I'm not sure if the community agrees.  This is something
we'll discuss on Wednesday.

Margaret

---

From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 08:18:13 -0500

Hi Spencer,

At 09:31 PM 3/17/2003 -0800, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>It's probably worth mentioning that I see many working groups
>that just kind of absorb individual drafts as working group
>drafts, without the kind of major decision point, and discussion
>of editor rights and responsibilities, that Margaret has in the
>training material, and that Aaron is providing input on below.
>
>And this unstudied absorbing is Not A Feature...

I agree.

This, though, is exactly the type of issue that hits on the
question I raised a couple of messages ago -- to what extent
do we want to encourage consistent WG-internal processes?
And, what does it make sense to leave up to the personal
style and choices of the WG chair?

>p.s. a process nit, not a presentation nit - we're still
>confused about whether draft-ietf-wgname draft names matter or
>not. Steve Coya has been pointing out that there's no link
>between a draft name and whether it's REALLY a working group
>draft or not, in the working group chair training for multiple
>years, but I'm hearing more reports of IESG and IAB members
>basing the decision to look closely at a draft on the name, and
>not on whether it's actually a working group draft or not.
>
>We should be a lot clearer on whether we expect all working
>group drafts to be explicitly named to reflect this or not.
>IMHO, of course.

The current materials could use some improvement in this area.
They are very much oriented on explaining the tools that
the secretariat uses (databases, etc.), but the WG chairs
don't actually have access to those tools.  Instead, we
interface with people and mail aliases...

Just because the tools _can_ support exceptions to the
usualy conventions doesn't mean that we need to allow
exceptions.  Any convention that is as consistently
followed as the file naming convention starts to take
on the force of law for the people involved.  Exceptions
become quite confusing.

As I said in the meeting, if you submit a document with a
draft-ietf-foo name, Natalia will assume that it is being
submitted as a WG item for the "foo" WG and will seek chair
permission for its publication as a WG work item.

So, I'd actually support removing the materials that
describe the internals of the secretariat tools, and
replacing them with slides that describe the filenaming
conventions that are currently used throughout the
IETF.

Margaret

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 21:31:23 -0800 (PST)

Spencer

--- Aaron Falk <[email-masked]> wrote:
[deleted down to]
>    solutions, sometimes not).  YMMV.

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---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 07:58:08 -0800

> 2. Suggest spending some time discussing finding good reviewers

this is major critical as it is near the root of some serious problems

>    list.

cat herding and editing can often be separated abilities, and editing
is a talent we need too

randy

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 10:32:01 -0800

> style and choices of the WG chair?

IMO, consistency is generally good. But we also need flexibility.

At a minimum, it would be good if folk understood the issues related
to process issues, and how poor implementation of internal processes
has led to plenty of real process/WG problems and how better execution
of internal processes can really help to avoid such problems. Giving
examples of the kinds of problems that can and have occurred is often
illuminating, especialy when folk don't have so much direct experience
themselves.

Armed with such a background, we also need to allow chairs some
flexibility in tailoring internal procesesses to the specific
situation of individual WGs.

What needs to be clear though is that it is the responsibility of the
chairs to minimize process problems, with failure to do so having the
obvious unfortunate consequences.

Thomas

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 11:08:27 -0800 (PST)

OK, this is very fair.

I don't want to generate lots of process work, but is it worth
having a checklist for each working group that says (for
instance)

"When our working group adopts this draft (check one):

- the editor needs to reflect working group consensus
- the editor needs to reflect working group consensus
  but may be asked to present strawperson roadblock-breaker
  text if we need it
- the editor is allowed to make structural changes,
  but not technical changes
- the editor is allowed to continue to work on the draft
  as an individual"

Just so we make some choices explicit and remove surprises when
an editor DOES continue to work on a working group draft as an
individual - which I'm not sure is ALWAYS a bad thing, just when

it's a surprise?

Another might be

"This design team will provide a draft that (choose one):

- will be evaluated as any other non-working group draft
- will be accepted because we're putting the design team
  together to make a binding choice
- will be accepted as working group baseline text, and then
  we'll make changes required for working group acceptance"

All of which are situations I've observed with design teams in
the past.

And we could start making up the checklist as we go, and have a
pretty good one in a couple of years without a big effort now.

I've seen a couple of posts on this list from chairs who said
they didn't realize what choices they were making implicitly (by

saying nothing), and I've been there, too, so -

I appreciate Thomas's support for flexibility and trust of WG
chairs, I'm just thinking about WG chairs who may not realize
when someone is trusting them to do the right thing in a
specific situation.

Spencer

---

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 13:31:01 -0800

Yes, setting expectations in the group and with the doc authors is
important and is difficult when you have a good idea yourself what the
possible outcomes are.  This is a(nother) good reason for mentoring or
partnering new chairs with experienced ones or having a good mind-meld
with your AD or all the above.

--aaron