Subject: RE: Agenda is still incomplete

From: "Lars-Erik Jonsson (LU/EAB)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 10:20:10 +0200

> So I will make this pledge as a WG  chair - I will either submit my
> meeting request, or plan on not meeting within 2 weeks of the first
> agenda request message  coming out.
> 
> Anyone else want to join me in this pledge ? (Don't flood the 
> list with yes/no - just put yourself into a catagory in your head)

Personally, I have concerns about such an approach, as I actually
do not know at that point whether the WG needs agenda time or not,
and if a meeting slot is needed, I would not be able to estimate the
time needed. 

I think we should continue to have a flexible and need-based
scheduling. Specifically, I do not think we should set the agenda
earlier just to make life simpler for those who want to avoid
participating in the whole one-week IETF meetings.
 
/L-E

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From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:24:36 +0300 (EEST)

> and if a meeting slot is needed, I would not be able to estimate the

Agree.  The chairs and ADs will have to decide whether they'll need to 
meet at all, and if yes, whether they'd want 1, 2, or 2.5 hours (if a 
single session), 2+1, 2.5+1, 2.5+2, 2.5+2.5, etc. (if two sessions) 
and so on.

In many cases, I think it's relatively easy (in the busy WGs as least) 
to be able to say, "yes, we'll need at least one slot".  But it's 
often difficult to figure out a month or two in advance how long 
slots, and how many of them, would be needed.

These problems seem to stem from the fact that some folks want to be 
there only for a part of the meeting (and still book well in advance 
for cheap fares), e.g., attend for 1-3 days.  I guess that's 
understandable, but not supportable at the moment.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:35:56 +0200

Lars-Erik Jonsson (LU/EAB) wrote:
...
> participating in the whole one-week IETF meetings.

I agree with that, but I have to say that the latest agenda
update turns out to be a pessimization as far as my WG is
concerned, so the iterative approach has its problems.

    Brian

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 07:35:29 -0700

At 02:24 AM 10/28/2004, Pekka Savola wrote:
>Agree.  The chairs and ADs will have to decide whether they'll need to meet at all, and if yes, whether they'd want 1, 2, or 2.5 hours (if a single session), 2+1, 2.5+1, 2.5+2, 2.5+2.5, etc. (if two sessions) and so on.
>
>In many cases, I think it's relatively easy (in the busy WGs as least) to be able to say, "yes, we'll need at least one slot".  But it's often difficult to figure out a month or two in advance how long slots, and how many of them, would be needed.

Well we disagree on the level of difficulty involved.
Right now we have a system that is designed so a handful
of people can wait an extra two weeks before deciding if
they want a timeslot at the upcoming meeting, instead of
designing for the 2000 people who want the final agenda out.

I am curious what the norm is for other conferences.
Does anyone know how many days before the start of
a conference the final agenda is published for other
organizations like IEEE?

Andy

>These problems seem to stem from the fact that some folks want to be there only for a part of the meeting (and still book well in advance for cheap fares), e.g., attend for 1-3 days.  I guess that's understandable, but not supportable at the moment.
>
>--

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From: "David B Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:10:21 -0400

We may be losing valuable contributors to the process by not
finalizing the schedule on a timely basis.

As the Standards Director for Enterasys, I have seen that departmental
budgets can affect whether people are allowed to attend a whole week.
Airfare increases substantially with less than 14 day notice, so a
late-posted schedule may prevent some people from attending. 

It has been a long-time tradition of IETF scheduling to put few
meetings on a Friday, and many attendees plan to leave early as a
result of the way Friday scheduling is normally done. Without being
able to see the Friday schedule, many will estimate it unlikely that
the sessions they need to attend will occur on Friday and will plan to
fly out Friday. This may cause them to miss an important session.

Given the number of layoffs in the industry, the number of
"independent consultants" attending is increasing and their budgets
are very sensistive to the 14-day airfare and whole-week costs. If
they cannot pick and choose days, they may simply decide not to
attend.

In an organization designed to represent the whole industry, do we
want to make it harder for new contributors or limited contributors to
attend those sessions where they could add important input, just so
those who know they will attend all week have flexibility in their
schedules?

As a long-time contributor, I always attend all week, but I would like
to encourage others to make their voices heard even if they can only
attend part of the week. Getting the schedule done on a timely basis
helps make bringing in new voices easier.

dbh

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Pekka Savola
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 5:25 AM
To: Lars-Erik Jonsson (LU/EAB)
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: Agenda is still incomplete

>> Anyone else want to join me in this pledge ? (Don't flood the list 
>> with yes/no - just put yourself into a catagory in your head)
>
> Personally, I have concerns about such an approach, as I actually do

> not know at that point whether the WG needs agenda time or not, and
if 
> a meeting slot is needed, I would not be able to estimate the time 
> needed.

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:52:43 -0700

>a conference the final agenda is published for other

So, one of the options is to schedule every working group with
a set number of hours and publish the agenda very early.  WGs
that do not wish to meet then leave open slots in the parallel sessions.

This would require a couple of changes on our part:  getting rid
of the FIN_WAIT state so that WGs don't continue to use meeting
slots when they are just waiting for RFC publications.  It would
also require more money, since we need a larger number of rooms
to manage the "everyone gets a set number of hours" resource
increase.  We also have to have a large number of tracks/parallel
meetings in certain cases.

So, are we optimizing for early agenda, better fit of meeting to
time, or cost?
			regards,
				Ted Hardie

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From: "T.J.Kniveton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 10:50:04 -0700

Oh come on people. Is it really that hard to figure out how long of a 
meeting slot you need? No. And we should optimize for indecisive WG 
chairs instead of people who want to actually plan their travel ahead 
of time?

It's simple. The schedule is flexible for a month or two after meeting 
requests open, and then those get locked in and additional space is 
given on an as-needed basis. Headache is reduced for meeting planners, 
WGs can still schedule up to the last minute (but not be guaranteed 
conflict resolution), and people can buy plane tickets before they cost 
$1200. Problem solved.

TJ

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From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:30:32 -0400

>>>>> "David" == David B Harrington <[email-masked]> writes:

    David> We may be losing valuable contributors to the process by
    David> not finalizing the schedule on a timely basis.

That's certainly true.  The key word there is *may*.

We may also be increasing the probability that the people who do show
up are interested in multiple issues and interested in providing
cross-area review.  We may be helping some people justify attending
the entire week because they do not know which days to attend.
I for one do not know how to evaluate any proposals to change how we
are doing things unless I can tell which of these mays are true and
which are false.

--Sam

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From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:45:00 -0700

It has definitely  been brought to our attention in the WebDAV WG that 
people aren't attending because they don't know if or when a meeting 
will occur long enough in advance to make business plans and 
reservations.  We've tried to put some mild pressure on document 
editors to attend for some valuable face-to-face high-bandwidth 
discussions to resolve long-standing and problematic issues, but that 
was the answer we got from the editors.

Then again, it could possibly be an excuse from people who don't even 
seem to believe there are difficult issues or that face-to-face time 
could help resolve them.

I also always attend all week, and I have tried to encourage others to 
do so for the benefits of cross-WG communication and more time 
available for informal discussions, but obviously many people in Apps 
don't attend all week (if at all).  I don't know if Apps is unusual in 
this respect.

Lisa

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From: Magnus Westerlund <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:18:16 +0200

> helps make bringing in new voices easier.

This is definitely a problem for AVT. We have a lot of document editors 
and WG participants that are only interested in AVT. Thus many 
participants are only coming for the AVT meeting and we usually get some 
complains and requests that has to do with when they can attend.

This time we have received especially many, as the current draft moved 
AVT from its previously announce Wednesday and Thursday to Monday and 
Thursday. Thus apparently preventing a number of participants and 
document editors presenting from attending one or the other day.

I would encourage that we try to get the agenda in order a bit earlier. 
I would however assume that it will result in that chairs will request a 
little bit more WG time. I however have no problem of knowing how much 
time I need for AVT. We need 4-4.5 hours, there hasn't been a meeting in 
many years that would fit into a single 2.5 hour slot.

Cheers

Magnus Westerlund

Multimedia Technologies, Ericsson Research EAB/TVA/A
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ericsson AB                | Phone +46 8 4048287
Torshamsgatan 23           | Fax   +46 8 7575550
S-164 80 Stockholm, Sweden | mailto: [email-masked]

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From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:20:40 +0200

One interesting summary of this thread is: WGs are different.
                                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some really need fixed dates, because of their extrovert nature.  Some 
don't, or maybe not that much (e.g., being moved around within the same 
half-week cluster is OK).

Some can easily plan their requirements in advance.  Some are more 
volatile in their planning.

When redesigning this, please don't build a Procrustes bed.

Gruesse, Carsten