Subject: Re: [irsg] working group sessions and experimenting with different forms of collaboration

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2016 14:38:27 -0500

Dear WG chairs,

On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 1:56 AM, Jari Arkko <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> I wanted to remind you all about a power you have, and suggest that it
> might be useful to think about the ways that you use the time in your
> working group sessions.
>
> In Berlin we heard several people suggesting that it would be useful for
> the IETF to have more time for unstructured collaboration. And of course,
> we’ve always valued interoperability testing, implementation and other
> efforts that go beyond our usual working group sessions. The IESG owns the
> discussion about the general organisation of the week, split of time, and
> so on. And see my other mail.
>
> But I’d like to suggest that you as working group chairs also need to
> think about this in your working groups. Specifically, I’d like to remind
> that you are in a position to decide how to use your working group’s time.
> Almost all working groups use all of their time for regular discussion of
> issues, drafts, charter changes, and so on.
>
> That’s of course completely appropriate and expected. But I wanted to say
> that if you wanted to experiment with other forms of collaboration within
> your working group, you would be entitled to do so, this is in your power.
> Your ADs will be supportive of such experiments as well.
>
> For instance, you might use one of your slots for a hacking session on
> your group’s technology or run part of your meeting in some more free form
> meeting style (open space, unconference, etc *). Or any other ideas that
> you may have.  We would like to ask you to think if you want to do
> something beyond the usual format. If you do come up with ideas, feel free
> to try them, and also let your AD know what you’re doing. You could for
> instance, get two or three short meeting slots during the week, and devote
> one of them for something else than a traditional working group meeting.

We've been encouraging chairs to think about the way you organize your work
in slots at IETF meetings. Working group chairs actually do have more
flexibility than we've been using, and we'd like to help you use that
flexibility.

We didn't have a lot of flexibility for Seoul, so that discussion hasn't
been a priority, but we do for subsequent IETF meetings, the next IETF
meeting isn't THAT far away, and the IESG would like to understand what
people are thinking.

So, I have two requests:

   - If you're already doing something with your working group that you
   don't see many other working groups doing, please drop me a private note
   explaining what you're doing.

   - If you've already thought of something you'd like to try with your
   working group, please drop me a private note explaining what you'd like to
   try.

I'll summarize what I get back by November 4 (next Friday) to this mailing
list, and then we can talk more.

Thanks,

Spencer, for the IESG

> For information, in Seoul we will have tighter than usual space
> constraint. We can unfortunately not devote additional rooms for this, so
> whatever gets done needs to fit to the meeting slots that the working group
> gets. In Chicago we will be able to have more space, so if you want to do
> something that requires extra rooms then that can be made happen there.
> Also, the currently available shortest meeting slot duration is one hour,
> though we are working on better tooling to allow shared/split sessions to
> be more easily scheduled, where that makes otherwise logistical sense. But
> that change isn’t available in Seoul. Finally, you obviously want to make
> sure you’ll still have some regular slots as well, as some of the new ideas
> may not work as well with remote or ESL participants; I’m not suggesting
> that you get rid of the usual process entirely :-)
>
> Jari (for the IESG)
>
> *) There are many possibilities here, but for reference here is one that I
> have sometimes used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology
>
>