Subject: WG Conflict Clarity

From: Alvaro Retana <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 07:27:00 -0700

Dear WG Chairs:

As all of you know, a conflict-free IETF agenda is virtually impossible to
achieve.  Yet, the Secretariat always pulls off a wonderful job in dealing
with all the constraints.

The inconsistent use of priorities to indicate conflicts is an issue that
comes up every time the agenda is worked on: the intent is not always clear
to the Secretariat, the ADs...or sometimes even the Chairs.

To address this issue and provide Conflict Clarity, we are planning to
replace the priority options with an explicit indication of the type of
conflict.

- Chair Conflict: to indicate other WGs the Chairs also lead, or will be
active participants in the upcoming meeting

- Technology Overlap: to indicate WGs with a related technology or a
closely related charter

- Key Participant Conflict (e.g., presenter, Secretary, etc.): to indicate
WGs with which key participation may overlap in the upcoming meeting

The Special Request field will continue to be available for more specific
needs.  Responsible AD Conflicts are already taken into consideration.

The result will be a clear representation of the needs of each WG.  We
intend for these changes to be effective in time for IETF 106.

Please reply with any comments.

Thanks!!

Alvaro (for the IESG).

---

From: Paul Wouters <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 10:32:51 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019, Alvaro Retana wrote:

> The result will be a clear representation of the needs of each WG.  We intend for these changes to be effective in time for IETF 106.
> 

I think this is a good idea.

Paul

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 14:38:13 +0000

So do I

---

From: "Aaron Falk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 10:41:29 -0400

>     I think this is a good idea.

+1

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 15:52:09 +0100

Makes sense to me, and confirms the ways I have been using the field - if some has an active role in my meeting (presenter, chair, etc), then I have listed their other working groups as conflicts. This will just make that more explicit.

The one issue I would raise is that I request a meeting slot soon after an IETF meeting for the next, but develop the agenda close to the next, and as a result know my presenters at the later date. There is still room for error...

Sent using a machine that autocorrects in interesting ways...

> On Jun 28, 2019, at 3:27 PM, Alvaro Retana <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Dear WG Chairs:
> 
> As all of you know, a conflict-free IETF agenda is virtually impossible to achieve.  Yet, the Secretariat always pulls off a wonderful job in dealing with all the constraints.
> 
> The inconsistent use of priorities to indicate conflicts is an issue that comes up every time the agenda is worked on: the intent is not always clear to the Secretariat, the ADs...or sometimes even the Chairs. 
> 
> To address this issue and provide Conflict Clarity, we are planning to replace the priority options with an explicit indication of the type of conflict.
> 
> - Chair Conflict: to indicate other WGs the Chairs also lead, or will be active participants in the upcoming meeting
> 
> - Technology Overlap: to indicate WGs with a related technology or a closely related charter 
> 
> - Key Participant Conflict (e.g., presenter, Secretary, etc.): to indicate WGs with which key participation may overlap in the upcoming meeting
> 
> The Special Request field will continue to be available for more specific needs.  Responsible AD Conflicts are already taken into consideration.
> 
>

---

From: "Black, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 15:07:14 +0000

Alvaro,

This looks like a good idea, but seems to be missing something that could be rather useful when push comes to shove in dealing with conflicts  – a Doodle-like ability to tag each conflict as “unavoidable” vs. “If need be” [1].  The latter is for conflicts that are inconvenient but not fatal (e.g., as a chair of a multi-chair WG, I can step out for 10-15 minutes to go do/say something in another WG meeting if necessary, but that’s not preferable).

[1] https://help.doodle.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012150093-How-do-I-vote-if-need-be-on-a-poll-

Thanks, --David

From: WGChairs <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of Alvaro Retana
Sent: Friday, June 28, 2019 10:27 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: WG Conflict Clarity

[EXTERNAL EMAIL]
Dear WG Chairs:

Thanks!!

Alvaro (for the IESG).

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 07:26:53 -0800

On 6/28/19 7:07 AM, Black, David wrote:
> This looks like a good idea, but seems to be missing something that
> could be rather useful when push comes to shove in dealing with
> conflicts  – a Doodle-like ability to tag each conflict as “unavoidable”
> vs. “If need be” [1].  The latter is for conflicts that are inconvenient
> but not fatal (e.g., as a chair of a multi-chair WG, I can step out for
> 10-15 minutes to go do/say something in another WG meeting if necessary,
> but that’s not preferable).

I think that that, unfortunately, is the sort of thing where
lack of absolute clarity about the terms has led to the current
situation, in which a few people mark things they're interested
in as high priority.

Scheduling seems to be becoming more and more difficult, and I'm
enthusiastic about the new policy.  It may need tweaking but I
think asking about the nature of the conflict rather than simply
identifying them will help ease agenda creation.

At a minimum it's worth giving a try, and if there turn out to
be more conflicts as a result of the experiment, it can be
tweaked or rolled back.

Melinda

-- 
Melinda Shore
[email-masked]

Software longa, hardware brevis

---

From: Karen O'Donoghue <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 15:55:20 +0000

This makes sense to me. I agree that the old way was broken. This makes explicit the type of conflict without attaching a subjective “how important is it” type of flag to it.

On Jun 28, 2019, at 10:27 AM, Alvaro Retana <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Dear WG Chairs:

Thanks!!

Alvaro (for the IESG).

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 12:40:22 -0400

I really like this approach.  I think it will be better than the current situation, but I will not be surprised if further refinement is needed in the future.

Russ

> On Jun 28, 2019, at 10:27 AM, Alvaro Retana <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
> Dear WG Chairs:
>

---

From: Alvaro Retana <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:16:54 -0700

On June 28, 2019 at 10:52:29 AM, Fred Baker ([email-masked])
wrote:

Fred:

Hi!

The one issue I would raise is that I request a meeting slot soon after an
IETF meeting for the next, but develop the agenda close to the next, and as
a result know my presenters at the later date. There is still room for
error...

Yes, of course!  Nothing is perfect.

Alvaro.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 15:17:15 -0400

Thank you for this, I think it is a good improvement.

    > WGs with which key participation may overlap in the upcoming meeting

Given two WG, "A" and "B" with chairs "A1", "A2" and "B1" and "B2"

If A1==B1, that's clearly a chair conflict, as the chair can't be in both
places.

If A1 is a Key Participant in group B, what kind of conflict is that?

Is it a Chair Conflict for A and a Key Participant conflitct for B?
Or is it also a Chair Conflict?

Would Technology Overlap conflicts be explicitely stated in WG charters?
(Often they say, "will coordinate with WG XYZ" already)

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-

---

From: "MORTON, ALFRED C (AL)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 19:35:36 +0000

From: WGChairs [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Aaron Falk
Sent: Friday, June 28, 2019 10:41 AM
To: Salz, Rich <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: WG Conflict Clarity

So do I

+1

[acm] +1, and if some tweaks emerge from resolving conflicts this time (categories of conflict), there is time to implement them.

Al

---

From: Alvaro Retana <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 15:15:24 -0500

On June 28, 2019 at 3:17:17 PM, Michael Richardson ([email-masked])
wrote:

Michael:

Hi!

That is how we intended it.

...

I think that is a related but independent question.

There may be some indication in the Charters of necessary coordination.
But that is not a requirement to call out a conflict, and the indication of
the conflict is not meant to be confirmed in the Charter nor to trigger an
update.  As an example, sometimes a WG will discuss a specific topic that
may benefit from expertise from a specific set of people; I think that
could be expressed as a Technology Overlap for that session.

Thanks!

Alvaro.

---

From: Wes Hardaker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 20:48:21 -0700

I like the idea, but I would think implementation of the Key Participant
Conflict list would be hard for chairs to fill.  Fred said:

On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 7:52 AM Fred Baker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Makes sense to me, and confirms the ways I have been using the field - if
> some has an active role in my meeting (presenter, chair, etc), then I have
> listed their other working groups as conflicts. This will just make that
> more explicit.
>

I've never, in many years of presenting at IETFs, had a chair ask me what
other groups I'm active in.  And trust me, they likely couldn't have
guessed the full list easily as I've dabbled in lots of areas and their
view of me has likely been associated with a single sub-area.  I would
suggest that chairs be encouraged to make sure and ask likely speakers for
such a list?

[this could easily snow-ball to having even more documented conflicts to
deal with, unfortunately; IE, I have concerns that it will not make session
planning actually easier, but rather could make it harder]

-- 
Wes Hardaker
USC/ISI

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2019 13:33:42 -0400

Wes Hardaker <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > view of me has likely been associated with a single sub-area.

Maybe that's a bug :-)

    > planning actually easier, but rather could make it harder]

The goal of clarifying these conflicts is not so that we can eliminate them,
but so that we can know when we can't eliminate them, which (kind of) conflict we are
compromising.

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2019 12:23:34 -0400

> On Jun 28, 2019, at 11:48 PM, Wes Hardaker <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> I've never, in many years of presenting at IETFs, had a chair ask me what other groups I'm active in.  And trust me, they likely couldn't have guessed the full list easily as I've dabbled in lots of areas and their view of me has likely been associated with a single sub-area.  I would suggest that chairs be encouraged to make sure and ask likely speakers for such a list?

Well, perhaps I should clarify. I look up my presenter's drafts, and determine from that what working groups they are in. I absolutely agree that's not conclusive or complete, but my theory is that the person is presenting in my working group and has a draft in another group; there is at least some possibility of a conflict there.