Re: AdminRest: IASA BCP: Executive Director

--On Friday, November 26, 2004 10:36 AM -0800 Carl Malamud 
<carl(_at_)media(_dot_)org> wrote:
> > There is an obvious question that at least for me drives the
> > answer to  whther the IAD is the IETF Executive Director.
> >
> > As currently practiced / defined, is the IETF Executive
> > Director a full  time job?
> Scott Bradner could probably answer more definitively, but I
> believe  our process documents and other RFCs refer to a role,
> not a job.  Basically, there are a few times in which you need
> to "contact the IETF" and the words "IETF Executive Director"
> means "the full time staff shall ..." and "go find the person
> who has that title."  (Barbara Fuller, as the lead person on
> the Foretec IETF Secretariat is our current Executive
> Director.)
Carl,

I think this is correct, but may miss the point.  The ExecDir 
role encompasses at least four types of activities:
   (i) The designated "go to" person/address for various
   specified standards-related activities and functions.

   (ii) Since the separate position of "IESG Secretary" was
   eliminated some years ago, the focus for staff support for
   the IESG

   (iii) The manager of the standards-secretariat function.

   (iv) The manager of other secretariat functions, especially
   meeting planning and support.

In the aggregate, it is definitely a full-time job.  If we are 
looking for a high-quality service, it might be more than that, 
e.g., during the period in which we had an "IESG Secretary", we 
had roughly two full-time people assigned to those roles, in 
spite of a lower overall workload.
The difficulty here is that, if we are looking for optimal 
efficiency, the first of the roles above requires a good deal of 
IETF-specific, and standards-process-specific, knowledge.  The 
fourth may require almost none, and the others fall somewhere in 
between.  If the sum of the four represents more than one full 
time person --and I think it does-- decisions about how the 
roles get distributed between the person who holds the IAD 
function and the person who holds whatever functions are left 
over (which might or might not include the ExecDir one(s)) are 
profoundly important in driving job descriptions and the 
recruiting process.
> It seems to me that one of the goals of the whole AdminRest
> exercise has been to move overall management responsibility
> for IETF admin. and support activities (IASA) from contractors
> to a "program manager", which is what this BCP is all about.
Let me try to state this a different way, since this is an area 
that we keep circling around with little to show for it besides 
misunderstandings.   As far as I can tell (and reconstruct), 
there was an assumption going into your report, and the process 
that drove it, that there was going to be exactly one full time 
employee of the IETF Administrative (whatever) and that 
everything else was to be contracted out.  That conclusion, 
again IIR, postdates the committee discussions that led to RFC 
3716, was reached in advance of careful evaluation of various 
roles, and has not been critically evaluated since then.  To 
describe the IAD as a "program manager" is, I believe, 
completely accurate wrt various things have been defined and are 
trending, but it is not at all clear to me that "program 
manager" and "IETF Executive Director" represent the same skill 
set.
Now, while one could undoubtedly find experts, as well as 
amateurs, to dispute the point, it is commonly generally 
believed that one does not want organizationally-critical roles 
in the hands of contractors and that employee-type relationships 
are far safer for that purpose.  If nothing else, employee-type 
relationships permit offering benefits and other arrangements 
that reinforce organizational commitments and loyalty.  When 
those arrangements are made for contractors, at least in the US, 
they typically shift the contractor into "statutory employee" 
status, which is normally the worst of both worlds.  Of course, 
there may be exceptions for specific individuals and 
circumstances, but it is probably unwise to design for those 
exceptions.  If the analysis above leaves us needing all or part 
of two distinct people, then one needs to ask whether:
(i) The Exec Dir is the organizationally-critical role and the 
program manager should be a contractor.
(ii) The Program Manager is the organizationally-critical role 
and the Exec Dir can reasonably be a contractor.
(iii) Both are organizationally-critical and the "one employee" 
assumption needs to be carefully reviewed and, if necessary, 
discarded.
> As such, it seems that where  documents refer to "IETF
> Executive Director" that should become (via a paragraph in
> this BCP) a pointer to the IAD or other appropriate position
> as further pointed to by the IAD.
As I said, this seems to miss the point.  If we assume, a 
priori, that the Exec Dir should be the IAD, then we assume that 
the IAD has the necessary skills and time to do the job, 
something that is obviously not incorporated into the various 
provisions of the drafts yet.   If, on the other hand, it is a 
position pointed to by the IAD, then we assume, given the "one 
employee" assumption, that the Exec Dir is a contractor and that 
the community feels comfortable with that key role in contractor 
hands.   It seems to me that this question doesn't yield well to 
handwaving, and that we may need to reexamine (or, perhaps, 
seriously examine for the first time) the "one employee" 
assumption.
> > If it is a full time job, then clearly it should not be
> > combined with the  IAD.  THis implies that we will need
> > budgeting to contract / hire this  person in addition to the
> > IAD.
> So far, the contracting philosophy has been "one and only one"
> person as a full-timer.  Everything else is a contract.  If
> we're going to go 1++ (or designate a contractor as a named
> position), that probably needs to be worked out.  My personal
> feeling: don't tie the hands of your iaoc/iad until they can
> start looking at contracts and how they might/should be let.
Without tying anyone's hands, it seems to me that the decision 
as to whether it is appropriate to delegate the critical Exec 
Dir role to a contractor is one that should be discussed, 
reviewed, and approved by the community, not delegated to an 
IAOC/IAD who are operating under a "one employee" rule as a base 
assumption.
> > >    Unless explicitly delegated with the consent of the
> > >    IAOC, the IAD will also fill the role of the IETF
> > >    Executive Director, as described in various IETF process
> > >    BCPs.
> My own opinion (ymmv) is leave the text as is and strike the
> editorial note.
I have to agree with Scott -- probably both should be stricken. 
But, more generally, it is probably time to review actual roles 
and the "one and only one" decision before it constrains our 
thinking, and that of the transition team and IAOC, in ways that 
may be inappropriate.
   john


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