ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director

2013-03-04 06:18:25
Dave said what I was thinking, but with many more words.  *We* have put 
ourselves in a box.  If we work the way we worked when we published 100 RFC's a 
year, we are sure to fail.  As a side note, there are over 100 drafts in the 
RFC Editor queue this instant.

As Dave and Hannes have pointed out, the IESG has effectively created the 
unwritten requirement, "must work for a very large company." Look at the 
current IESG.  Two thirds are directly employed by large companies.  Of the 
five remaining, two have their IETF participation paid for by the US government 
and one has their participation paid for by the EU.  One AD looks like he comes 
from academia, but really works in their FFRDC, which is a fancy term for a 
large company owned by a university.

So, out of 15 Area Directors, we have precisely one who comes from a company or 
organization with less than $1B in revenues or direct government support.

As has been pointed out numerous times, the 50% effort figure rapidly 
approaches 100%.  That means we are telling the community that only people for 
whom their day job is being on the IESG are eligible to apply.  Note my careful 
use of the word 'eligible.'  How many people have been passed over for an AD 
nomination because they were unsure of where they would be working in a year or 
if they had employer support?  The answer is a substantial number.

I will say it again - the IETF is organized by us.  Therefore, this situation 
is created by us.  We have the power to fix it.  We have to want to fix it.  
Saying there is nothing we can do because this is the way it is is the same as 
saying we do not WANT to fix it.


On Mar 4, 2013, at 5:45 AM, Hannes Tschofenig 
<hannes(_dot_)tschofenig(_at_)gmx(_dot_)net> wrote:

The time commitment is a very good point, Dave.

If we want to also involve people who do not work for big corporations (or 
get otherwise sponsored by big organizations) then the idea of having ADs 
review every document may need to get a bit relaxed. Today, almost all of the 
ADs (and IAB members) work for major enterprises. 

In companies managers typically do not get involved in every little technical 
detail but rather need to ensure that the work gets done. Maybe ADs could 
delegate more tasks to directorates, as it is done in the security area 
already. This also avoids the problem that an AD becomes the bottleneck in 
understanding the work that working groups produce. This happened in the past 
as well. 

Ciao
Hannes

On Mar 3, 2013, at 6:14 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:


On 3/3/2013 4:56 AM, Eric Burger wrote:
The 50% time commitment is an IESG-imposed requirement. If that is really 
the problem, we have had areas with more than two ADs.


Finding qualified Transport ADs has been a continuing problem for a number 
of years.  This year's impasse was inevitable.  Whatever the problem, it's 
deep-seated.[*]

While the problem for Transport is extreme, it's generally difficult to find 
a good range of qualified candidates for AD.  A major barrier is the time 
commitment to the job.  And it's not really a 50% slot; the reality for most 
ADs seemed to be in the 75-100% range.

This is a massive cost to their employer, both in raw dollars and 
opportunity cost -- ADs are typically senior contributors.  That means 
removing a strategic resource from the company's main activities. To take a 
senior contributor away usually requires that the company be very large and 
have a very deep bench of talent.

That's an onerous burden, in my view, and significantly reduces the pool of 
available candidates.

The IESG needs to decide that the job is a 25% job -- an actual terms -- and 
then decide what tasks are essential to perform within that amount of time.  
This will require a significant change in the way ADs do their work.

Reducing the real, budgeted time for an ADs job should significantly 
increase the pool of available candidates.  As a side benefit, it should 
also significantly improve the diversity of the pool, along most parameters.

As an obvious example of what to change, it means that ADs need to change 
their paradigm for document review.

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net


Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail