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Re: Nomcom off in the wilderness: Transport AD

2013-03-06 10:40:40
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> 
wrote:

On 3/6/2013 6:17 AM, Sam Hartman wrote:

"Dave" == Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> writes:

     Dave>      Candidates could choose to circulate the first part
     Dave> publicly.


I think having a public discussion of specific candidates would be
undesirable.


Just to be clear:  I am not suggesting public discussion.  I'm suggesting
that candidates make their responses available to the community, so the
community can have additional information for providing feedback to the
Nomcom.
[MB] I think the Nomcom wiki would be a natural place for these
questionnaires to be made available.  I think that could improve the
quality and usefulness of community input.  It's hard for folks to
remember everything someone has done in a particular area -
particularly things that happened 10-12 years back.  Very few people
are involved in every draft/work item someone progresses, nor are they
in all the WG sessions they chair.  They may also have forgotten an
individual took over critical and conflict ridden working group
documents and successfully brought them to completion. When something
goes smoothly per the process, the work to do that is often not
visible.   Many of the individuals that provide input are not aware of
all the conflicts and challenges an individual has dealt with.  This
also gives the community more insight into how the individual would
deal with challenges in the area and what the individual sees as
challenges.

In addition, having this information readily available provides
background as to what the individual has accomplished outside IETF.
There are IETF participants that are under-utilized in IETF in terms
of what they are capable of based upon past accomplishments across a
variety of technologies as well as other relevant SDO experiences.  I
believe this latter point relates to the discussion around whether
someone that has shown they can learn new things quickly and is
capable of applying skills that have already been developed (in
another context) to a new technical context.  IMHO, folks that have
only IETF or a single technology experience may be less effective
overall than folks with broader industry experience.  In particular
given that some of the discussion around the AD roles is the
importance of being able to evaluate work across multiple areas.

Based on my experiences with Nomcom, the comments from the community
are often actually not that helpful.  Despite the request, many of the
comments don't provide constructive detail that allows the Nomcom
(many who have zero personal or work experience with the nominees) to
make decisions with any objectivity.  Right now, the process is almost
entirely subjective.  Not to get too OT to this post, but I'll bring
up the fact again, that only a small percentage of the community
(including leadership!) actually provide input to the process.  It was
only around 10% when I chaired nomcom - that's pathetic IMHO.

In one sense, I think this suggestion is entirely consistent with how
an organization evaluates folks for work positions.  Often a hiring
manager will ask folks that will be peers to review resumes, interview
the individual and provide comments even though they are not the ones
to make the final decision. In terms of Nomcom, the voting members are
in a similar role as hiring managers and the folks that review the
resumes and provide comments are just peers that can provide valuable
input to the hiring manager so they get an employee with good
qualifications.
[/MB]

By way of anticipating the challenge our community has in restraint from the
type of public discussion you cite, I could imagine that the sergeant at
arms of the ietf list could declare discussion of specific candidates
inappropriate.

[MB] Per my suggestion, this wouldn't be an issue at all. Folks
provide the questionnaire to the Nomcom.  Of course, the Nomcom may
want to reconsider what questions might be public versus nomcom only -
just as was done 5 years ago with regards to what information is
shared with the confirming bodies. [/MB]


 I actually suspect knowing that can happen is likely to reduce
future candidate pools.


We went 20 years with this same concern being used as a basis for not making
the list of candidates public.  It actually hurt Nomcom's work quite a bit,
and making the list public has been massively helpful.
[MB] Exactly. [/MB]

There needs to be limits to public review, which is why it makes sense for
Nomcom deliberations to be private.  But there is also a need for
appropriate amounts of public accountability.


d/
--
 Dave Crocker
 Brandenburg InternetWorking
 bbiw.net