I have some opinions about this, not to the mistaken for the IESG's or IETF's
official opinions.
First off, I think we should be very careful when thinking about funding
models. I like an IETF where people come to do stuff (write docs for themselves
and others, chair WGs, work as ADs, …) because it is useful for themselves and
their employers - directly or indirectly, short term or long term, but there
needs to be a reason we all are here. A desirable feature of a funding model is
to help direct efforts to directions that are actually useful for the world.
This is not to say that it would be the only desirable feature of a funding
model, we have serious problems with academic participation, for instance. And
we have too many situations where we only have large companies involved. But I
could also imagine funding models that would support ADs but would move IETF
towards doing things that are not tied to real world and real Internet
problems. But it is possible there is a useful middle ground.
Secondly, we've talked about this in the IESG and the community last spring
when we had only one TSV AD for a while. My read of the situation is that
reducing the task to a better manageable one is the most reasonable course of
action. It would also solve many of the undesirable aspects of the funding
model. I can only agree with Adrian who said:
Please don't assume we ADs want this to be full time work.
Thirdly, if you are considering volunteering for an AD task, please do not feel
that you need to be limited by current operating models. The AD is a management
position, and we expect managers to have an idea how to run things, often
better than what has been done previously. For instance, several ADs make
extensive use of directorates in their review tasks, for instance several Gen
ADs have traditionally relied almost entirely on directorate help (at least
unless problems show up in review of a document). Other ADs do this too, though
to a lesser extent due to a different type of their task. But for all of these
positions, if you have an idea how to run it best - please volunteer and expect
to get a lot of latitude to run your area how you see best!
Fourth, the IESG's desirable qualifications are just our opinions, and the
nomcom needs to decide what type of people the IETF really needs. Hopefully
that is the kind of people that I referred to above that know how to organise
their and others work in an efficient manner! And the areas are largely run by
the ADs very independently. The IESG does control things like how we run the
common things, the tele chats, and we do control how many areas there are. If
it helped to increase or reduce the number of ADs, we'd do it in a heartbeat.
However, the quick solution of getting additional ADs to share tasks more
widely is not necessarily good either, because the overall team size would
grow, with the inter-IESG coordination becoming harder. I think we are already
at a practical limit. Shrinking the IESG might make us think harder about what
tasks really are absolutely necessary :-)
Finally, I'll agree with Ted:
You forgot "from a magical pool of better qualified WG chairs who have the
time and inclination to take on the work." This is actually very similar to
the AD acquisition problem.
My conclusion is that (a) IETF that does useful things on a timely basis will
naturally attract people to do the work and (b) a big part of the
responsibility is in the IESG's and individual AD's hands - if the manager
doesn't manage his or hers work efficiently, then it is the manager's fault.
As to how to implement (b): I think it is natural that as organisations do more
(and we do quite a bit, and have been for a long time) the management needs to
give up on managing all details, and have to spend more of their time in
finding the good coders than fixing the bugs in the code themselves :-)
Delegate. Focus on the strategic things. Yeah, maybe easier said than done.
Jari