A couple of things.
The nomcom is not either individually nor collectively the "hiring manager" for
the IETF. It neither makes the final decision (that's the CB's call), nor does
it direct the work of the "hired" entity.
The Nomcom is and always has been a "search committee" and as such it gathers
and winnows candidates before proposing them for confirmation. Indeed, there
is no bar to the Nomcom proposing multiple candidates for a position and
allowing the CB to choose its preference - that hasn't actually been done, but
its not barred.
The interview should be used to fill in details not clear from the
questionnaire, so matters of fairness should be addressed when crafting the
questions, not later when you get around to talking with the candidate.
Generally, the interview should be used to evaluate the BS factor of the
answers from the questionnaire and not delve into new fields or hobby horses of
the interviewers.
The digression to "thinking slow" is interesting, but somewhat trendy. Next
year there will be another interview and decision method that will be trendy
and its unclear why this "thinking slow" would be a better choice than next
year's flavor and why it should be immortalized in the next version of 3777. I
would instead focus on the virtues of clarity, completeness and fairness and
leave the rest of it to the best abilities of the chosen Nomcom. In any event,
attempting to "program" the Nomcom members to a specific behavior pattern will
be unsuccessful.
Allison - your desire to have 3+ interviewers per interviewee is going to
contribute to slowing down the process even more. At this point I see us
starting to try and begin the process a full two years before confirmation.
(Yup - hyperbole, but seriously, we're spending WAY too much calendar time from
first indication of candidacy to selection).
Mike
At 04:24 AM 2/11/2015, Allison Mankin wrote:
Murray,  see if these paragraphs work in the draft. I've covered the points
that I suggested in my point 3 that you quoted. Thanks very much for the
ping!!
Section ?? Â - Hiring Manager Responsibilities of the Nomcom
The voting members of the Nomcom serve as hiring managers for the leadership
of the IETF. That responsibility includes not only assessing whether those
nominated are technically capable of the leadership roles in question but also
whether they will serve well to lead others and work synergistically in the
bodies, the IESG, the IAB, and the IAOC. To make good judgements on these
axes, the Nomcom needs to cultivate very good listening (to interviews, to
feedback). Even more so, the Nomcom should cultivate their skills of  "slow
thinking" as they evaluate, interview and deliberate. The Nomcom should be
careful to really digest the resumes, feedback and other input about
candidates, because otherwise it is too easy to pick a familiar or "famous"
candidate when a less well-known candidate may have a great deal more to
offer. This term "slow thinking" comes from the 2011 book "Thinking Fast and
Slow" by the economics Nobelist Daniel Kahneman. Slow thinking refers to
careful, thorough, deliberative processes of thought, in contrast to rapid
judgements, intuition, gut feelings, all of which make up fast thinking.Â
During fast thinking, unconscious biases have extra sway so that equal or more
competent nominees may be dismissed too quickly compared with nominees who are
"known quantities." Â Fast thinking is likely to result in not truly
digesting and perceiving every candidate's skills - based on gut feelings,
nominating panels give less time to the unfamiliar resumes, are less conscious
of all the qualifications of the less familiar candidates. It is very
important for the IETF as an organization that excellent nominees not be
inadvertently overlooked.Â
Section ?? - A Note about Interviewing
Interviews that the Nomcom decides to conduct need to be carefully planned and
organized to emphasize fairness and consistency to the candidates. While the
specific procedures will be determined by each Nomcom aided by the Nomcom
Chair, here are some overarching principals: Â it is advisable to prepare a
starting slate of questions that each nominee in particular positions will all
be asked; this ensures a basic fairness and also helps to make interviews
complete. Each interview should have sufficient participants, including a
set minimum number of voting members. One approach to organizing interviews
is for the Chair to assign a Lead, a Scribe, and one or more Observers for
each. The outcome of having consistently sized and organized interview
panels is that all nominees will receive fair amounts of attention and
sufficient efforts on interview reports to be shared with the rest of the
Nomcom. Â Â
On 11 February 2015 at 02:40, Murray S. Kucherawy
<<mailto:superuser(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>superuser(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
Cycling back around since the threads died off:
On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Allison Mankin
<<mailto:allison(_dot_)mankin(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>allison(_dot_)mankin(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
wrote:
3. A bit fuzzier, but I think important, would be to include some guiding
language for Nomcoms about their task as hiring managers recruiting and
selecting leadership for the IETF. I found it very important to advise my
Nomcom to use "slow thinking" Â (in Kahneman's sense) and make sure to really
digest the resumes, questionnaires and feedback, because the pace of the
Nomcom and human nature tend to result in "fast" or intuitive dismissal of
some really good candidates based on e.g. their having less fame. Similarly,
without constraining the exact procedures, it is important to explicitly find
ways to make interviews consistent across candidates and to have enough of a
panel of interviewers. The pace and stress of scheduling interviews means
it's important to put these goals front and center, because they are actually
quite challenging to accomplish.
I can propose some text for these.
Hi Allison,
I think I've nailed down the other two, but I would really like some text for
this last one. You probably have a much better idea of what you'd like to
see here than I do.
I may post -02 tonight so people can see the other proposed changes. If I do
that, I can catch your text in -03.
-MSK