Re: Interim meetings - changing the way we work

On Feb 26, 2015:2:39 PM, at 2:39 PM, Andy Bierman 
<andy(_at_)yumaworks(_dot_)com> wrote:

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 8:27 AM, Joel M. Halpern 
<jmh(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com> wrote:

If the calls are produce action items and proposed resolutions that are
taken to the working group email list in a clear fashion, then it is
probably working well enough.

I am not seeing that from most of these groups.

If there are a lot of open issues (which would seem to go with having value
in multiple calls) then a wiki or other easily used tracker to keep current
information accessible is understandable.  I personally find that using
those trackers as a place to have the conversations,as some WG chairs want
to do, is very difficult.  But I can't say it is against the rules.

If there is going to be noticable time lag between issues being raised and
their being addressed in the document, using the document tracker to record
all the issues and their resolutions is also very helpful.

And I expect that design teams have more frequent calls than working groups.
That is why you have a design team.

So I am not saying we should never use conference calls.  And I am not
saying we should not use good tooling.
But I am seeing more and more working groups having biweekly conference
calls.  It is quite understandable that the discussion may continue from
call to call.  But that means that the WG is NOT seeing the discussion on
the list.  And that the resolution, when it comes to the list, will be
missing a LOT of context.



I agree with your concerns.
IMO virtual interim meetings should be used for discussing
big issues where the WG is stuck.  They should not be for
minor issues that could be handled on the mailing list.
They should not be status meetings either.

If work shifts away from the mailing lists to bi-weekly meetings,
then this is somewhat unfair to the people who live in timezones
where the meeting time is outside normal business hours.


        I would argue that all of the IETF's WGs should move to some form of 
more granular meetings. This one key way how other organizations have 
accelerated their production rate. In the various open source organizations my 
teams and I 
participate often meet weekly. These meetings sometimes are not even using an 
A/V method - some use IRC. In other
cases all we do is record the Hangout or WebEx and make it available later with 
some meetbot notes. Another case in point is how we've been able to put our 
foot down on the gas in NETMOD with periodically scheduled (weekly) meetings. 
We have witnessed a significant increase in progressing both minor and major 
issues as well as closing down milestones that in the past were taking 
literally over a year, down to a few months. But those specific meetings incur 
significant and frankly a lot of unnecessary overhead due to IETF requirements. 
 We need to stop considering any form of officially scheduled meeting to have 
to comply with all of the requirements of a full-on in person meeting.

        My personal observation is that this is also why the IETF's leadership 
needs to carefully review the overhead associated with interim meetings to 
ensure they do not discourage/hamper/slow interim meetings.

        --Tom

Yours,
Joel


Andy


On 2/26/15 11:13 AM, Mary Barnes wrote:


On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 9:57 AM, Joel Halpern Direct
<jmh(_dot_)direct(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com 
<mailto:jmh(_dot_)direct(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com>> wrote:

   One of the working groups where I have observed this is one where I
   am a document author and was an active contributor.  I am still
   trying to contribute.  Minutes don't cut it.  (I looked at the
   minutes from the one session I participated in.  While they were
   formally correct, I doubt that they would have helped anyone not on
   the call actually engage in the discussion.  As evidence I point out
   that the discussions do not get followed up on the list.

[MB] Aren't these all management issues?  I would think the WG chairs
would ensure that all the key contributors are available. And, of
course, there should be adequate minutes produced along with action
items identified and I would assume those are taken to the mailing list
and/or added to an issue tracker.  As others have noted email is not the
best way to resolve some of the more complex problems introduced in our
technical work.  I totally agree about the timezone issue.  For CLUE WG,
folks were flexible about shifting our meetings to ensure an attendee in
Australia could attend when we were discussing issues to which he had
input.  Note, that we identified ahead of time on our WG wiki what the
topic for that meeting was.  We were flexible about re-arranging those
for the key contributors.  [/MB]


   One of the other groups I follow, and no I don't expect the work to
   be optimized for a follower.  But judging from what I see, even an
   active participant and author would have trouble if they could not
   make the phone calls.

   We claim that we do our work on the email list.  I do understand
   that phone calls and face to face meetings are useful for resolving
   hard issues.  I am not saying "don't have interims".  But if one is
   having a phone call every two to three weeks, then the working group
   is NOT conducting its work on the mailing list.  If we want to throw
   in the towel and say that you need a higher engagement level to
   participate, then we should own up to that.  It will severely harm
   cross-fertilization and participation in multiple working groups.
   But maybe that is what we need to give up.

[MB] In CLUE WG, we had weekly calls (if we had a topic identified that
we felt benefitted from a verbal discussion.  Again, I think it's a
management issue if things are not documented and what is deemed to be
consensus is not taken to the WG mailing list for confirmation and any
additional discussion as necessary.  I still consider the work having
been conducted on the mailing list in that we posted links (or directly
the minutes) to the WG mailing list and when we added issues to the
tracker, the WG gets notified. [/MB]


   But pretending that frequent working group (not design team, working
   group) conference calls are a good way to work and consistent with
   our ethos does not match what I have seen.

[MB] I, of course, totally disagree. We should use all the communication
tools available to progress our work.  I totally agree of the importance
of traceability in the email archives, which is why links to minutes,
issues in the tracker, etc. ought all be posted to the WG mailing list.
IMHO, we would actually benefit from WGs actually using the wikis to
more carefully document decisions - it's a heck of lot easier in some
cases than trying to dig through WG or personal email archives.  [/MB]

   Yours,
   Joel


   On 2/26/15 10:15 AM, Ted Lemon wrote:

       On Feb 26, 2015, at 10:05 AM, Joel M. Halpern
       <jmh(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com 
<mailto:jmh(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com>>
       wrote:

           I need to agree with John here.  There are several WGs I try
to
           monitor that started having frequent interim conference calls.
           There is no way I can reliably make time for that.  The
           advantage
           of email is that I can fit it in around the work I need to do
           (including reading it during corporate conference calls.)
           In one
           case I have had to dramatically reduce my effective
           participation
           in the WG because most of the work moved to the conference
           calls.


       If you "try to monitor" these working groups, it sounds like you
       aren't an active participant.   The meetings are supposed to be
       minuted, so you ought to be able to monitor them by reading the
       minutes.

       Do you think we should optimize working groups for getting work
       done,
       or for being monitored?   Or have I misunderstood what you mean
when
       you say "try to monitor"?