Re: Looking for Area Directors Under Lampposts

Some comments from the vantage of my current position.

On 11/10/15 8:16 AM, Dave Crocker wrote:
> On 11/7/2015 5:59 PM, Michael Richardson wrote:
> > The nomcom used to ask the question: "The AD job is a 50% 
> > commitment" (and the joke was: 50% of an 80 hour week)
> ...
> > The nomcom now asks a different question: "The AD job is supposed 
> > to be a 50% commitment, but has grown.
>
> The difference in the approaches is useful and  encouraging.
>
> However the problem is in the parenthetical joke, because it isn't 
> really a joke.  We really do tend to think of the AD job that way.
>
> So the only thing that will make the AD job more accessible to staff
>  from smaller companies is to make it possible for the AD job to take
>  /substantially/ less time.
It varies, but for me it's less than 2 hours a day plus roughly speaking
three 8-10 day  commitments associated with an IETF meeting and 4-6 days
for a retreat each year.

> Think in terms of 25%, not 50%.
>
> This requires viewing the AD job considerably more modestly than we 
> do now.
From my vantage-point, IESG is a part time mid-career management
posting. it's hard to be effective in two years and you probably
shouldn't do it for more than 3 terms in a row so it's a 4-6 year
commitment.

> Ironically, it will probably make the AD job more useful.
>
> ADs vary wildly in what they choose to do and how they choose to do 
> it. But too many ADs tend towards viewing their role as one of 
> technical leadership.[*]
It would be a challenge to be a key technical contributor in an area and
an AD at the same time. There is an important organizational component,
respecting fostering new work, managing the area, or coordinating
cross-area work. In operations  and management, netconf/yang related
network management has been a big cross-area topic for the last two
years and we have re-organized around supporting it.

> That's what they've developed in the day job, and it's what they are 
> most comfortable doing.  The task of an AD is fundamentally 
> different.
>
> The reality is that IETF work does not succeed or fail because of the
> technical input from an AD. Nor does it succeed because of an AD's
> "leadership".  That an AD occasionally catches some important error
> in a draft is a distraction, not a justification.
While it is clear to me that perceptions of the role vary among iesg
members, Operations and Management leans heavily on the directorate we have
constructed for the purposes of review. From my vantage point we manage
the Last-Call/IESG review rather than being the nexus of it.

When I look at  drafts on the IESG agenda I want to know what happened
in IETF LC GENART/SECDIR/OPSDIR, what the working group thinks of the
IPR if any and how the document fits with respect to past or forthcoming
work, whether registry polices are reasonable or complied with. I'm not
so interested in technical merit or correctness from my own vantage
point since I am rarely the consumer for whom the document was intended.
I am certainly not an arbiter of taste.

> IETF work is subject to extensive reviews from many sources; the 
> statistical import of late-stage AD review is in the noise.  Again: 
> For all the considerable amount of time ADs spend on technical and 
> procedural minutia little-to-no real benefit is produced, other than 
> the consumption of time and the production of frustration.
>
> The primary effect of much of the exceptional intervention by ADs is 
> to increase the perception of the IETF as having too many barriers to
> be worth the effort.
>
> More broadly, ADs need to stop believing that the fate of the 
> Internet rests on their shoulders.  For that matter, they need to 
> stop believing that the fate of the IETF rests on their shoulders.
I don't view it that way. I hope others also do not. With respect to
the long term viability of the IETF as a place to do work, managing a
subset of the working groups, bofs, and participants in productive
efforts is far more important imho then late stage document review.

> IETF efforts succeed when there is a serious community need, 
> significant perception of the need by the community that includes a 
> sense of timely urgency, significant community participation, 
> significant community agreement on the goals, and a general 
> willingness to compromise towards the common goals. None of this has 
> anything to do with ADs (or the IAB).
>
> When performed well, the AD job is one of helping to make sure that 
> community ducks are lined up properly.  They facilitate the process 
> of organizing and operating an effort.  They don't "direct" the 
> actual work.  They don't initiate it and they don't manage the 
> internal working group process nor the technical content that is 
> developed.
Agree.

> Defining the AD job to be fundamentally more modest and fundamentally
> one of facilitation will simultaneously make the job accessible to a
> much wider range of candidates and make the job more useful to the
> community.
>
> d/
>
> [*] The variation in how ADs see the role of "leadership" is also a 
> problem.  Some believe they have to intervene constantly and at low 
> levels.  I've even been told that one AD once asked another what they
> should raise as a DISCUSS, apparently on the premise that they felt
> obligated to raise some sort of DISCUSS.  Such a compulsion is a
> corruption of the AD's role.  More recently I watched quite a few ADs
> press for adding editorial content to a (my) Independent Stream draft
> RFC, going far beyond the explicit constraints of the IESG's 
> agreement with the RFC Editor.  Simply paying attention to the rules 
> would probably eliminate a noticeable amount of AD make-work.

signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature