Summary of WG Chairs Training Discussion

[Margaret Wasserman <mrw@windriver.com>]

Hi All,

I've attached a summary of the WG chairs training discussion
session that was held over lunch on Wednesday, March 19th at
the SF IETF meeting.  This has been reassembled from my
cryptic notes.  If I've missed anything important, please
speak up.

Further discussion of this topic and follow-up from the meeting
will take place on the wgchairs-training mailing list:

List: wgchairs-training@ops.ietf.org
Subscribe: majordomo@ops.ietf.org
Body: "subscribe wgchairs-training" (no quotes)
Archive: http://ops.ietf.org/lists/wgchairs-training/

Thanks,
Margaret


----

WG Chairs Training Discussion
Wednesday, March 19th, 2003
IETF 56, San Francisco, CA
=============================

AGENDA:

- Overview of the Current WG Chairs Training Program and Resources
- Open Discussion of our Training and Resource Needs
- Discuss Options to Improve our Training Programs and Resources
- Solicit Volunteers for a Design Team

MEETING PREPARATION:

Before the meeting, people were asked to familiarize themselves
with our current training materials and resources.

Training Materials:
http://psg.com/~mrw/WGChairs_Training_Mar03.ppt

WG Chairs Web Page:
http://www.ietf.org/IESG/wgchairs.html

MEETING NOTES:

The meeting started with a very short introductory presentation by
Margaret Wasserman, which can be found at:

http://www.psg.com/~mrw/WG_Chairs_Training_Discussion_Mar03.ppt

This was followed by a very active, open discussion regarding
WG chairs training and resource needs, which segued into a
discussion of how best to meet those needs.

There was general consensus that the formal introductory training
sessions are useful and should be continued.  The materials need
to be updated to reflect feedback on the list, and to focus more
on the role/responsibilities of chairs and on the decision making
process/skills.  "Administrivia" should be reduced to a reference
to the WG chairs web site.  There should also be more information
on milestones, miltestone updates, etc.  It was agreed that
Margaret Wasserman and Jeff Schiller would continue to work on
these materials, based on group input.

There was discussion of whether the introductory training should
be held earlier in the week (Sunday morning?) to allow all WG
chairs to attend before their first session.  It was noted that
we already include BOF chairs.  There were some suggestions that
the training should be mandatory and/or IESG members should
encourage new chairs to attend.

We discussed a formal mentoring program for new chairs, where
an experienced chair would be assigned to help a new chair through
the first few meetings.  This is sometimes accomplished by having
and experienced person and an inexperienced person co-chair a
group, but additional support may be needed when an inexperienced
person is chairing a group alone, or with another inexperienced
person.  Agreed to organize a list of volunteers, to be tapped by
the IESG if they feel that mentors are needed.

There was a discussion of the need for trained/qualified editors.
There was general consensus that some sort of training or
qualification process would be good for editors, but we didn't
reach any agreement regarding the particulars.

The WG Chairs mailing list is an underused resource.  We discussed
how to encourage people to send mail to the list when they have
process questions or issues running their group.

We identified a need for tools support in two key areas:

        - Issue/action item tracking.
        - Document sharing, versioning and change control.

We discussed the benefits of a WG chairs FAQ, and Derek Atkins
took the action item to assemble a FAQ for publication on the
WG chairs web page.

We then discussed training sessions for experienced WG chairs.
There was general consensus that ongoing training would be
useful, including both:

        - Formal training on timely or interesting topics.
        - Open sessions to discuss problems and potential
                solutions, perhaps with a specified topic
                per session.

Potential topics for ongoing formal training include:

        - IPR policies and how to deal with them.
        - Tools for issue/action item tracking.
        - Tools for document sharing & change control.
        - John Cleese "Meetings, Bloody Meetings" video.
        - Decision making/process skills.

Potential topics for discussion include:

        - Requirements documents -- What are they?  What
                works, what doesn't?
        - How to manage our mailing lists?
        - How to deal with problem people?

It was agreed that this session was useful, both for understanding
our training needs and to help forge a community of WG chairs.  It
was also agreed that Margaret Wasserman would investigate how/when/if
we can hold sessions for experienced chairs at future IETF meetings.

We did not explicitly form a design team during the meeting,
but people interested in continuing this discussion were asked
to join the wgchairs-training mailing list.