Re: [Gen] Thinking about adding a new person to the IESG

[Bernard Aboba <aboba@internaut.com>]

Overall, it would appear to me that the IETF will increasingly need to
refocus some of its energies on higher level management, particularly if
some of the ADVCOMM proposals come to pass -- and the IETF becomes
responsible for its own budget.

So providing more support for the IETF Chair is a good thing, and figuring
out  how it can be achieved with adding overhead is an even better thing
;)

This proposal strikes me as a reasonable proposal *if* it is envisaged that the
GenDir will have substantial work to do long-term.

I'm not entirely clear that this is the case, at least based on the
current WGs in GenDir, which one would expect are winding down.

So it would appear to me that the case is perhaps based on some forecasted
future work to be handled in GenDir.  Perhaps there are WGs that might be
chartered in GenDir going forward.

OR perhaps the idea is that the position will also have responsbility for
other (process? quality?) related activities such as overseeing the
Education effort, implementation of tools, etc.  That way even if the
GenDir work declines, there would still be enough work for a position.

I'd suggest that we should have some clear idea of the job description
before creating another IESG position.





On Fri, 31 Oct 2003, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> The IESG is considering asking Nomcom to fill an extra position,
> provisionally titled "General AD". No decision has been taken yet, but we'd
> like to hear comments from the IAB and the gen-dir before going further
> with this.
>
> The reasoning behind creating this position is the following:
>
> - There are a number of activities going on that the IETF Chair feels
> responsible for. Some of them, but far from all, involve the General area
> and the procedure updates. Others include a lot of inter-function
> relationship management, and keeping track of IETF-wide topics and issues
> that cannot be solved within a single area.
> - There are a significant number of those things that has a significant
> amount of context which is not shared with the rest of the IESG. The IAB
> chair shares quite a lot of the context, but does not have the same areas
> of responsibility.
> - The load imposed by process issues is very high at the moment, and is
> likely to stay there for some time - but should eventually decrease to a
> more reasonable level. (All three current GEN WGs are likely to shut down
> soon - others might be created, though)
> - The way the IESG works is likely to have to change anyway, for other
> reasons, so adding more people to the IESG might not be so much of a
> long-term problem that I've thought it would be before.
>
> There are two kinds of roles we could think of adding to the IESG in order
> to help this situation:
> - A "General AD", who has a normal AD function, with responsibility for the
> General area
> - An "Assistant IETF Chair", who functions as part of the Chair role, is
> expected to be part of all lists and groups where the Chair is an
> "ex-officio" member, and shares context about current IETF activities that
> the Chair is dealing with.
>
> The first one is clearly something the IESG can "just decide".
> The second is a new role, which needs some careful thinking before we
> decide to implement it (or not), and it is necessary to discuss this with
> the community before making a decision.
>
> Considering all this, I suggest that we can ask the Nomcom for an AD to
> fill the position of "General AD", with the understanding that this person
> would also assist and consult with the Chair in following up IETF-wide
> issues and cross-area issues, and that if the community thinks this is a
> good idea, the person's role could be changed to "Assistant IETF Chair" at
> a later time.
>
> (Note: This role is NOT saying anything about who the next chair should be.
> Both the idea of an assistant chair that is promoted to chair and the idea
> of an assistant chair who smooths the transition to the next chair are
> entirely reasonable scenarios.)
>
> Comments?
>
>
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