[arch-d] Reducing IAB admin things (was: Re: Program issues)

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

Hiya,

On 15/11/2020 22:05, Bernard Aboba wrote:
> Given these inherent problems, I would agree that the IAB needs to minimize
> that part of its efforts.  The best way to ensure that this happens is for
> the IAB's administrative programs to be examined one by one, with an eye to
> removing them from the IAB's charter.

I think that's a credible proposition to explore. Be v.
interested were it to be raised at the plenary and/or
discussed more on some list. (I guess arch-d - even the
name of which seems ironic for this topic;-)

Two inputs to that:

- In my last 2 years on the IAB and in interacting with
IAB folks whilst on the IESG and otherwise, I have many
times heard people bemoaning that the A in IAB was more
for Admin than Architecture. I honestly can't think of a
time when any IAB member wanted more of that. (But if
they did, I'd probably have assumed they were joking and
forgotten:-) So some of this could well be pushing at a
very open door.

- The hard part may be to find someone else to do stuff
and to get agreement on that. The IESG already do too much.
Some of these things do involve other bodies (e.g. other
SDOs) where explaining change to 'em might be tricky. And
lastly, and most tricky: it might take way more effort to
agree a new setup than to just muck along with the current
one, and that effort mightn't be worth the gain. (*) I'm not
sure about that TBH and it may vary from topic to topic,
but it'd be worth considering costs/benefits before trying
to make too much change maybe.

Cheers,
S.

(*) As one example, the IAB being the IETF's "department
of foreign affairs" for liaisons has never made sense to
me personally, but almost all the liaison oversight stuff
the IAB does takes almost no time as the real action is
handled by ADs or WG chairs or by volunteers who happen to
be active in both bodies. And for some foreign bodies,
explaining to them that we're changing our end of that
bureaucracy may require a pile of unrewarding work. So that
may well be one better left as-is rather than risk creating
a new can of openable worms maybe;-)