Re: [Iasa20] 6635bis

[Richard Barnes <[e-mail]>]

John: I'm confused by this "lean and mean" point.  How is an organization
with a collection of contractors (RSE, RPC, etc.) leaner and meaner than an
organization with an equivalent number of employees?

--Richard

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 12:04 PM John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> --On Saturday, April 27, 2019 23:44 -0400 John Levine
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> > As it stands the LLC can always fudge it by turning an
> > employee into a nominal contractor by running him or her
> > through a body shop but that seems silly.  The arguments
> > against having employees all seem to be of the form that
> > organzation X or situation Y had or has employees who are
> > poorly managed, but that seems to me to mistake the symptom for
> > the problem.
>
> John, just to stress something I think is important --and
> important whether this is the WG's decision or the WG is
> supplying input to the IAB, within the WG's responsibility, or
> something else [1] -- I don't believe your statement about the
> arguments is correct.  As he pointed out, Stephen has raised the
> argument before and I don't believe his position is covered by
> your description.  In different ways, Brian, Bob, Joel, myself,
> and others have addressed variants on the issue.  Each of us
> have had slightly different perspectives or expressed our
> concerns in different ways, but I don't believe any of those
> comments have been dependent on "employees who were poorly
> managed" even if some have included examples of that type.
>
> Even if that were the only issue, the IETF LLC is sooner or
> later almost certainly going to face tradeoffs in selecting
> permanent Executive Directors.  Those tradeoffs may be with
> costs or benefits (assuming the budget is not unlimited) or
> skill set, types of experience, management skills versus
> financial skills versus understanding of the work the IETF
> actually does, etc.  While I assume the LLC Board will do its
> best, finding the perfect person may not always be possible and,
> partially as a result, I don't think any of us can guarantee in
> advance that the person chosen will always be a superb manager
> of people as well as a superb manager of contracts [2].
>
> However, I believe that one of the community's assumptions about
> the IAOC and IASA 1.0 had little or nothing to do with the
> corporate entity concern.   That assumption was the desire to
> keep the organization and structure as "lean and mean" as
> possible, with few employees (or contracted semi-permanent staff
> [2]) as possible.   I see that assumption as having been carried
> forward into IASA 2.0.   If the assumption has been changed,
> that is almost certainly a matter for this WG to discuss.  If
> the assumption is at all controversial, then I think the WG has
> an obligation --one that falls well within its charter -- to
> spell it out in some appropriate document.  More broadly, if the
> LLC decided it wants to start bringing a significant number of
> functions in-house and hiring significant staff (same
> qualification, see [2]) to carry them out, I think it would be
> entirely appropriate and quite desirable for its Board to have
> to come back to the IETF, discuss the reasoning, and ask
> permission [3].
>
> I think that what I mean by "lean and mean" is similar to what I
> believe Brian intended by "lightweight and cheap".   It isn't
> about whether an individual whom the LLC needs to retain is
> retained as an employee or as a contractor.   It is very much
> about whether the number of people who end up being treated as
> staff  (or people reporting to people treated as staff) by the
> Executive Director become large enough to form a club, large
> enough to require the Exec Dir or LLC Board to start thinking
> about HR or employee relations programs or staff, or other
> evolutionary changes that increase the probability of personnel
> employed by (or contracted by) the IETF LLC beginning to set or
> manipulate policy on their own.  That risk exists even when the
> number of employees (or direct contractors) is only one (I know
> of at least one example where I suggest that IASA 1.0 --and the
> IETF-- suffered from that problem) but a great deal of
> experience elsewhere with organizational behavior (with or
> without bad management) suggests the risk rises much more
> quickly that linearly with organization size.   If you believe
> that the IETF LLC will, because of some inherent virtue, be
> exempt from those pattern or organizational development and
> evolution but it seems to me that, like a plan to improve
> networking by having traffic exceed the speed of light by a bit,
> those suggesting that we will be ok because it hasn't happened
> here (yet, or very often) have the obligation to demonstrate why
> those fundamentals will not express themselves in this case.
>
> best,
>     john
>
>
> [1] I'm also a little troubled by the "this is an IAB document"
> discussion, but not for the reasons Alissa and others have
> cited.  At least for the purposes of this discussion I'm fine
> with the IAB getting community input and then making decisions
> about hiring and most strategy for the RFC Editor.  However, if
> a decision the IAB might make, or is considering making, would
> change or expand the functions or authority of the IETF LLC or
> its leadership, it seems to me that would lie squarely within
> the the scope and responsibility of this WG and IETF consensus
> more broadly.  If such a change were made using the IAB's
> authority, especially if it were supported by the assertion that
> the IAB is not a consensus body or responsible to IETF
> consensus, it seems to me that would violate assumptions and
> provisions that go directly back to POISED and the Kobe affair.
>
> [2] As we have discussed separately, I think we are in agreement
> that the difference between an employee and a contractor on an
> individual contract who is treated as one is almost
> non-existent, but I don't see that as the key issue here despite
> several postings about it.
>
> [3] I think trying to define how many hires (or consultants on
> individual contracts treated as employees) are permitted would
> quickly deteriorate into the kind of overspecification you and
> others have decried (I agree that is not desirable).   But that
> is different from establishing clear guidance that, if the LLC
> decides to start hiring multiple people, its Board is obligated
> to come back to the community for discussion and before doing so.
>
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