Re: Updating BCP 10 -- NomCom

[Allison Mankin <[e-mail]>]

Some updates I'd like to see from my Nomcom 2013 Chair experience:

1. Improved transition for Chairs - my thought is to add a Future Chair
early so that she or he can observe.  Right now we've been tending mainly
to select as Chairs people who were recently Nomcom members.  My tenure was
an exception, and won't be the only one of these, and I found it tough to
get all the information and problem-solving skills, even with great help
from my Past Chair. I think even Chairs who've been recent members find we
have tough problems, made tougher by being in our bubble of
confidentiality.  More training time can only help.

2. During my tenure we had to invoke the thoughtful BCP 10 allowance to
operate with 9 members rather than 10, because one of our members became
permanently unavailable.  We had some risk of losing another late in the
game as well, and I think this is always a risk. Therefore I'd like to see
the addition of one warm spare,  selected during the random draw, who joins
meetings, observes, conceivably helps with interviewing, and is available
quickly to participate if there is a loss of a voting member.  The risk
isn't from losing one, again, that is covered, but people turn out to have
enough exigencies that the risk of losing two is non-trivial.

3. A bit fuzzier, but I think important, would be to include some guiding
language for Nomcoms about their task as hiring managers recruiting and
selecting leadership for the IETF.  I found it very important to advise my
Nomcom to use "slow thinking"  (in Kahneman's sense) and make sure to
really digest the resumes, questionnaires and feedback, because the pace of
the Nomcom and human nature tend to result in "fast" or intuitive dismissal
of some really good candidates based on e.g. their having less fame.
Similarly, without constraining the exact procedures, it is important to
explicitly find ways to make interviews consistent across candidates and to
have enough of a panel of interviewers.  The pace and stress of scheduling
interviews means it's important to put these goals front and center,
because they are actually quite challenging to accomplish.

I can propose some text for these.

Allison



On 7 January 2015 at 12:03, Murray S. Kucherawy <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> RFC7437 has been published, which is now the consolidated version of BCP
> 10 with no changes made.  Thanks to those of you who provided reviews and
> input to make sure I got it right.
>
> As promised, I've now published draft-kucherawy-rfc7437bis which is the
> opportunity for the community to begin suggesting revisions to the NomCom
> processes and definitions.
>
> This first version is basically RFC7437 verbatim, except with the stuff
> about previous versions and the consolidation effort removed or otherwise
> cleaned up.  It's there so we can track its evolution relative to the
> present BCP 10 as it evolves.
>
> The first change I'd like to propose is that the IAOC Liaison to the
> NomCom be codified.  It's currently only an unwritten common practice.
>
> Have at it!
>
> -MSK
>