Re: Structure of IETF meeting weeks

[joel jaeggli <[e-mail]>]

On 4/18/17 14:34, Stephen Farrell wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> On 18/04/17 22:22, Toerless Eckert wrote:
>> For example, there is a lot of death by powerpoint in meetings that pushes off
>> high bandwidth discussions ("oh, we're out of time"). AFAIK, most active work
>> on drafts during IETF meeting week happens outside of the WG meetings. I think that
>> a) was not the original plan, and b) i have not seen IAOC sending around questionaires
>> what/how to improve the quality of the meetings in this respect.
> I agree with the criticism, but not sure I agree about surveys being
> the best next step.
>
> One suggestion I made before I exited the IESG was that we consider
> changing (or experimenting with) how the meeting week is structured,
> for example, only having formal WG sessions in the afternoons, and
> leaving the full mornings free for hackathons or informal meetings.
> (Partly, that's because I hate getting out of bed early, which sadly
> was not considered sufficient justification:-)
In my time I had tended to view the increased structural demands of side
meetings, bar bofs and what have you (isoc briefings, lunch trainings
and so on) that infill all the available time as detrimental to the
available supply of unstrctured time.

Time to meet and space work with your co-authors and collaborators is a
pretty important part of why IETF meetings have any value at all to me
as an individual contributor. You are at a rather signficant
disadvantage if you're remote, given that for me at least this is why
you come together.
> Anyway, I think it'd be good if the IESG/IAOC encouraged experiments
> in such ways of organising ourselves when loads of us do end up in
> one place for a week or so.
>
> Cheers,
> S.
>