How to get diversity of nominees was Re: Diversity of candidates was Re: NomCom 2020 Announcement of Selections

["STARK, BARBARA H" <[e-mail]>]

Since this conversation is happening, and I had a first row seat to all things NomCom this past year ...

I don't think the pool of nominee diversity reflected the diversity of the set of people who regularly attend meetings. In my NomCom Chair report at IETF 109, I specifically highlighted the big difference in "time zone" / geographic diversity that was made obvious to me by the time zone info Calendly gave me when nominees scheduled their interviews vs. available statistics regarding current-address-continent of meeting attendees.

IIRC, all the nominees were WG Chairs. This is generally considered an intermediary step towards the NomCom-appointed leadership positions. I strongly suspect (but don't feel incented to get real statistics) that the nominee pool diversity reasonably resembled WG Chair diversity, but that WG Chair diversity does not reflect attendee diversity. It may be useful to focus on how to increase WG Chair diversity. I actually think there are some rather simple-to-implement ideas that could move this in the "right" direction (where "right" => leadership diversity = regular attendee diversity).

Most organizations that have improved their diversity at various management layers have done so by instituting a policy that requires the "hiring boss" to interview a diverse candidate pool. In many cases, the organizations also had to implement policies that made it easy for people interested in a position to self-nominate (apply) for it, rather than allowing the "hiring boss" to choose the candidate(s) from among the people they like, hang out with, and are comfortable with (or recommendations from such people). I've noticed that WG Chair positions are rarely broadly advertised and that each AD seems to have their own method of figuring out who to interview for a Chair position. It might make it easier for ADs to interview a more representative (of regular attendees) set of people if available WG Chair positions were posted and people were allowed to ask to be interviewed (or nominated by a "friend") for the position. 

Another part of this, though, is the scarcity of open WG Chair positions. People mentioned that they don't want people hanging out in AD and IAB positions for many terms. But what about long-standing WGs where all the Chairs have been there for 10 or more years? Might it be useful to encourage a little more rotation of WG Chair positions?

Just some thoughts...
Barbara