Re: IETF Administrative Reorganization: What was that problem anyway?

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On 14 sep 2004, at 17.12, John C Klensin wrote:

>
> 	(ii) Nomcom appointments to IETF volunteer technical/
> 	standards process leadership positions are not expected to
> 	require that candidates have significant administrative
> 	or financial skills, nor are candidates expected to acquire
> 	those skills on appointment.
>
>

I want to take exception to this criteria.

I think I may have more faith in the ability of the nomcom process to 
chose leaders with the required skills for supervising the 
administrative and financial function.

It is probably true that the Nomcom has not included the significant 
administrative or financial oversight skills in the requirements it 
used for selecting the leadership.  But, that is largely because it has 
not been asked to.

In my experience with various Nomcom groups, when an issue was made of 
the ability of IESG candidates to function as second level managers, 
i.e. to manage the WG chairs without needing manage the working groups 
themselves, the Nomcom did include deliberation of these abilities in 
its decision making. Reasonable people can certainly disagree on how 
successful they have been, but that is the case in any search or 
employment committee process.

The rules for Nomcom include the requirement that the IAB and IESG 
supply the Nomcom with a list of capabilities that they expected in 
each role being discussed.  It is certainly reasonable that this list 
of capabilities for the IESG chair include the ability to oversee the 
administrative and financial functions.  And while the Nomcom does not 
pick the IAB chair, it has, in my experience, discussed the 
requirements for an IAB chair and has made sure that one, or more, 
candidates had the expected qualities - though of course they could not 
guarantee the selection of that person by the IAB.

Another point has been made that this is an engineering group and that 
we don't have these skills within the community.  I think that looking 
at the outside world education and experience of people in the IETF 
community should dispel that notion.  Among the technical contributors, 
using HA's broad definitions of technical contributor, are people 
trained as lawyers, accountants as well as MBAs (not to mentions the 
economists, ethicists, sociologists, psychologists and ...).  Among the 
community of contributors one also finds those whose resumes include 
jobs such senior manager (including CEO), administrators, and analysts 
(financial as well as technical).  And finally, in other organizations 
I have been involved with one does find engineers appointed to jobs 
like President, Secretary and Treasurer who acquired the necessary 
skills upon appointment and who did an admirable job in their 
positions.

A final point on the ability of nomcom to consider the necessary 
qualities for administrative and financial oversight has to do with the 
role of the liaisons to the Nomcom.  While these folks, in my 
interpretation, are not supposed to influence the selection itself, 
they are certainly able to help in understanding requirements.  The 
addition of the ISOC liaison will help widen the requirements that are 
understood.  And it does not take too much of a stretch to imagine the 
Nomcom inviting a liaison from the Administrative entity for further 
broadening its understanding of requirements when selecting people 
capable of administrative and financial oversight.

To respond to a related comment made by Brian Carpenter:

> Secondly, I would add three other people with both IETF experience
> and some degree of management and business experience. I'm worried
> about loading the RFC 3777 NomCom with this since they already have
> a big, and rather different, job. So I'd be inclined to give
> this selection job to the IAB, but using a Nomcom-like procedure.

While I agree that the Nomcom job is big and this would make it bigger, 
I don't believe it is beyond their ability, my experience with Nomcom 
convinces me of that.  One should also note that while the Nomcom works 
hard for about 3 months, it does very little the rest of its term. If 
the assignments were staggered so that the timing for selecting members 
of the BoD was offset by 6 months, they would have the time.  One could 
ask whether this would discourage volunteers, but I suspect it would 
not.

As for it being a different job, I don't agree.  The requirements and 
qualifications may be different, but I believe the job of making a 
selection is similar and I believe the Nomcom is up to the task.  And 
given that the Nomcom is the community's vehicle for participation in 
the selection of its leadership, I believe it should be used for this 
segment of the leadership as well.

Of course I do agree in one respect that RFC3777 would need an annex (I 
would recommend a separate RFC that amended/added as opposed to 
reopening RFC3777 at this point) to cover this process and a method by 
which the BoD selections would be approved.  In this case, my first 
thought is that approval should rest in the hands of a joint IAB+IESG 
where all participants in the joint group, including some/all non 
voting members such as the IRTF chair, have a voice and vote.

a.


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