Re: IETF 107 Vancouver In-Person Meeting Cancelled

[Jay Daley <[e-mail]>]

Rich

> On 11/03/2020, at 8:42 AM, Salz, Rich <rsalz=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>>   The IESG and the IRTF Chair have been assessing the viability of the in-person meeting based on the community’s ability to be productive. Assessment of health concerns has been the job of the LLC, on a separate track. 
> 
> Could the LLC have cancelled the meeting?  How separate were the tracks?  The IESG didn't consider health concerns at all?
> 
> To put it in common business terms, I think we're owed a root cause analysis of the full decision-making process by all parties. 
> 

Let me add to Adam’s helpful note, speaking only for the LLC here.

I certainly intend to have an internal debrief to identify any outstanding issues and lessons for next time and then share details of that and get comment.  This is important as a number of decisions were made on the fly and we need to circle back to have those validated/challenged.  For example, our decision to follow public health advice was made in the absence of a community decision and was maintained despite a few community members expressing very strong disagreement (largely in private).

I don’t however see any benefit in producing the kind of detailed timeline of actions and decisions that is normally part of a root cause analysis.  This is not a crash investigation so we don’t need to get forensic.

Yes the LLC track was entirely separate and focused primarily on the health risk.  I would welcome a discussion about the reasoning and decision making around this as part of the process outlined above.

Finally, perhaps the most important thing to note about the decision making is that the IESG followed an evidence-based process, focused on their area of control and made a rational decision based on the data they collected.  That’s not easy in these circumstances.

Jay

-- 
Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director
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