Re: The "Clerk" function and Standards throughput and quality

--On Thursday, October 07, 2004 7:53 AM +0200 Harald Tveit 
Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no> wrote:

>
>
> --On onsdag, oktober 06, 2004 17:50:04 -0400 John C Klensin
> <john-ietf@jck.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> --On Wednesday, October 06, 2004 1:07 PM +0200 Harald Tveit
>> Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I do think our thoughts run very much in parallel - I'll be
>>> interested to hear more of why you think the "scenario O"
>>> organizational format will make it hard to make those support
>>> functions work.
>>
>> Again a misunderstanding -- I don't see "Scenario O" as being
>> either better or worse in regard to the above than any other
>> scenario.  My concern is with the definition of the Clerk
>> function, which is scenario-independent.
>
> Thanks for the clarification!
>
> I thought you might be pointing at the "one staff member -
> rest of the work is contracts", which is a common feature to
> scenarios C and O. If "all" that is required is to modify the
> description of the "clerk" function, that needs to be done
> before we call for interested parties - it is not on the
> critical path to adopting one scenario for implementation
> (although all clarification early is good).

Harald,

I think the "one staff member" story is unrealistic as well. 
But, as you say, it is shared between C and O.  It is, by some 
creative definition-making, a bit easier for O because of the 
possibility of borrowing/sharing staff from/with ISOC.  But the 
fact remains that the document calls out several  more staff 
roles than the one employee it asks for.  Whether those staff 
members are "employees" or contractors working on an individual 
commitment basis (rather than hiring an organization to do the 
job without picking individual personnel) is, IMO, 
hair-splitting to make the staff look smaller, not a matter of 
substance.  It would be a matter of substance if it 
significantly changed either costs of management effort, but 
whether such people are employees or contractors doesn't help 
with the management and may actually increase costs.

This is one of my more general objections to the report -- in 
areas like the personnel one and how staffing roles are 
presented, it appears (intentionally or not) to be organized in 
such a way as to impede community understanding of what is being 
proposed.  But, again, this doesn't impact which Scenario is 
more appropriate, nor does it change the urgency or priorities 
of getting the relevant issues resolved.

    john
b

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