Re: "Management team"

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Jay, Brian,

A comment that I hope is just a clarification, not a
disagreement, but it may be what much of this discussion and,
some other ones, are about.

If one reads the various procedural documents, rather than
extrapolating from some recent events, the IESG actually has
very little power or authority other that as an interpreter or
judge of community consensus.  In your terms,  there is very
little delegated authority.  The IAB and the LLC Board do, and
you do, but the IESG does not (and, in case you don't know, the
present organizational structure of the IETF was the result of
the then-IAB deciding that its delegated authority allowed it to
get too far disconnected from community consensus).   Under
exceptional circumstances, my experience has been that the
community has been, and is, very pragmatic but still expects to
be informed and, if appropriate, to comment.

Let me give two examples that might help:

(1) I very much appreciate your description of the Meetecho
situation vis-a-vis IETF 107.  But it might have been better had
that explanation appeared in March, when the decision was made,
rather than this week, after some speculations (and rumors)
started circulating.

(2) When there is not an emergency, a statement that sounds like
"we are making a plan and when we are finished, we will tell you
about it" sounds, using Brian's terminology, a bit king-like.
"Several of us are talking and trying to formulate a draft plan
that will then be presented to the community for review and
input just like the assessment criteria were" would have a
rather different ring to it, don't you think?

There is at least one more important aspect of this (and a major
component of why I used the "management team" terminology).
The IETF has a well-established mechanism for requesting that
various leadership bodies review and reconsider their decisions
(somewhat misnamed, IMO, as the appeal procedure).  If the IESG
makes a decision that someone in the community believes was
ill-considered or does not represent community consensus, it is
clear how that review is requested.  Similarly for the IRTF
Chair or a decision of the IAB.  I'd have to go back and look at
the IASA2 documents but I assume there is some mechanism, even
if it were just an ad hoc one, to ask you to reconsider a
decision or to ask the LLC Board to review it with you.  But, if
you, or the IESG, or someone else forms a decision-making team,
especially one consisting of people for whom there are three
different reconsideration/appeals chains and hence possibly none
at all for team/group decisions, then it is, to borrow from
George Michaelson's note, a change of operating model.  And
that, it seems to me (and apparently to him) requires an
opportunity for discussion and either community consensus
consent or some adjustment and then consent to that.

thanks,
  john



--On Monday, April 20, 2020 15:34 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Jay,
> 
> The IETF has never had a manager (a.k.a. king or president) or
> anything resembling a CEO, and that didn't change in any of
> the documents, either the ones that originally created IASA or
> the recent ones that created IETF LLC. But in reality, whoever
> is running the administration (previously the IAD, and now the
> IETF LLC ED) has to go somewhere for decisions that are out of
> his or her scope. And where can they go except the steering
> group and its Chair? They are empowered to judge IETF
> consensus, and to judge when a decision needs IETF consensus.
> 
> I don't think any of that is news. What is a bit different is
> that for IETF 107, there really wasn't much time, and
> certainly not time for a long discussion on this list, so that
> a well-defined rough consensus could emerge. So decisions had
> to be made a bit hurriedly. I think that for IETF 108 and the
> big decisions about how to go forward in the next couple of
> years, there should be discussions here. But it's still the
> IESG and Chair that have to extract a rough consensus, and for
> some decisions there are hard deadlines.
> 
> (I haven't mentioned the IRTF, but the argument should be
> symmetric.)
> 
> Regards
>    Brian Carpenter
> 
> On 20-Apr-20 12:57, Jay Daley wrote:
>> John
>> 
>> Another way of looking at this is that the IESG have a set of
>> responsibilities (delegated authorities if you prefer) as
>> does the IETF Executive Director and as does the IRTF Chair,
>> and if those get together to coordinate on how they do their
>> work and do not exceed any of their responsibilities then why
>> does that need a label or formal recognition?  Or is it your
>> view that a) the responsibilities have been exceeded; or b)
>> this type coordination across roles needs community consensus
>> approval before it is allowed to happen?  Your note implies
>> b) rather than a) which seems surprising so I suspect I'm
>> just missing a nuance.
>> 
>> Jay
>> 
>>> On 20/04/2020, at 12:10 PM, John C Klensin
>>> <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi.
>>> 
>>> In a note I posted to this list under an hour ago, I used the
>>> term "management team".  I hope no one was offended by that
>>> as I didn't mean any offense, only to describe something I
>>> see unfolding.
>>> 
>>> Under normal circumstances, the IETF has prided itself on
>>> making decisions bottom-up.  Several aspects of that
>>> principle have come up on this list in recent months
>>> including discussions of where proposals for WGs should
>>> originate, discussions of how the IESG interacts with the
>>> community, and so on.   In emergencies and when tight
>>> deadlines suddenly arise, we generally allow various
>>> leadership bodies, notably the IESG, a good deal of
>>> flexibility to Do the Right Thing rather than failing to deal
>>> with the emergencies or deadlines because we get too
>>> entangled with procedures.   IMO, the decision to cancel
>>> the f2f meeting of IETF 107 and instead take it "virtual"
>>> (online) was just one such emergency, one that the IESG
>>> sensibly dealt with by organizing a small team that
>>> consisted of its members, the IRTF Chair, and, presumably
>>> the IETF (LLC) Executive Director, consulting whichever WG
>>> Chairs and maybe other that they thought reasonable to
>>> consult, and then made and announced a decision.
>>> 
>>> However, it seems to me that we should now be returning to
>>> normal, even if it is only a new, or even temporary, normal.
>>>  If so, it is legitimate for the community to ask (or be
>>> asked) whether it agrees with who is being included or
>>> excluded from decision processes like that and who is making
>>> the decisions more generally.  That is clearly not the IESG
>>> alone, it is presumably not the Executive Director alone.
>>>  But, to the extent to which a new body or group is being
>>> set up --one that, given the nature of these decisions, I
>>> think resembles a management team -- maybe the IETF
>>> community should be consulted about its organization and
>>> structure.    I don't recall anything in the IASA2 or LLC
>>> documents that says the community has turned that authority
>>> over to any other body, explicit or ad hoc even though it is
>>> clear that, in both the IASA and IASA2 decisions, the
>>> community decided that it wanted to get out of decisions on
>>> day-to-day operations, contracts, and administrative
>>> procedures.
>>> 
>>> I also think is is entirely plausible that, if consulted, the
>>> community will decide that the current apparent
>>> decision-making structure is just right; I'm only suggesting
>>> that some consultation is in order.
>>> 
>>> Or maybe I'm the only one who cares about these things, in
>>> which case apologies for wasting people's time.
>>> 
>>> best,
>>>    john
>>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Jay Daley
>> IETF Executive Director
>> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
>> 
>