Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director

[Mary Barnes <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 11:44 AM, Russ Housley <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Dave:
>
>>> The leadership in the ITU does not read the documents.  Why?  Their job is to make sure that the process was followed.
>>>
>>> The IESG needs to make sure the process was followed too.  But, the IESG also has a quality check job.  I would hate for this debate to lead to a step toward the ITU model.
>>
>>
>> As specious lines of logic go, your note was pretty efficient.  It ignored the specifics of the concerns being raised in this thread, their merits, and the suggestions being made, and it invokes a cliche'd bogeyman.
>>
>> For example, the suggestions being made do not intent or imply that there would be no technical content to the work of an AD. Also note that there are many things that the ITU does; are we supposed to make a point of not doing any of them, simply because the ITU does them?
>>
>> The IETF culture, structure and process are massively different from the ITU's.  None of the changes being proposed would turn the IETF into the ITU or even move us towards them.
>>
>> If the merit of a suggestion is good or bad, let's focus on that, rather than on who else is or is not doing it.
>>
>> But if you really want to focus on ITU fear, take a look at the time it now takes to produce IETF specs, their increased complexity and the degree of their eventual industry deployment.  A comparison on the style and substance of IETF vs. ITU technical work might prove enlightening...
>
> Several people suggested that the AD could be a manager with little technical clue.  I raised the extreme of that line of thinking.
[MB] I don't think anyone has said an AD could be a manager with
little technical clue.  I think Sam said it extremely well in his
email.  What some of us have been proposing is that someone with
proven technical skills in another area that also is good at managing
projects/people could do a reasonable job.  From what I have seen this
has certainly been the case in other areas - i.e., ADs that don't have
depth of knowledge in all the WGs in their areas, but are strong
technical individuals in other areas.  The problem seems to be that
folks value the technical expertise far more than they do project and
people management skills.   The end result is that there are some
really strong technical people in leadership roles that have little
ability to manage things well and very poor people interaction skills.
 The latter is certainly a very negative personality trait when it
comes to motivating and managing volunteers. [/MB]
>
> It is clear that no single person has all of the detailed knowledge to review every aspect of every IETF document.  That said, it is very important that the AD have enough clue to detect a probable concern, and then they can turn to appropriate experts in the form of directorates, personal contacts, or even a plea for the right mail list.  This requires some insight into the core technologies for the area and good working relationships within the area.
>
> Russ
>