[mpowr] Re: Quality Control and that nasty A word

[Alex Conta <[e-mail]>]

Please see in line

James Kempf wrote:

> Dave,
> 
> 
>>A very serious problem with trying to assign responsibility to the Chair
>>[...]
>
> This presumes that the motivations of the WG are to not produce a quality
> spec. While this may sometimes be the case, I don't believe that it is
> necessarily always the case, or rather, it should not always be the case.
> The Chair and WG need to work as a team.
> 

In many SDOs, chairs are only moderators, which keeps them (more) 
impartial (than otherwise).

One of the problems in IETF today is that chairs are not only managers, 
they can be in the same time developers, and measurer of quality. A 
direct effect is that they can measure favorably, and promote the work 
they take part in developing. More power in measuring and policing 
quality can exacerbate the problem.

> 
>>The chair is responsible for facilitating a fair, timely, quality
>>process.   The entire working group is responsible for actually achieving
>>those things.
>>
>>This is not semantics.  It is a fundamental difference in views about
>>the role of the Chair.
>>
> 
> Clearly, quality requires more than just review at the end of the process.
> Your pithy formulation of "review early, review often" is relevant here. The
> WG needs to be responsible for quality, the WG chair needs to be responsible
> to make sure that is carried through, and have the tools (relevance, what
> have you) to carry it out.
> 
> As mentioned earlier, new proposed WG charters are starting to have quality
> assurance plans. Suppose the IESG were to require that a charter contain a
> QA plan before the charter is approved. Thus, the WG is taking
> responsibility for quality by proposing the QA plan, the IESG is judging
> whether the plan is likely to succeed (from their presumably broader
> experience) by approving the charter or suggesting changes, and the chair
> has the responsibility for carrying the QA plan out, with the authority
> (relevance, etc.) granted to him/her by the WG through the charter. 

As long as the chair can be also a developer, this process is 
fundamentally weak, and prone to play just as a tool for promoting
the chair's, and chairs friends' work.

> [...] 
> Would this satisfy your concerns?
> 
>                 jak

Not mine. Sorry for jumping in.

Alex