Re: [mpowr] Re: process-only participation in WG [Troops vs superpower]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Alex Conta wrote:
> > [...]
> > You assume that capable individuals are willing to do process
> > management in those WGs which they're not interested of (because, if
> > they were, they would be participating to the WG making them uncapable
> > to act as WG chair).
> > 
> 
> I am not sure what you assume by "capable". People in IETF may have good 
> technical capabilities, good people and process capabilities, or all of 
> them.

I meant "capable for the job of WG chair", in your context mostly 
implying just process management and people skills.

> Indeed chairing is a lot of work, and a lot of responsibility. I mean 
> here process and people managament work. But chairs combine today this 
> work, with too many technical roles: technical leader, architect, 
> editor, reviewer, etc...  in the same WG. This is bad, because it is one 
> of the reasons some WGs are so purely managed - too many - and IETF has 
> timely delivery problems, and other problems as well.

Has has already been stated, I do not (either, as was stated) believe 
timely delivery problems (for example) are caused by the WG chairs who 
have too many (technical roles), on the contrary.

Perhaps you had an assumption, "if those WG chairs wouldn't be
reviewing and architecturing, the WG could get to a more timely
conclusion faster without WG chair's **interference**".  Maybe, not
sure if I agree, but I might.  However, this would seem to imply that:

 - a conclusion, even a very bad one, is better than slow progress, or
 - WG chair's technical input to the WG would be inappropriate or 
   misguided (i.e., WG chair is architecting something that will 
   collapse, but (s)he does not realize that)

I disagree about the former, and think that the latter is probably not 
so relevant (such chairs could probably be convinced of the problems).

> The average attendance in the last 5 years or so was way above 1000, in 
> some cases going well over 2000. There is a large pool of people willing 
> and able to do the technical work, and there is a considerable pool of 
> people willing and able to do chairing WGs. 

I'm not sure whether these are actually so large pools.  Let's take an
example of 1500 people coming to a meeting.  250 of them (17%) are WG
chairs, IESG, IAB etc.  Let's assume that about 500 (33%) are more or
less tourists, not too actively participating in the process (maybe
reading mailing list, or even responding now and then).  I'd guess
this number is higher, but let's stick to that for now.  Assume the
rest are those that could be active technical participants -- 750
people, around 7 per WG (evenly distributed).  That's not a whole lot
of folks.

The point is, I don't think there are too many folks who really want 
to put in the hours for active contribution (editing documents, etc.).  
In many WGs, this may range from between half a dozen to a dozen.  Not 
a whole lot.  The rest just hang around.  WG chairs have (often) made 
time commitments, and feel responsible for the technical progress, and 
could easily contribute if no one else steps up.  With this climate of 
huge "passive WG participation", this is a real problem in many WGs.

> People working in this 
> industry make choices for a managerial path, or technical path in their 
> companies. 

Do those interested in pursuing the managerial path come to the IETF?  
I hope not, but if they maybe they could be leveraged :-)

>  > Why would I (or someone else) want to waste time on something
>  > that I don't even find interesting, while I could use the same time to
>  > contribute technically in other WGs?
> 
> Back to your question, I will answer with a question:
> 
> Do you mean that you would accept to be a WG chair, only if you can be 
> the technical leader, the architect, the editor, and the reviewer of the WG?

Yes.  I have zero interest in being only a process manager.

Note the use of _can be_.  If there is someone else editing the
documents, I probably wouldn't need (or want to) do it.  If there is
someone else authoring the documents of ideas which need to be written
down, maybe I wouldn't need to do it.  If everybody else was carefully
reviewing the products of the WG, maybe I wouldn't need to do it.  If
there was active, well-informed dialogue in the WG about the technical
directions, maybe I wouldn't need to try to give some coherence/vision
about the direction of the WG.

As said, in a perfect world of very active and diverse WG 
participation, many issues would not be such a big problem.  But 
that's not the world we live in.. :-)

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

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