Re: WG meeting structure

[Wes Hardaker <[e-mail]>]

Lars Eggert <[e-mail]> writes:

> that was exactly the intent. QUIC never made much progress on any open
> issues during the IETF meetings, because the serialized "discussion"
> enforced by the mic lines is simply very inefficient at that. 

TLDR; In the end, I think a setup like that would work for a small WG
with a need for real brainstorming, but has
fairness/management/exclusionary issues with larger groups.


Jumping in here randomly, but the above at least works for some of my
context:

1) Some other standards organizations have rooms set up this way, as
people mentioned.  Typically these work well when the conversations to
be had are functionally "closed" but "open to observers", similar to
(large) board meetings and things.  It definitely impacts the
desire/ability to have other people in the room participate, and if
you're looking for a diversity of opinions this will hamper that.

2) Queue management becomes a different problem, which is harder for the
chair.  People raise hands to get put into a "I want to talk on the
subject queue", and when that list becomes long it's a real pain.  We
tend to have long lines at mics at the IETF, so the chairs may have
their work cut out for them.  If you don't do queues and do free-form
discussion, then mic monopolization becomes a serious problem, or some
people with valid inputs simply never get to express their thoughts
because its hard to be heard in a group of shouting people.  I'm
constantly concerned that without management, we only hear from
extroverts.  IE, "fair" becomes a real issue if it's not a small group.

3) Serialization itself isn't an issue *if* people are responding to
previous people's comments in an orderly fashion (more in a sec).  I
have seen many productive mic lines where 2-3 people resolve an issue
all standing at the mic, with a longer line behind them.  Which brings
me to:

4) One counter idea is to have rooms with two microphones (like many
have now, but run into issues with #2 above), but mandate that we use
them in the way we have in the past at plenaries: one mic is for
introducing new ideas, and the second is for responding to that
comment/issue.  Then you resolve some of the issues with not being able
to rapidly close sub-ideas with "discussion" style conversations that at
least still promotes fairness (smaller queues on a single topic).

-- 
Wes Hardaker
USC/ISI