RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

[Adrian Kinderis <adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think what the GNSO needs is a very simple resource model that maps current 
staffing, travel, external study funds against tasks.   You don't actually need 
to be managing a staff budget, it is really managing a resource profile.

So I would expect something along the lines of:

policy staff:  4.5 FTE
Travel funds in addition to ICANN meetings:  $x
Funds for external studies: $y

Then you would expect some estimates related to the PDP steps:


-          issues report: x FTE

-           Initial report: y FTE

-           final report: z FTE

You should then be able to work out that there is capacity for say 3 PDPs in 
parallel.

Then what should those 3 be for the year becomes the question....

Right now you have GNSO council kicking off work left and right - with low 
thresholds to start something.   The staff don't have the ability to say "no, 
can't fit that in this year".

The ultimate result is staff are spread too thin.

Of course the same applies to the volunteer resources.  Each stakeholder group 
probably has up to about 4 FTE of people really available to spend hours on 
this sort of work.  I am talking about heavy lifters here - able to guide and 
draft text.

So the point becomes how prioritisation needs to understand how many activities 
the GNSO can do well.  Part of the reason the GNSO doesn't make much progress 
on some things - is it is working on 10-20 projects at once.

I look forward to the Prioritisation Working Group presenting on their model.

Chuck - further comments below.

Adrian Kinderis

From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 2010 10:35 AM
To: Adrian Kinderis; KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx; council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Adrian,

Please see my responses below.

Chuck

________________________________
From: Adrian Kinderis [mailto:adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 7:42 PM
To: KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx; Gomes, Chuck; council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11
Wolf et al,

What concerns me over the entire function of the Council is the fact that there 
is no budget associated with the policy development*.
[Gomes, Chuck] There is a budget associated with policy development although it 
is not separated as a policy development budget per se.  It would be helpful if 
it was.
[AK] Agreed

The Work Prioritisation Team is about to present a prioritisation methodology 
and process that is unable to take into account the amount of staff time that 
is budgeted to support prioritised work.
[Gomes, Chuck] Estimates could probably be made in this regard but I don't 
think they are needed to do the initial prioritization.  They would become 
quite important if we do not have enough resources to do all of our work.
[AK] That is exactly my point! If we don't have the resources perhaps we should 
re-evaluate our prioritisation!

This seems upside down or back-to-front or something.

How can we comment on funding for WHOIS studies when we have no visibility on 
how much it may impact our ability to have staff support other important areas 
of work?
[Gomes, Chuck] My understanding is that the overwhelming majority of the 
Studies work would be outsourced.  Obviously Staff has to arrange for that and 
manage it; is that what you are talking about Adrian?  I assume the Whois 
Studies project, if we approve some studies would be a part of our 
prioritization exercise, but that would only be the case if there are funds to 
do some studies.
[AK] That is indeed what i mean. Do we have any idea how big the bucket is and 
how much each task/ project will impact it?

*On a GNSO call a few months back I asked Denise explicitly if there was a 
budget for staff support of Policy Development. I was told directly and clearly 
that there is not.
[Gomes, Chuck] I think there is a misunderstanding here.  There are lots of 
funds in the budget to support policy development work; we benefit from those 
funds everyday.  But, as noted above, to date they have not been reported as a 
separate and inclusive budget category.

Adrian Kinderis

From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 2010 6:40 AM
To: cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx; council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: AW: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Chuck

is this meant as a placeholder to be sure having funds available in FY11? Which 
is the deadline where it has to become more precise in terms of the number and 
kind of studies to be funded?
I suppose everybody has own priorities. Speaking on behalf of the ISP 
constituency we would like to see on top those studies dealing with data 
accuracy improvement and secondly those digging into the privacy complex.



Regards
Wolf-Ulrich


________________________________
Von: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Im 
Auftrag von Gomes, Chuck
Gesendet: Freitag, 16. April 2010 22:37
An: GNSO Council
Betreff: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11
Wichtigkeit: Hoch

<<Motion for Whois Studies Funding for FY11.doc>>

In our Council meeting on 1 April I encouraged Councilors and their respective 
SGs and Constituencies to develop and propose specfic recommendations for 
funding of Whois Studies in the FY11 budget but no such recommendations were 
submitted.  Recognizing that the Draft ICANN Budget has to be posted not later 
than 17 May and our next Council meeting after the one on 21 April is not until 
20 May, three days later, I decided that we should try to make a recommendation 
in our meeting on 21 April.  To facilitate that possibility I asked Liz to 
draft the attached motion (also pasted below).

Because of the lateness of the motion we would need to first approve an 
exception to the 8-day GNSO Operating Procedures Requirement for motions before 
we could act on this motion.  Also note that the motion has a placeholder for 
the amount to be budgeted for Whois Studies.  My personal opinion is that it 
would be good to fund at least two studies in FY11 and even better if we could 
fund three if they are ready to go, thereby avoiding very lengthy delays for at 
least two and maybe three studies.  Based on the estimates provided for two of 
the studies, a minimum of $300,000 would be needed and it might be wise to add 
a 10% buffer on to that, making it $330,000.  If we decided to budget for three 
studies, one of which we do not have any cost estimates for, we could bump the 
amount up to $500,000.

In a year of limited financial resources, we cannot guarantee how much will 
ultimately be put into the budget but we can should in my opinion at least make 
a recommendation for consideration by the community and ultimately the ICANN 
Board.

.

Please discuss this motion with your SGs and Constituencies before our meeting 
on Wednesday so that we can act on it using whatever amount we decide at that 
time if possible.

Discussion on the list is encouraged and, if anyone is willing to second it 
without the amount inserted, that is welcome as well.  If anyone would rather 
see an amount inserted, we can insert one that can later be amended.

Chuck

Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Whereas:

In October 2007, the GNSO Council concluded that a comprehensive, objective and 
quantifiable understanding of key factual issues regarding the gTLD WHOIS 
system would benefit future GNSO policy development efforts 
(http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/)

Before defining the details of studies, the Council solicited suggestions from 
the community for specific topics of study on WHOIS. Suggestions were submitted 
(http://forum.icann.org/lists/WHOIS-comments-2008/ ) and ICANN staff prepared a 
'Report on Public Suggestions on Further Studies of WHOIS', dated 25-Feb-2008 
(http://gnso.icann.org/issues/WHOIS-privacy/WHOIS-study-suggestion-report-25feb08.pdf<http://gnso.icann.org/issues/Whois-privacy/Whois-study-suggestion-report-25feb08.pdf>
 ).

On 5 November 2008 the GNSO Council formed a drafting team to solicit further 
constituency views assessing both the priority level and the feasibility of the 
various proposed WHOIS studies, with the goal of deciding which studies, if 
any, should be assessed for cost and feasibility.

The Drafting Team determined that the six studies with the highest average 
priority scores should be the subject of further research to determine 
feasibility and obtain cost estimates.

On 4 March 2009 the GNSO Council requested that Staff conduct research on 
feasibility and cost estimates for those six WHOIS studies and following that 
assessment the Council would decide which studies should be conducted 
(http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#200903)

On 23 March 2010, staff provided its analysis to the GNSO Council of costs and 
feasibility for the first two study areas, and will continue to work on the 
remaining areas

Resolved, that the GNSO Council recommends that at least (insert US dollar 
amount) be included in the ICANN Budget for FY 2011.

Resolved further, that the GNSO secretariat communicate this resolution to the 
ICANN Chief Financial Officer and the Board Finance Committee.