Re: [council] Managing the run-up to ICANN meetings

[Stéphane Van Gelder <stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Mason. I think there is clear interest for discussing this in Prague. 
Jeff, our meeting planner, has taken that on board and I believe he is trying 
to find a slot.

Stéphane Van Gelder
Directeur Général / General manager
INDOM Group NBT France
----------------
Head of Domain Operations
Group NBT

Le 11 juin 2012 à 15:35, Mason Cole a écrit :

> Stephane --
> 
> Thank you for raising this point with the council. 
> 
> I observed this phenomenon soon after taking office as secretary of the RrSG 
> in 2008, then saw it in spades after assuming the chair in 2009.  My concern 
> then, as is yours now (only more amplified) is that the volume of work being 
> undertaken by the community (staff, volunteers, board, council, etc.) is 
> overwhelming the community's capacity to thoughtfully consider the work and 
> measure its impact.  With respect to your article and e-mail, we've heard 
> this now for some time from staff -- particularly policy staff -- who have 
> told us the staff is at 100% capacity, or more.
> 
> I remember being contacted during my time as chair by staff, asking for 
> various suggestions about how to tweak ICANN meetings, shifting 30-minute 
> meeting blocks, perhaps arranging a 7 a.m. coffee to squeeze in a staff 
> member or a late meeting at 19:30 because a committee was booked until then, 
> etc.  My reply was that moving meetings around isn't the solution -- the 
> problem is that ICANN is biting off more than it can possibly chew, and 
> shifting half hours here and there won't solve that problem.
> 
> Further to your point about the document deadline:  15 days is extremely 
> adequate.  If you have a manageable set of priorities and workload.  When you 
> don't, 15 days is terribly inadequate.  So is 30 days, most likely.
> 
> Wolf makes a good tactical suggestion for handling the situation as it exists 
> today.  I employ his method myself.  However, it's not going to hold up 
> forever, and it probably starts breaking down when you have the parallel 
> situation that you describe -- e.g., smaller SGs or constituencies, limited 
> volunteer activity to handle the workload, burnout, etc.  Sensible as Wolf's 
> suggestion is, it can only go so far.
> 
> Personally, I believe one of the issues is that the GNSO function generally 
> lacks two things: 
> 1. A self-limiting mechanism for taking on work.
> 2. Capability to prioritize
> 
> To be clear, I'm addressing this to the GNSO function, and not to members of 
> the council personally.  All of us operate with the best of intentions for 
> the interests of our group, and in a way that supports ICANN.
> 
> The threshold for proposing policy is very low.  While that has its 
> positives, each proposal obligates staff and the council for a great deal of 
> work.  Some proposals are well-defined and rooted in substantiated data, 
> others less so.  Both require, initially, staff to gear up and produce data 
> and reports.  I wonder what amount of time this contributes to the average 
> length of a PDP, as documented recently by Marika.
> 
> These proposals are loosely prioritized.  Stephane does his best with the 
> parliamentary tools he has, and the council generally moves issues that 
> become priority to the top of the list when circumstances warrant.  But, 
> generally speaking, issues tend to have equal priority and simply exist on 
> our calendar and to-do list until they are eventually voted on or otherwise 
> disposed of.  There is no real alternative method of disposing of business.  
> (Example: The US Congress operates in sessions, usually one year in length.  
> Legislation not enacted and sent to the President to sign into law by the end 
> of the session is wiped from the slate and Congress starts over in the next 
> session.  It's certainly not perfect, but it keeps the Congress from dealing 
> with seven-year-old bills that seem to languish forever, subject to this or 
> that method of influence.)
> 
> You write that you hope we don't feel this mail is off-topic, and would like 
> to hear views as individual volunteers tasked with handling ICANN work in a 
> way we feel does credit to the organization and its mission.
> 
> I don't think it's off-topic at all.  It's constantly on-topic.  There are 
> only so many hours in a day, particularly in that unique 3-4 weeks leading up 
> to and during an ICANN meeting.  Changing the instrumentality of handling 
> documents, or in meeting times, however, I believe will only treat the 
> symptoms and then only for a little while, as ICANN continues to allow more 
> work into the system.  Relief, and thus the ability to actually thoughtfully 
> consider work before the council and elsewhere, will arrive only when ICANN 
> (and the council as part of ICANN) figures out a way to regulate its own 
> capacity.
> 
> I would be happy to discuss this more in Prague as necessary.
> 
> Mason
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Stéphane Van Gelder
> Sent: Thu 6/7/2012 2:52 AM
> To: <KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [council] Managing the run-up to ICANN meetings
> 
> 
> Thanks Wolf,
> 
> I think that's the way we've all been coping up until now anyway. I fear that 
> may no longer be enough...
> 
> Stéphane Van Gelder
> Directeur Général / General manager
> INDOM Group NBT France
> ----------------
> Head of Domain Operations
> Group NBT
> 
> Le 7 juin 2012 à 09:11, <KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx> <KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx> a écrit :
> 
> >
> > Thanks Stéphane for "raising this issue" (a PDP with heavy documentation to 
> > be read has to follow :-)).
> >
> > I see only one way to cope with these growing challenges:
> > - Just read the summary conclusion of the doc's
> > - decide whether it touches your SGs/constituency's interest and allocate 
> > it to somebody in this group having some expertise (maybe it comes down to 
> > yourself). NCA's may have a real problem...
> > - if you're more interested read the recommendations
> > - trust yourself that you did the right thing
> >
> >
> > Best regards
> > Wolf-Ulrich
> >
> > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> > Von: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Im 
> > Auftrag von Stéphane Van Gelder
> > Gesendet: Mittwoch, 6. Juni 2012 12:25
> > An: GNSO Council List
> > Betreff: [council] Managing the run-up to ICANN meetings
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > In the interest of full transparency, I wanted to inform you of a Circle ID 
> > article that I wrote: 
> > http://www.circleid.com/posts/20120605_icann_gets_crazy_again/
> >
> > You've heard me speak of the potential for volunteer burn-out many times in 
> > the past. You've also heard me moan about the lack of pre-planning on 
> > document roll out by ICANN. This post is also voicing my opinion that the 
> > current trend is making it difficult for volunteer bodies like ours to 
> > adequately look at all issues when making policy.
> >
> > In actual fact, my main worry is with the Board. I am told that they get 
> > about 3 times the volume of documents to read in the run-up to ICANN 
> > meetings that we as community members get. So does that mean we're asking 
> > Board members to get to grips with so much reports and briefings and 
> > documents, and then expecting them to make quality decisions? If that's the 
> > case, I think we are asking too much of them.
> >
> > I note with interest a couple of the comments posted in response to this 
> > article. Avri's comments, for example, rightly point out that some of these 
> > reports do not require us to read every single page. However, I do think 
> > that is an insider's POV, and one that is deeply involved with ICANN like 
> > Avri is and has her depth of knowledge of the issues. I would wager that 
> > with so much going on, most of us need to read a full report just to remind 
> > ourselves of the subject matter's past history.
> >
> > I was also interested to read Kieren's comments, because I think he hits 
> > the nail on the head when he says that because there is a 15-day deadline 
> > for document publication, everything tends to come out on that deadline. I 
> > agree with him that if we are able to plan ahead more and better pre-plan, 
> > we would not end up with more than 700 pages of reading to do before we all 
> > congregate for what remains the most important item on the ICANN yearly 
> > calendar: the ICANN meeting. After all, it is in these face-to-face 
> > meetings that a lot of the crucial ICANN decisions get shaped, if not 
> > taken, so it is important that they are based on people having had 
> > sufficient time to take in and digest the documents that provide the 
> > context for them.
> >
> > I hope you do not feel this email is off topic. I think this is at the 
> > heart of what we do at ICANN, which is to constantly strive to do the best 
> > we can when weighing the issues that we deal with at ICANN.
> >
> > I would love to hear your views on this, not just as a Council, but also as 
> > individual ICANN volunteers who all have to face the same problems that are 
> > being described here: that of what bandwidth you have available to deal 
> > with ICANN-related stuff in a way which you feel does credit to the 
> > organization and what it is tasked with doing.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Stéphane Van Gelder
> > Directeur Général / General manager
> > INDOM Group NBT France
> > ----------------
> > Head of Domain Operations
> > Group NBT
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
>