RE: [council] Administrative planning and coordination Council/Staff working sessions

[Alick Wilson <alick.wilson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marilyn, Bruce and fellow Councillors

Further to Marilyn's posted suggestion that Council arrange for staff
planning/administration calls every two weeks, I support this request, and
in addition, have two related requests.

1. A further contribution to Council would be a better understanding of who
and what staff support we have available. This would be improved if each of
those staff who actively participate in Council matters provide to Council a
short description of their role in the ICANN organisation and how much of
their role and time is available to support the GNSO Council. It would be
useful to have this from at least Olof, Maria and now Liz. As an open and
transparent organisation, this should not need discussion or resolution of
Council. Bruce, please make this request to staff on my behalf as a Council
member.

2. I would like to see a prioritised project/task list for GNSO projects and
tasks, kept up to date by staff so we can see ongoing progress and plans,
not just a snapshot prior to calls. I am familiar with open source
project/task management tools which may be suitable if ICANN does not
already have such.

Bruce, please add these to Marilyn's agenda item for the next call.

Also, a note to say that I would like to contribute to the better governance
of GNSO Council by participating in the proposed admin calls.

Regards,
Alick

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Marilyn Cade
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 10:21 a.m.
To: council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [council] Administrative planning and coordination Council/Staff
working sessions







Dear fellow councilors
 
Council has a lot on its plate regarding policy work, and I am mindful of a
recent posting by Ross Rader that reminds us that Council needs to set
priorities that drives its work, and thus our supporting staff.

I think we will all probably agree that the monthly Council calls should
ideally be left primarily to the task of policy management; yet there
is a need for Council to be able to better organize itself and its
policy-support needs, and for a constructive and ongoing interaction between
Council and staff regarding Council's priorities; addressing administrative
challenges they face in their policy support work, such as competing
priorities, lack of clarity in a Council request, additional participation
by councilors with background expertise to contribute, discussion of whether
other external resources are needed, etc.

I am proposing a trial approach of "planning and coordination" sessions via
conference call with the Council chair and any Council members who wished to
participate and supported by the GNSO support staff : (Olaf, Maria, Glen,
plus any temporary consultant such as Liz Williams). I suggest that we trial
the approach of a 45 minute call every two weeks/fortnightly for the period
between now and Vancouver. The outcome of these calls would be reported to
the full Council in the usual monthly progress report we currently receive
on the monthly Council calls.  The planning and coordination calls would not
address policy development work, but administrative management and
coordination.

Right now, we have a number of significant policy issues to work on as
Council.  This approach would ensure that we can focus on the monthly
Council calls on those issues, yet have an effective way to better manage
ourselves and provide administrative input to the supporting staff.


I welcome feedback on this idea. 

Marilyn Cade