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

["Mason Cole" <mcole@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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
> 
> 
>