Subject: RE: OPEN ISSUE: WG Chair Selection

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 00:35:06 -0700

Hi John,

thanks for your clarification of this (I have to say) peculiar process. I started wondering a bit about a few things. 

You said that performance issues are fairly common - a few times per WG per year. That does sound awful lot to me. How is this performance actually measured? I mean, the milestones are generally totally off anyways. Does every AD have their own measures?

Secondly, you say that a non-performing WG could be fired totally (closed?). Would that mean that the WG had already no meeting, and no participants on the mailing list, or how is it determined that the WG is performing so poorly that it can be closed down?

I just wonder, if there such occurring performance problems maybe the WGs, or the chairs are not alone anymore to blame, but the responsibility goes already to the ADs that are managing the WG. If there needs to be a change very often, maybe the selection criteria of the WG chairs is wrong, or the management is inadequate.

Cheers,

Jonne.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext John C Klensin [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 12:32 PM
> To: Spencer Dawkins; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: OPEN ISSUE: WG Chair Selection
> 
> 
> Spencer,
> 
> For perhaps-obvious reasons, sitting IESG members may be a bit 
> reluctant to answer this explicitly.  As a variation, let me 
> explain why you may not get an answer that is as clear as you 
> like.
> 
> In this, or any similar volunteer organization, occasions in 
> which an AD becomes uncomfortable with WG, or WG Chair, 
> performance are fairly common.  On average, I'd guess that 
> occurs at least a few times per WG per year, but the tails on 
> that distribution are very long.   Normally, depending somewhat 
> on the personalities and style of the particular AD and Chair 
> involved, that discomfort is followed by some combination of 
> advice, encouragement, counselling, education, etc.  If enough 
> of those occur enough times, much more direct conversations, 
> sometimes followed by threats, enter the equation.  Now, for 
> some WG chair personalities, especially in combination with 
> particularly forceful ADs, there may be very little perceived 
> difference between a "firm and frank exchange of views", 
> especially if it occurs with a few accompanying threats, a 
> demand for a resignation, or an outright firing.  In other 
> combinations of cases, the difference is very great indeed.
> 
> Of course, ADs don't have infinite patience, and probably 
> shouldn't.  Frequent instances of discomfort or annoyance are as 
> likely to lead to chair-removal (maybe more likely) as a few 
> seriously bad actions.
> 
> To complicate things further, I've observed that most ADs try to 
> keep to keep the fact of forcing a Chair out fairly low profile 
> and to try to avoid disrupting WGs more than necessary.  So, 
> e.g., what might appear to a WG as "adding a co-chair to help 
> with the load" might actually be a "get someone new in and up to 
> speed so that the disfunctional original chair can be dumped".
> 
> There are also situations in which an AD concludes that the 
> correct action is to fire a WG, not a chair.  But sometimes that 
> results from the conclusion that the chair isn't functioning but 
> that no replacement would be likely to function any better. 
> Again, you can't generally tell from the outside and that is 
> often a good thing (especially when the chair might be perfectly 
> appropriate for managing some other WG, under other 
> circumstances).
> 
> The "WG isn't getting anything done anyway" point that you make 
> is important.  It figures prominently in many of these 
> decisions, but certainly not all of them.  To take an extreme 
> case as an example, suppose we had a WG that is working smoothly 
> and effectively and has co-chairs.   One of them is function and 
> the other is not.  Some ADs are going to be strongly inclined to 
> force the disfunctional Co-chair out as a matter of principle if 
> he or she can't be quickly persuaded to start pulling weight and 
> contributing usefully.   Other ADs would be inclined to just let 
> this go, especially if the functional co-Chair isn't 
> complaining, on the "why stir up trouble" or "it isn't broken, 
> don't fix it" principles.  I think there aren't any uniformly 
> correct answers and the differences mess up the statistics.
> 
> Those aren't numbers, but maybe the explanation will help a bit.
> 
>       john
> 
> 
> 
> --On Tuesday, 20 May, 2003 07:19 -0500 Spencer Dawkins 
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > I understand your distinction between WG chairs leaving and
> > "leaving with assistance".
> >
> > I've got to ask - how common IS the case where a WG chair is
> >
> > (1) not performing to the point where s/he should be replaced,
> > and (2) not willing to step down?
> >
> > If this happens once a year, I'd say "tough, let the AD
> > announce the impending replacement publically and ask for
> > input anyway". It's not like anything is getting done in the
> > WG anyway, right?
> >...
> 
>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:14:03 -0400

--On Wednesday, 21 May, 2003 00:35 -0700 
"[email-masked]" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> thanks for your clarification of this (I have to say) peculiar
> process. I started wondering a bit about a few things.

I don't think it is peculiar at all, given the circumstances and 
the way we organize ourselves.   Perhaps my reflections on your 
comments below will explain better.

> You said that performance issues are fairly common - a few
> times per WG per year. That does sound awful lot to me. How is
> this performance actually measured? I mean, the milestones are
> generally totally off anyways. Does every AD have their own
> measures?

Please don't read too much into either what I said or how I said 
it.  Unhappiness is part of the AD job.  More important, 
worrying about WG performance is part of the job.  And I used 
"performance" broadly: as an AD, I would worry when there were 
clear disagreements within the WG that seemed to be going in 
circles, without convergence, and I would worry when there 
appeared to be too _much_ consensus about areas I believed 
should be controversial.  Does silence indicate that the WG 
membership isn't broad enough?  That people with dissenting 
views have been driven out or shouted into silence?  That no one 
is really reading the docouments?  And so on.

The benchmarks are just part of this: some ADs find them a very 
useful management tool, others don't.  For those who don't, 
putting energy (of either the AD or the WG) into getting 
frequent updates and readjustments is a waste of time and 
effort.   For those who do, concern/discomfort is always 
appropriate, but the question of whether to come down on the WG 
(or its Chair) for getting behind requires, IMO, some judgment, 
not a firm rule.  For example, if a WG is overdue, but finally 
working swiftly toward what looks like a positive conclusion, 
telling them to stop, lose momentum, and start rewriting 
benchmarks would typically (but perhaps not always) be a dumb 
decision.  Conversely, if a WG has lost direction, is wandering 
in the weeds, and is also overdue, focusing on benchmarks may be 
the wrong way to spend energy.

Since I'm good at worrying and thinking about thing can could go 
wrong and what their early symptoms would look like, I'm even 
likely to get concerned or uncomfortable if a WG appears to be 
well ahead of benchmarks (not that this happens very often) -- 
e.g., I wonder whether they are missing or burying issues that 
ought to be taking up more time (similar to my comment about 
"too much consensus" above, but still a bit different).

For some combinations of AD and WG personalities, and general 
styles, the AD might monitor these things actively and interact 
actively with the WG Chairs each time a concern came up.   For 
others, the AD might look in every few months, depending on the 
Chair(s) to raise issues if they showed up in the interim.

Does any of this lead automatically, or even frequently, to 
"shoot the Chair"?  It had better not.  Replacing Chairs is a 
difficult and disruptive process even when it is completely 
voluntary.   A new person has to be found and brought up to 
speed, working relationships and styles with both the AD and the 
WG have to be rebuilt, etc.  "The group is close enough to 
finished" can be an excellent reason to keep a chair on who is 
obviously disfunctional, or even to plead with one who has 
burned out to stay on a bit longer, just because of the effort 
and disruption associated with a change.  (Of course, sometimes 
ADs make bad guesses about how close the group really is, which 
has other bad consequences, but we had better not start 
expecting perfect forecasting or prophecy.)   If we ever have an 
AD would _likes_ firing and replacing Chairs, it will be time to 
ask whether that person had outlived his or her usefulness on 
the IESG.

> Secondly, you say that a non-performing WG could be fired
> totally (closed?). Would that mean that the WG had already no
> meeting, and no participants on the mailing list, or how is it
> determined that the WG is performing so poorly that it can be
> closed down?

We've actually discussed this quite a lot on this list, although 
in slightly different form.  I hope we can avoid rehashing it. 
Under current procedures, the responsible AD for a WG can close 
that WG at any time, for any reason.  In general, there is 
agreement that doing this without warning and prior discussion 
would be a terrible practice.  But it is almost impossible to 
imagine how we could write more specific rules that would cover 
all possible situations without over-constraining the ability of 
ADs to manage or bogging down a process in which the potential 
for decisive action may sometimes be very important.  So we rely 
on AD discretion, good sense, and the ability to appeal such 
decisions.

> I just wonder, if there such occurring performance problems
> maybe the WGs, or the chairs are not alone anymore to blame,
> but the responsibility goes already to the ADs that are
> managing the WG. If there needs to be a change very often,
> maybe the selection criteria of the WG chairs is wrong, or the
> management is inadequate.

We do not change WG chairs very often, perhaps even not as often 
as we should.  Some, perhaps many, of the changes that do occur 
are due to external reasons, e.g., a chair changing jobs and not 
having adequate time or resources to continue effectively.  When 
we do make changes, the reasons are often hard to discern, and 
that is often for very good reasons, as I tried to point out in 
my note.  If we ever had an AD who was routinely selecting 
chairs, removing and replacing them, and then repeating the 
cycle, that AD is probably ready for retirement... but, to my 
recollection, that has never happened.

And I would add to your list/discussion: "maybe the charter was 
wrong and the WG is just hopeless" -- which is the reason I 
wanted to discuss "fire the WG" along with "fire the WG Chair".

But, again, thinking about this in terms of blame is not often 
going to be helpful.   Even in the "weak charter" case, ADs are 
sometimes under a lot of pressure to approve charters. 
Sometimes the right answer is not "try to tune this until 
everyone is happy", but "let them try this, but for a relatively 
short period of time -- if the WG turns out to be unsuccessful 
during that period, either replace the leadership, drastically 
revise the charter, or close or suspend the WG until a more 
realistic plan can be developed".  If the second course is 
taken, the choise among those three options may depend more on 
AD style and circumstances than about any firm or public theory 
about who or what is to blame.

    regards,
      john