[Internal-cg] Coordination Group, 2 weeks after London.

[Daniel Karrenberg]

On 4.08.14 17:19 , Russ Housley wrote:
> In an aircraft, there is a pilot and a co-pilot.  

... and while they take turns flying the aircraft and while the pilot
monitoring is expected to clearly call out any mistakes by the pilot
flying, the captain has the ultimate responsibility for the safe
operation of the aeroplane. That is why the technical term is "pilot in
command" and why the pilot in command is empowered appropriately by
laws, regulations and traditions.

Maybe this precedent offers us a way forward.  We can have a chair and
two co-chairs.

This is exactly where I perceived the discussion to be going before the
latest intervention by ALAC. I like this compromise because

 - it provides stability by not depending on a single person,
 - it has potential to bring complementary skills to bear,
 - it provides the external optics ALAC considers important, and
 - it allows sharing of the workload.

At the same time it clearly assigns the responsibility for organising
and conducting (sic!) our work to a single person who accepts that
responsibility and whom we empower by agreeing to give them room to do
their work and not loose ourselves in battles about formalities or in
frequent criticism of the chair.

I strongly believe in giving people responsibility and in empowering
them appropriately at the same time.  NB: I also believe in taking away
their responsibilities if they do not do the job.

>From experience I am very wary of giving any responsibility to a group
of equals, especially if they have no history of working well together.
I have especially bad experiences with equal co-chairs of any large
group. There must be a reason why this is an extremely rare arrangement.

Way forward:

Best would be if we could agree on 1+2 in the next few days by e-mail or
poll. This would require ALAC removing their show-stopper. Maybe hearing
many ICG members agree with this compromise would make it easier for
ALAC? Then we call for candidates. The we take a poll. The we appoint
two people.

Next best would be to discuss this at our September f2f meeting. In that
case we will need to agree who prepares and chairs this meeting until
the issue is resolved.

We should not attempt to resolve this in a telephone conference. This is
unlikely to work. We better use that time to progress other work like
the RFP.

Constructively yours

Daniel