[council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Tue Apr 20 21:02:12 UTC 2010

Chuck and Adrian:

I agree with both your assessments that we are going to need quantifications of resource constraints and capacities if the Council is to manage the overall GNSO workload responsibly and effectively.   The Work Prioritization Drafting Team recognized this important factor in its transmittal email forwarded to the Council by Olga Cavalli (9 April 2010).  In particular I would highlight:

“The DT believes that prioritization is an important first step of the Council’s broader project management role, which should be further defined and will require appropriate tools to assist in the active and effective management of the workload.  To facilitate these managerial responsibilities, the DT recommends that:

1)      a process be developed to allow timely tracking of GNSO projects on an on-going basis; and

2)      its process be supported with a web-based software toolkit (e.g. excellent open source applications are available) that will assign Staff and Community resources to projects/tasks and offer time/milestone tracking plus advanced collaboration capabilities allowing work to be managed efficiently, effectively, and transparently. “

While I agree that rough FTE type calculations may provide some useful guidance in the near term, I the GNSO should have available a process such as highlighted in Olga’s two bullet points.   I am hoping that the Council will accept the WPM-DT’s recommendation and commission a team, working with my Staff, to define appropriate program/project management disciplines along with an integrated suite of tools designed to provide both the Council and ICANN  management with the data and facts needed for both resource capacity planning (Community and Staff) as well as real-time decision-making.

I welcome and look forward to your involvement and others in these discussions.

David Olive

On 4/20/10 9:30 AM, "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes at verisign.com> wrote:

Excellent points Adrian.  Your suggestions would make good input to the operating plan and budget process.  I also think it would be good for you to pursue your ideas further with David Olive.  And finally, what you are talking about would be a good start to what needs to happen once we do the prioritization exercise; the prioritization DT developed a methodology for prioritizing projects but that is not the end because we then need to figure out how we apply the priorities in our everyday policy work.  It seems to me that what you are saying is an integral part of developing a way for the Council to manage the process.

David - What are your thoughts?

Chuck

________________________________
From: Adrian Kinderis  [mailto:adrian at ausregistry.com.au]
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010  7:59 AM
To: Gomes, Chuck; KnobenW at telekom.de;  council at gnso.icann.org
Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS  Studies Funding for FY11

I  think what the GNSO needs is a very simple resource model that maps current  staffing, travel, external study funds against tasks.   You don't  actually need to be managing a staff budget, it is really managing a resource  profile.

So  I would expect something along the lines of:

policy  staff:  4.5 FTE

Travel  funds in addition to ICANN meetings:  $x

Funds  for external studies: $y

Then  you would expect some estimates related to the PDP steps:

-           issues  report: x FTE

-            Initial  report: y FTE

-            final  report: z FTE

You  should then be able to work out that there is capacity for say 3 PDPs in  parallel.

Then  what should those 3 be for the year becomes the  question....

Right  now you have GNSO council kicking off work left and right - with low  thresholds to start something.   The staff don't have the ability to  say “no, can't fit that in this year”.

The  ultimate result is staff are spread too thin.

Of  course the same applies to the volunteer resources.  Each stakeholder  group probably has up to about 4 FTE of people really available to spend hours  on this sort of work.  I am talking about heavy lifters here - able to  guide and draft text.

So  the point becomes how prioritisation needs to understand how many activities  the GNSO can do well.  Part of the reason the GNSO doesn't make much  progress on some things - is it is working on 10-20 projects at  once.

I  look forward to the Prioritisation Working Group presenting on their  model.

Chuck  – further comments below.

Adrian  Kinderis

From: Gomes,  Chuck [mailto:cgomes at verisign.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 2010  10:35 AM
To: Adrian Kinderis; KnobenW at telekom.de;  council at gnso.icann.org
Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS  Studies Funding for FY11

Adrian,

Please  see my responses below.

Chuck

________________________________

From:  Adrian Kinderis [mailto:adrian at ausregistry.com.au]
Sent: Monday,  April 19, 2010 7:42 PM
To: KnobenW at telekom.de; Gomes, Chuck;  council at gnso.icann.org
Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS  Studies Funding for FY11

Wolf  et al,

What  concerns me over the entire function of the Council is the fact that there  is no budget associated with the policy development*.
[Gomes,  Chuck] There is a budget associated with policy development although it  is not separated as a policy development budget per se.  It would be  helpful if it was.

[AK]  Agreed

The  Work Prioritisation Team is about to present a prioritisation methodology  and process that is unable to take into account the amount of staff time  that is budgeted to support prioritised work.
[Gomes,  Chuck] Estimates could probably be made in this regard but I don't  think they are needed to do the initial prioritization.  They  would become quite important if we do not have enough resources to do all of  our work.

[AK]  That is exactly my point! If we don’t have the resources perhaps we should  re-evaluate our prioritisation!

This  seems upside down or back-to-front or something.

How  can we comment on funding for WHOIS studies when we have no visibility on  how much it may impact our ability to have staff support other important  areas of work?
[Gomes,  Chuck] My understanding is that the overwhelming majority of the  Studies work would be outsourced.  Obviously Staff has to arrange for  that and manage it; is that what you are talking about Adrian?  I  assume the Whois Studies project, if we approve some studies would be a part  of our prioritization exercise, but that would only be the case if there are  funds to do some studies.

[AK]  That is indeed what i mean. Do we have any idea how big the bucket is and  how much each task/ project will impact it?

*On  a GNSO call a few months back I asked Denise explicitly if there was a  budget for staff support of Policy Development. I was told directly and  clearly that there is not.
[Gomes,  Chuck] I think there is a misunderstanding here.  There are lots  of funds in the budget to support policy development work; we benefit  from those funds everyday.  But, as noted above, to date they have  not been reported as a separate and inclusive budget  category.

Adrian  Kinderis

From:  owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On  Behalf Of KnobenW at telekom.de
Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 2010 6:40  AM
To: cgomes at verisign.com;  council at gnso.icann.org
Subject: AW: [council] Motion for WHOIS  Studies Funding for FY11

Chuck

is  this meant as a placeholder to be sure having funds available in FY11? Which  is the deadline where it has to become more precise in terms of the number  and kind of studies to be funded?

I  suppose everybody has own priorities. Speaking on behalf of the ISP  constituency we would like to see on top those studies dealing with data  accuracy improvement and secondly those digging into the privacy  complex.

Regards
Wolf-Ulrich

________________________________

Von:  owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] Im  Auftrag von Gomes, Chuck
Gesendet: Freitag, 16. April 2010  22:37
An: GNSO Council
Betreff: [council] Motion for  WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11
Wichtigkeit: Hoch

<<Motion  for Whois Studies Funding for FY11.doc>>

In our Council meeting on 1 April I encouraged Councilors and their  respective SGs and Constituencies to develop and propose specfic  recommendations for funding of Whois Studies in the FY11 budget but no  such recommendations were submitted.  Recognizing that the Draft  ICANN Budget has to be posted not later than 17 May and our next Council  meeting after the one on 21 April is not until 20 May, three days later, I  decided that we should try to make a recommendation in our meeting on 21  April.  To facilitate that possibility I asked Liz to draft the  attached motion (also pasted below).

Because of the lateness of the motion we would need to first approve an  exception to the 8-day GNSO Operating Procedures Requirement for motions  before we could act on this motion.  Also note that the motion has a  placeholder for the amount to be budgeted for Whois Studies.  My  personal opinion is that it would be good to fund at least two studies in  FY11 and even better if we could fund three if they are ready to go,  thereby avoiding very lengthy delays for at least two and maybe three  studies.  Based on the estimates provided for two of the studies, a  minimum of $300,000 would be needed and it might be wise to add a 10%  buffer on to that, making it $330,000.  If we decided to budget for  three studies, one of which we do not have any cost estimates for, we  could bump the amount up to $500,000.

In a year of limited financial resources, we cannot guarantee how much  will ultimately be put into the budget but we can should in my opinion at  least make a recommendation for consideration by the community and  ultimately the ICANN Board.

.

Please discuss this motion with your SGs and Constituencies before our  meeting on Wednesday so that we can act on it using whatever amount we  decide at that time if possible.

Discussion on the list is encouraged and, if anyone is willing to  second it without the amount inserted, that is welcome as well.  If  anyone would rather see an amount inserted, we can insert one that can  later be amended.

Chuck

Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Whereas:

In October 2007, the GNSO Council concluded that a comprehensive,  objective and quantifiable understanding of key factual issues regarding  the gTLD WHOIS system would benefit future GNSO policy development efforts  (http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/)

Before defining the details of studies, the Council solicited  suggestions from the community for specific topics of study on WHOIS.  Suggestions were submitted (http://forum.icann.org/lists/WHOIS-comments-2008/  ) and ICANN staff prepared a 'Report on Public Suggestions on Further  Studies of WHOIS', dated 25-Feb-2008 (http://gnso.icann.org/issues/WHOIS-privacy/WHOIS-study-suggestion-report-25feb08.pdf  ).

On 5 November 2008 the GNSO Council formed a drafting team to solicit  further constituency views assessing both the priority level and the  feasibility of the various proposed WHOIS studies, with the goal of  deciding which studies, if any, should be assessed for cost and  feasibility.

The Drafting Team determined that the six studies with the highest  average priority scores should be the subject of further research to  determine feasibility and obtain cost estimates.

On 4 March 2009 the GNSO Council requested that Staff conduct research  on feasibility and cost estimates for those six WHOIS studies and  following that assessment the Council would decide which studies should be  conducted (http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#200903)

On 23 March 2010, staff provided its analysis to the GNSO Council of  costs and feasibility for the first two study areas, and will continue to  work on the remaining areas

Resolved, that the GNSO Council recommends that at least (insert US  dollar amount) be included in the ICANN Budget for FY 2011.

Resolved further, that the GNSO secretariat communicate this resolution  to the ICANN Chief Financial Officer and the Board Finance  Committee.

David A. Olive
Vice President, Policy Development
ICANN
Office: 310.578.8617
Cell:  202.341.3611

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