[council] Managing the run-up to ICANN meetings

[Stéphane Van Gelder]

Thanks Mason. I think there is clear interest for discussing this in Prague. Jeff, our meeting planner, has taken that on board and I believe he is trying to find a slot.

Stéphane Van Gelder
Directeur Général / General manager
INDOM Group NBT France
----------------
Head of Domain Operations
Group NBT

Le 11 juin 2012 à 15:35, Mason Cole a écrit :

> 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 at gnso.icann.org on behalf of Stéphane Van Gelder
> Sent: Thu 6/7/2012 2:52 AM
> To: <KnobenW at telekom.de>
> Cc: council at gnso.icann.org
> 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 at telekom.de> <KnobenW at telekom.de> 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 at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] 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
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 

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