[council] FW: Status Update of GNSO Review

Mon Dec 15 16:27:23 UTC 2014

In behalf of: Jen Wolfe
Sent: lundi 15 décembre 2014 17:17

Dear GNSO Council and GNSO leadership,

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!  I'd like to update you on the progress of the review and provide you with the revised schedule.

Westlake team will deliver the Working Text and staff will organize the wiki space to capture the feedback and views from the GNSO Review Working Party on 2 January 2015.  The GNSO Review Working Party will have until 30 January to provide consolidated comments on the Working Text back to Westlake.  This will ensure sufficient time to review the Working Text, without interfering with everyone's holiday.   Two special meetings of the GNSO Review Working Party will be scheduled in January.  It will be very important to have full participation from the Working Party, representing the various stakeholder and constituency groups, to actively participate in providing feedback.  Once Westlake has received feedback from the Working Party, they will prepare the draft report to be released.

Providing comments on the Working Text allows the GNSO Review Working Party to offer feedback before it is publicly released and ensure any real or perceived inaccuracies are addressed, as well as begin to capture issues for further discussion as the Review process moves forward.  Westlake will then draft their report which will be posted for Public Comment at the end of February, for the GNSO as a whole, along with the rest of the ICANN community to provide feedback.

Please see the schedule below for further details. Key dates are also available on the GNSO Review wiki<https://community.icann.org/x/OJLhAg>.

For your reference, I am forwarding an email from Richard Westlake, which provides a brief overview of the status of the 360 Assessment survey, interviews conducted and overall review methodology.

If you have any questions or would like clarification on any issue related to the Review, please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly and I will be happy to respond as quickly as possible to ensure any concerns are addressed prior to the release of the report.  I am happy to be available during upcoming Council meetings to answer questions and will look forward to a more detailed briefing with Council in Singapore.

Wishing you all a joyous holiday season and New Year!

Jen

GNSO Review: Important Dates

Working text for the GNSO Review Working Party and Staff for clarification and comments (distributed and posted on the wiki)

2 January 2015

GNSO Review Working Party working session #1 - Westlake Briefing

16 January 201518:00 UTC

GNSO Review Working Party working session #2 - discussion, Q&A

22 January 18:00 UTC

Consolidated comments on Working Text due to Westlake from GNSO Review Working Party and Staff

30 January

Updates and discussions during ICANN52

8-12 February; public session date TBD

Draft Report delivered by Westlake

20 February

Draft Report posted for public comment

27 February

Public Comment period (42 days)

27 February - 10 April

Final Report

30 April (tentative, depending on volume and nature of public comments)

Update from Richard Westlake

Dear Jen and Larisa,

Following recent questions about Westlake's review methods and individual interviews, I should like to highlight some points to reiterate why we consider that we have collected extensive, diverse, balanced and fact-based sets of data.  We have and will continue to apply our professional expertise and independent perspective to ensure a high-quality useful final report, and we note that many of our observations and recommendations will be a matter of  informed subject judgment in addition to, and based largely on, our research findings.

1.       The GNSO Review Methodology formulated by the Structural Improvement Committee and used as the basis for the Request for Proposal, Westlake's response, and the Terms of Reference/Scope of Work consisted of three data collection mechanisms:

a.       360 Assessment designed to collect feedback from GNSO, other SOs/ACs, Board and Staff (quantitative and qualitative) - our primary and critical component. In addition (and outside the scope originally envisaged), following feedback and advice, we added the Supplementary Working Group 360 Assessment, to provide a greater depth of information on the WGs;
b.       Review of documents and records;
c.       Limited interviews to fill in the gaps.
(As you know, the GNSO Review Working Party has provided substantive feedback and guidance on the review methodology, including extensive input into the formulation of the 360 Assessment and Supplementary WG 360.)

2.       We and ICANN staff carried out extensive outreach and engagement efforts between July and October, to encourage participation in the 360 Assessment, including two extensions to allow ample time for people to respond - see chart below.  These efforts resulted in 178 completed responses from a broad and diverse group of people by the time the 360 closed at the end of ICANN51.

3.       From the start, Westlake advocated for the interview component to be given more weight (both in our original response to the RfP and subsequently). This led to a modification in the original plans to enable our team to attend ICANN51, where we spoke to many people and attended many of the SG/C meetings, providing us with a first-hand view of GNSO proceedings.  We contacted an extensive list of relevant people - including some, but not all, SG/C chairs - before the LA meeting.  We successfully conducted interviews, in person and subsequently over the phone, with about 27 individuals to date and likely to total about 30.  Several people we contacted failed even to respond, despite several attempts and others have been unable to make time to speak to us.  Since LA, we have again tried to contact several people with only limited response. Although we are at a very late stage, we still aim to speak to a few more people.

4.       Our team has reviewed extensive documents relating to the implementation of earlier review recommendations, along with other documentation, and has analysed records detailing the work of the GNSO.

5.       The data our team has gathered from these channels has been extensive and in our view sufficiently broad and diverse to support our observations, leading to findings and recommendations that we shall include in our Draft Report.  As a further opportunity for feedback, before we finalise our report, there will be additional opportunities for the GNSO and others to offer their views:

a.      The GNSO Review Working Party will review our Working Text and engage in a dialogue to clarify, expand and correct information, as appropriate.  We will be particularly interested in this group's feedback on the usefulness and practicality of our draft recommendations.
b.      An overview will be presented in a session at ICANN52 in February, with another opportunity to provide feedback.
c.      The formal Public Comment Period will open in February and the feedback will be considered as we prepare our Final Report.
d.      We will continue to work closely with the GNSO Review Working Party through the balance of the Review.

I trust that this information covers your questions about our methodology and any remaining concerns about our interviews.

Please contact me again if you need any additional information.

Have a good weekend!

Kind regards

Richard

Richard G A Westlake
Westlake Governance

GNSO Review Statistics

360 Assessment:

-- Main survey

152 completed responses

(250 started)

-- Supplementary survey (WG)

26 completed responses

(50 started)

Total

178 completed responses

60% completion rate

Interviews:

27 to date, likely total 30+
(Plus several other shorter informal discussions, mainly in LA)

GNSO Review Working Party meetings:

13

Engagement:

-- Announcements page views

1,709

-- Blog page views

2,957

Outreach:

-- Webinars

3

-- Update presentations

14

-- Blogs

2

-- Videos

2

-- FAQ Brochures and Post cards distributed at ICANN51

3,000

jennifer c. WOLFE, esq., apr, SSBB
Founder & President, wolfe domain, a digital brand strategy advisory firm
513.746.2801
IAM 300 - TOp 300 global ip strategists 2011-2014
What will you do with your Dot Brand?  : http://ow.ly/Ebl8P
Subscribe to Our You Tube Channel on Brand gTLDs  http://ow.ly/Eblgc
Jen Wolfe gTLD Click Z Column  http://ow.ly/EbljP
Linked In Group:  gTLD Strategy for Brands http://ow.ly/EbloM

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/attachments/20141215/4c2d41cb/attachment.html>