[council] [revised] EPDP team weekly update

Darcy Southwell darcy.southwell at endurance.com
Tue Sep 4 18:45:52 UTC 2018


To respond to a variety of comments below, I’d like to suggest that the level of detail isn’t lacking (Rafik has provided far more detail than I’d have thought necessary), but it’s possibly not the correct information needed to manage the policy development process.  To Michele’s point, the Council should not micromanage the process. That’s not efficient or effective.  The sort of weekly report I suggested during our Council meeting is high level and focused on ensuring the EPDP team is on track with the work plan.  Where we stand right now, I don’t feel like I have that understanding, even comparing Rafik’s detailed updates to the posted work plan.  Honestly, I feel this weekly update should take less than 10 minutes to prepare if we maintain that focus.  I say that as much for the best use of Rafik’s time as well as keeping the Council focus on managing the policy development process.   I would expect the liaison to provide more substantive updates if the EPDP is getting off track from meeting its deliverables, is quickly approaching a roadblock, etc.

 

When it comes to status updates on decisions, substantive debates, and the like, we all have communication paths through our SG/Cs for that info if necessary.

 

Thanks,

Darcy

 

From: council [mailto:council-bounces at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Ayden Férdeline
Sent: Tuesday, September 4, 2018 3:48 AM
To: Heather Forrest <haforrestesq at gmail.com>
Cc: Kurt Pritz <kurt at kjpritz.com>; GNSO Council List <council at gnso.icann.org>
Subject: Re: [council] [revised] EPDP team weekly update

 

Thanks, Heather.

 

If I may just clarify, I am not asking that additional resources be put aside for the purposes of reporting — and I actually do not want a “fancy, corporate-looking document” complete with PR polish that obfuscates the work that the EPDP team is actually doing. I just want a weekly one- or two-pager that is a true reflection of what is actually happening within the EPDP.

 

I do not think we need to devote additional resources to make this happen, I am simply suggesting we use the existing resources we have for reporting to produce a report that will give everyone on the Council who is not dialling into the EPDP calls an accurate snapshot of what progress is being made.

 

If others are happy with the reports that have been sent over the past two weeks, I am glad to hear that and my complaint stands alone. I just think we can do better, and without needing to allocate any additional resources to do so.

 

That said, I do want to extend my thanks to Rafik for serving as Council liaison and sending through this report. I know it is a thankless and unrewarding task, particularly when people like me send through criticism.

 

Best wishes,

 

Ayden





On 4 Sep 2018, at 03:03, Heather Forrest <haforrestesq at gmail.com <mailto:haforrestesq at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

Thanks very much, Rafik, for these updates and for the continuous tweaking.

 

Ayden, I note your concerns and those expressed by Darcy last week about the level of detail in the reports. Here I would urge us all to bear in mind that we have to strike an effective balance in terms of the use of resources. While I fully support (and indeed explicitly requested from David Olive in his responsibilities for policy support in the context of finance discussions for the EPDP) the weekly reporting back to Council on the EPDP, I have also been adamant since the EPDP was launched that the very limited resources we have been allocated for the EPDP get used as effectively as possible. Specifically, we said in our August Council meeting that the EPDP reports need not be fancy, corporate-looking documents like those we produce for our regular PDPs; rather, we said, they should be weekly, quick and dirty, and contain just the most critical points on progress towards milestones, challenges identified, and specific needs. 

 

As I'm not a member of the EPDP myself, I very much appreciate the desire for details, but I ask that we consider that detailed reporting should be flowing back from the EPDP members themselves, fed into their respective SG/C/SO/AC. I realise that's a big ask of our respective EPDP members, but we have said all along that the burden is high but limited to a relatively short period of time. The reports we receive need to be only as much as we need to carry out Council's purposes as manager of the EPDP. If we require reports at a higher level of detail than what we currently have, we need to devote more resources to producing the reports, and this will require sacrificing something else from the EPDP budget (for example, the second f2f option). 

 

Best wishes,

 

Heather

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Tue, Sep 4, 2018 at 9:27 AM Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com <mailto:rafik.dammak at gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi Pam,


thanks for the comments.

Yes, that is the work plan that was proposed and put for review for EPDP team.  we are following it for the time being.
I also thought that may be helpful to do so and use that table (but focusing on temporary spec sections for now) to indicate progress. let me give another try and see if I can tweak it.

for expectations to liaison, I will notify any possible delay to the council in a timely manner. I may share more update later this week about the first deliverable.

 

Best,

 

Rafik

 

Le mar. 4 sept. 2018 à 07:57, Pam Little <pam.little at alibaba-inc.com <mailto:pam.little at alibaba-inc.com> > a écrit :

In terms of tracking progress, the EPDP Timeline included in the weekly update is too high level.  The EPDP Charter actually requires the EPDP Team to develop a work plan and submit it to the Council. Is the work plan posted on wiki ready for the Council? Would tracking progress against a detailed work plan make more sense?

 

See relevant excerpts from the EPDP Charter"

 

The EPDP Team shall respect the timelines and deliverables as outlined in Annex A and A-1 of the ICANN Bylaws and the EPDP Manual. As per the GNSO EPDP Working Group Guidelines, the EPDP Team shall develop a work plan that outlines the necessary steps and expected timing in order to achieve the milestones of the EPDP as set out in Annex A and A-1 of the ICANN Bylaws and the EPDP Manual and submit this to the GNSO Council. Any significant updates to the work plan are expected to be communicated in a timely manner to the GNSO Council with an explanation as to why the work plan needed adjustment.

 

... the GNSO Council furthermore expects that the liaison:

...

*	●  Will notify the Council in a timely manner should there be any adjustment to the work plan and, in particular, any delay that may be likely to occur in adhering to the agreed EPDP milestones.

 

The EPDP Team is expected to communicate in a timely manner should there be any adjustment to the work plan and especially any delay that may have occurred in meeting the EPDP milestones.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Pam 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------

Sender:Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com <mailto:icann at ferdeline.com> >

Sent at:2018 Sep 4 (Tue) 08:45

To:Michele Neylon - Blacknight <michele at blacknight.com <mailto:michele at blacknight.com> >

Cc:Council GNSO <council at gnso.icann.org <mailto:council at gnso.icann.org> >

Subject:Re: [council] [revised] EPDP team weekly update

 

I don’t see this as micromanaging. We have delegated tasks. We have given the EPDP team a charter with the outcomes it should be seeking to achieve, and the autonomy to do just that. But we do need to check-in from time to time to make sure everything is on track. And the Council might need to ‘crack the whip’ if it becomes apparent that the driver has gone off-road. 

 

I am not asking for a lengthy weekly report; I am just asking for a brief one or two pager with only pertinent information (and not the message that the Council may want to communicate to external audiences, implying everything is swell) that will allow us to check-in and perform our oversight function.

 

Thanks,

 

Ayden

 

On 4 Sep 2018, at 00:28, Michele Neylon - Blacknight <michele at blacknight.com <mailto:michele at blacknight.com> > wrote:

 

Ayden 

 

Our role as Council is to manage policy, but a good manager delegates. What you want sounds akin to micromanaging it, which is not our role.

 

Regards

 

Michele 

Mr Michele Neylon

 <https://www.blacknight.com/> https://www.blacknight.com/

 <https://michele.blog/> https://michele.blog

Intl. +353 (0)59 9183072

Sent from mobile so usual disclaimers about typos etc apply


On 3 Sep 2018, at 22:26, Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com <mailto:icann at ferdeline.com> > wrote:

Hi Michele, 

 

I would like the update to actually reflect what topics the EPDP team is spending the bulk of its meetings discussing, and to highlight where there are challenges moving forward. It should also highlight where the Charter is unclear, or when documents are being provided with insufficient time for team members to review them. This is what I think the Council needs to be made aware of. 

 

This is a good supplementary report, but as we deliberate on PDP 3.0 and think about how we can improve that, being able to see what works and what isn’t working in the EPDP might offer us some lessons to repeat or not repeat.

 

I also think the report should explore how much progress has been made towards answering the questions that are outlined in the mission and scope of the EPDP's Charter.

 

Best wishes,

 

Ayden

 

On 3 Sep 2018, at 23:09, Michele Neylon - Blacknight <michele at blacknight.com <mailto:michele at blacknight.com> > wrote:

 

Ayden 

 

If there’s something fundamentally going wrong within the ePDP both you and other members of the WG can surely signal it?

 

I’m not at all clear as to what kind of update you expect to be provided, especially as quite a few of us are tracking its work quite closely already

 

Regards 

 

Michele 

Mr Michele Neylon

 <https://www.blacknight.com/> https://www.blacknight.com/

 <https://michele.blog/> https://michele.blog

Intl. +353 (0)59 9183072

Sent from mobile so usual disclaimers about typos etc apply


On 3 Sep 2018, at 19:53, Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com <mailto:icann at ferdeline.com> > wrote:

I am reluctant to make this comment, but I think it is necessary. I do not see any substantial changes between the format of the previous report and this one. I don’t think this communicated anything useful then, and this update does not leave me with an accurate snapshot of the two two-hour long EPDP meetings that I sat through last week. We need something better. 

 

If there is a need for a report that will give the community confidence that multistakeholderism is working, fine, let’s use this one. But the Council, if it is to deliver proper oversight over this EPDP, needs a separate report that does not sugarcoat what is really happening within meetings and glosses over the challenges actually being faced. 

 

If this same reporting format is used again, I will raise this same objection again. 

 

Ayden

 

 

On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 05:10, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com <mailto:rafik.dammak at gmail.com> > wrote:

hi all, 

 

we made a small edit to the report, please find the new version attached.

you can find reports here too  <https://community.icann.org/display/EOTSFGRD/GNSO+Council+Updates> https://community.icann.org/display/EOTSFGRD/GNSO+Council+Updates 

 

Best,

 

Rafik 

Le lun. 3 sept. 2018 à 08:55, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com <mailto:rafik.dammak at gmail.com> > a écrit : 

Hi all, 

 

please find attached the EPDP team weekly report for last week.

we are continuing to tweak the report to highlight the progress.

 

Best,

 

Rafik

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