[council] GNSO Standing Committee for Continuous Improvement – Ideas and Possible Approach

[philippe.fouquart at orange.com]

Dear Councilors, SG/C Chairs,


As you may be aware, there are quite a number of projects on the Council’s Action Decision Radar (see https://community.icann.org/x/14vzC) that deal with improvements to GNSO processes and procedures. We heard from you during the Strategic Planning Session about the importance of prioritizing work as well as considering the resources available to conduct work as efficiently as possible. To this end, the suggestion was made to explore the possibility of creating a Standing Committee that would be tasked with addressing projects or assignments that are mainly focused on improving existing GNSO processes and procedures.


To further explore this possible approach, the Council leadership team has worked with the staff support team on developing a high-level outline for your review and input (see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HBCXMkLb7vFkWClgCpsr8WjYScz3UDh4/edit). Although the Standing Committee would be chartered by and operate under the oversight of the GNSO Council, it is intended to be a GNSO effort which can only be successful with the full support and participation of all SG and Cs. We appreciate that it may be challenging to comment on this approach without having all the details, but our hope is that by soliciting input at this point in time, we would be able to develop a more detailed proposal as a next step factoring in your suggestions and perspectives.


Some of the questions we hope you can focus on are:


·         Is this the right approach to benefit from synergies? If not, how should all the projects listed be tackled instead?

·         How to ensure appropriate scoping of work? The idea is that the standing committee would tackle topics that cut across the GNSO community and/or would benefit from a cross-GNSO collaboration. A possible approach could be that the charter provides an indication of the topics that are expected to be tackled, but specific assignments are confirmed in the form of a clear scoping document and work plan that is approved by the GNSO Council, with input from SG/Cs via their respective Council members. Are there other approaches that could be considered?

·         What should membership look like? How to ensure a balanced composition which at the same time is nimble enough to work effectively? How to introduce sufficient flexibility to allow for expert participation?

·         What decision-making methodology should be applied? Or is this to be determined based on the assignment the Standing Committee is tasked with?

·         Is it feasible to consider tackling some of the projects identified in parallel through different sub-committees?

·         How should the work be prioritized if a Standing Committee is created? Each of the possible projects identified could take a substantial amount of time to address and resolve which means certain items could take a while to get addressed.


Of course, there may be other topics you want to weigh in on.


We hope to receive your feedback in advance of the next Council meeting which is scheduled for Thursday 21 January, either via your input on the google doc (see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HBCXMkLb7vFkWClgCpsr8WjYScz3UDh4/edit) or in response to this email. As you will have seen, a number of the possible projects for the Standing Committee are fairly high on the Council’s Action Decision Radar so we hope to agree on an approach for tackling these sooner rather than later.


Best regards and happy holidays,


Philippe Fouquart

Chair, GNSO





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