[CWG-Stewardship] Service Level Expectations Design Team Template

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Sun, Mar 01, 2015 at 04:17:28PM +0900, Jordan Carter wrote:
> It is: whether anything needs to be added to currently documented SLA
> standards to allow the transition to be acceptable to any key customer
> community.
> 
> That's not a wholesale review but it's a little more than b), while
> respecting the need for conservatism and efficiency....

I'm really uncomfortable with this addition.

It sounds to me like this is an attempt to add to the transition
_changes_ to the pre-transition state of affairs.  It entails a claim
that the existing state of affairs is not good enough; but that would
be acceptable.  It _also_, however, entails a claim that the
post-transition change management procedures won't work, so one needs
to get any such changes done now.  If that is true, the transition
will be unsuccessful in its own terms and therefore would be bad.

I believe this WG needs to take a firm position: if there is something
that is wrong in the existing arrangements and that is not directly
related to the NTIA contract itself or the accountability framework as
it exists today, thenthat wrong thing actually ought to persist across
the transtition precisely because it should be possible to deal with
it in an entirely acceptable way afterwards.  The test of "acceptable
way" is not "I am sure I'll get what I want," but, "I am sure that the
procedure by which the decision will be made will be one I can
accept."  In fact, the more such cases we have to use as measures, the
more likely we are to think we have a transition plan that really
solves the problem.

Therefore, I oppose strongly this additional condition.  It's on the
wrong side of the transition.  This is not the opportunity to ensure
that one's current issue is solved; this is the opportunity to ensure
that one's issue will have a solid and acceptable mechanism to resolve
such issues in the future

Best regards,

A
-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com