[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] RDS PDP WG Leadership

[Don Blumenthal]

I suggest that we start with a call for nominations or volunteers. One of Marika's charts shows that the WP has a significant number of members who do not list GNSO-related affiliations. Narrowing the field creates the possibility of eliminating some very qualified individuals. 
A chair, possibly with vice chairs, is the best structure in my mind, if nothing else for coordination purposes. I would look for someone with a reputation for being open minded who views the role as being a moderator and avoids advocacy. 
Don


    _____________________________
From: Gomes, Chuck <cgomes at verisign.com>
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2016 4:01 PM
Subject: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] RDS PDP WG Leadership
To:  <gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org>


                     

In my personal capacity as a volunteer for the RDS PDP WG I would like to propose the following approach to the WG leadership that I think would be very helpful in facilitating our productivity:    

·         Have a leadership team consisting of 4 WG members plus the ICANN staff support personnel.    

·         Have one leader from each of the four GNSO Stakeholder Groups (SGs):    

 1.       Non-Commercial SG (NCSG)    

 2.       Commercial SG (CSG)    

 3.       Registrars SG (RrSG)    

 4.       Registries SG (RySG).    

·         The four leaders could serve in one of two ways:    

 o   2 co-chairs & 2 co-vice-chairs    

 o   1 chair & 3 co-vice chairs.    

     

In recent years in the GNSO, a team leadership approach for WGs and even for the GNSO Council itself has proved to be quite effective.  It not only spreads the workload around but more importantly it allows for a small team of experienced people to collaborate together in leading the group’s efforts. Here are a few examples where a collaborative leadership team have been used:    

·         The GNSO Council has a chair plus two vice chairs.    

·         The Policy & Implementation WG had two co-chairs and two vice-chairs.    

·         The CWG Stewardship has two co-chairs.    

·         The CCWG Accountability has three co-chairs.    

     

By adding a condition that each of the leadership team members come from different SGs, it ensures that the chairs and vice chairs collectively have expertise about all four of the GNSO stakeholder groups and creates a situation where the leaders are well versed in the varying viewpoints that exist across all four groups as well as differences within their respective groups.  I believe that this is especially important for an area such as Registration Data Services (Whois) that has been very controversial over the entirety of ICANN’s history.    

     

For those that are new to GNSO policy development processes, any recommendations made by a WG have to eventually be approved by the GNSO Council, which primarily consists of the four SGs.  So Having all SGs involved in the leadership of the WG from the beginning should facilitate approval in the end.    

     

It is important to remember that the role of the leadership team is to facilitate bottom-up multi-stakeholder policy development in a neutral and effective manner using a consensus based approach.  This of course means managing meetings and online work to ensure that the WG charter requirements are satisfied.  Hopefully, in most cases this will mean guiding the full group in developing recommendations that most if not all of the WG members can support.  But, after diligent efforts to reach consensus, there is still significant divergence about certain proposed recommendations, it will be the leaders responsibility to decide whether there is sufficient support in the WG to submit such recommendations to the GNSO Council.  Understanding this, it is important that each SG endorse the person on the leadership team from its group.    

     

I hope that we can confirm whether or not there is support for this approach in our WG call tomorrow.  If there is, then it will guide our efforts in finding qualified members to serve on the leadership team as well as how to structure the team (2 co-chairs + 2 co-vice-chairs or 1 chair + 3 co-vice-chairs).    

     

I would be happy to respond to any questions anyone has.    

     

Chuck Gomes    

     

P.S. – For those that do not know me, my Statement of Interest (SOI) can be found here: https://community.icann.org/display/gnsosoi/Chuck+Gomes+SOI     

     

        


  
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