Networking Working Group M. Vigoureux Internet Draft Alcatel-Lucent Intended status: Informational D. King Expires: April 2014 Old Dog Consulting October 17, 2013 Working Group Secretaries Good Practices draft-secretaries-good-practices-00 Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress". The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html This Internet-Draft will expire on April 17, 2014. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 1] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 Abstract This document is primarily intended for Working Group Secretaries, the role of whom is defined in RFC 2418. This document complements the succinct description of Working Group Secretaries' role by providing a compilation of good practices and some general guidelines regarding the fulfillment of the role. Table of Contents 1. Introduction...................................................2 2. An IETF Meeting................................................3 2.1. Preparation Phase.........................................3 2.2. A Working Group Session...................................5 2.3. Conclusion of an IETF Meeting.............................6 3. Inter-Meeting Phase............................................6 4. Security Considerations........................................8 5. IANA Considerations............................................8 6. Conclusions....................................................8 7. References.....................................................8 7.1. Informative References....................................8 8. Acknowledgments................................................9 1. Introduction The Working Groups (WGs) consist of contributors and participants, they provide the environment for the technical details to be debated and resolved, consensus is then reached, and subsequent standards are created. WG Chairs are responsible for implementing and managing the procedural questions and issues that will arise over time during the life of the WG. Previously the WG Secretarial role was defined as a minute taker and to record WG discussion points and decisions (see RFC 2418 [1]). Over time, this role has evolved to include a number of additional functions and activities which are critical to the smooth operation of IETF WGs. The framework, and perimeter of action, associated to the WG Secretary function depends on the person ensuring the function and on the persons he or she collaborates with (i.e., the WG Chairs), as well as on the professional relationship they establish. Therefore this document does not list what must be done, but what could be done by a WG Secretary. Also, this list shall not be considered as exhaustive. This document is therefore not a rigid job description. It is essential that overtime the WG Secretary and Chairs build a trust based efficient working relationship, and that, where required, WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 2] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 the WG Secretary develops the knowledge to fulfil the additional functions and activities. This shall enable the WG Secretary to both extend the scope of his or her actions, thus reducing the number of administrative tasks the Chairs might be expected to manage, and to be more and more involved in WG operation and decision-making, to the extent desired, or required. No secret recipe is given here on how to effectively build such relationship. In any case, while WG Chairs may delegate a number of tasks to the Secretary, they maintain the overall responsibility over the WG and the decisions and actions that are taken. As such, it is recommended that the WG Secretary does not operate without the agreement of the Chairs, or at least without the confidence that his or her choices and actions are in line with the Chairs views on any given matter. It shall be noted that the IETF Secretariat as well as a certain number of tools and means, exist in support of WG operation (session request tool, meeting material manager, the Datatracker, ...). Most (if not all) of these are accessible from the WG Chairs' page (http://www.ietf.org/wg/chairs-page.html). However, it is out of the scope of this document to describe the use of these tools. It shall also be noted that no specific tool exists in support of certain actions and tasks that can fall under the responsibility of WG Secretaries. Also, certain tasks described herein require the use of credentials and some rights associated to these. The WG Secretary (with the necessary help from the Chairs) should make sure he or she has all the capabilities required to perform the various tasks. We classify the objectives and tasks of a WG Secretary according two distinct phases: an IETF meeting, and the period between two consecutive IETF meetings. The following two sections reflect that classification. 2. An IETF Meeting This phase in fact covers the period of an IETF meeting per se, as well as the preparation phase and conclusion phase of a WG session. 2.1. Preparation Phase In a (non absolute) chronological order the tasks of a WG Secretary could consist in: o Submitting a session request for the WG. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 3] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 The WG Secretary should coordinate with the Chairs in order to appropriately fill the submission form, especially with regards to the number of sessions to request for, and their respective duration. o Calling for presentation slots. As soon as the IETF agenda for a given meeting is published, the WG Secretary could send an e-mail to the WG mailing list asking the WG participants to submit requests for presentation slots at the upcoming WG session(s). Note that, the form this call for presentations might take possibly depends on the plans WG Chairs have for a particular session, as well as on the policies they set for accepting presentation slot requests. The WG Secretary might need to coordinate with the Chairs prior to issuing the call. o Collecting the presentations slots requests. As a preliminary step to building the agenda, the WG Secretary could collect all the requests for presentations slots. In order to be able to do so, the WG Secretary should make sure that he or she is aware of all the formulated requests by 1/ clearly indicating in the call for presentations slots that he or she must be (one of) the recipients of the requests, and 2/ checking with the Chairs if they would have received requests that he or she was not in copy of. o Proposing a WG session agenda. Depending on the known preferences of the WG Chairs for the typical structure of their WG sessions, on the objectives WG Chairs have for a particular WG session, and/or on his personal view, the Secretary could propose a structured agenda for the upcoming WG session(s). Following that, the WG Secretary could work with the Chairs to finalize the agenda in view of publishing a first draft agenda. o Submitting the WG session agenda. At the deadline, or earlier to the extent possible, the WG Secretary could publish the draft and then final agenda for the WG session(s). The WG Secretary could then inform the WG that the agenda has been published. Also, depending on an agreement given by the WG Chairs, the Secretary could inform the participants having requested a presentation slot of the reason why they were not retained in the WG session's agenda. o Requesting presentations materials. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 4] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 Combined to the notification of the publication of the WG session's agenda, or separately, the WG Secretary could ask the presenters to send the material in support of their upcoming presentation. This request should come with a deadline to give sufficient time to upload the materials before the WG session(s). o Preparing the WG Status material. WG sessions typically start with a slot allocated to the WG Chairs during which is presented an administrative status of the WG. The WG Secretary could produce part, or the totality, of the WG status slides by compiling the appropriate information. As part of this step, the WG Secretary could query the authors of WG documents to know the status of and plans for the document (e.g., envisaged date of readiness for WG Last Call). This, mostly if not only, applies to WG Documents the state of which is not evident. For example there is no apparent need to poll authors of a WG document which is in IESG processing. o Uploading the materials. The WG secretary could, sufficiently ahead of time, upload the presentations materials. This is useful both to the WG participants wanting to have access to the material and to the person responsible for displaying the material during the session. 2.2. A Working Group Session The role of the WG Secretary could also cover the phase of a WG session. o Check list. For the WG Chairs to enjoy their lunch, coffee or cookie until the last minute the WG Secretary could sacrifice his or her time and enter the meeting room well in advance to prepare the session. This might include for example checking if blue sheets are available, but also preparing the session's material to be displayed, launching collaborative software environments (e.g., WebEx), preparing minute taking, and so on. The usefulness of such preparation depends of course on the WG and on the session. A WG session with a light agenda might not require all this. On the other hand, a WG with an extremely packed agenda and for which every minute counts, might benefit from such preparation. o Running the WG session. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 5] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 The WG Secretary could be responsible for displaying the material and running through the slides as speakers advance through their presentation. The WG Secretary would typically also act as the minute taker. It is recommended that, in the event a WG Secretary is unable to attend a WG session or take minutes, a suitable replacement be identified before the WG session. In addition the WG Secretary might also identify a Jabber scribe to aid remote participants to follow discussions and proxy questions from remote participants. Performing multiple tasks during WG sessions might pose certain challenges but nothing insurmountable. o After the WG session. After the end of a session the WG Secretary could bring the blue sheets to the Secretariat, and socialize with the very supportive and welcoming people composing the Secretariat. 2.3. Conclusion of an IETF Meeting o Publishing the WG session's minutes. While it is highly recommended that the minutes of WG session(s) be published as quickly as possible, this might only be feasible after the end of the week of an IETF meeting. In any case, if the WG Secretary was the minute taker he or she could polish the notes taken (correcting typos, or even complementing missing parts with audio recordings) and send these to the Chairs for validation. Once the WG Chairs agree on the written minutes, the Secretary could publish these using the means available. Once published, the WG Secretary could communicate the link to the WG, asking at the same time the WG participants to review and inform him or her of changes that would need to be performed before final publication. 3. Inter-Meeting Phase Tracking is the word dominating the tasks a WG Secretary could be expected to perform between two IETF meetings. o Recording and tracking authors' inputs. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 6] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 At least on two occasions, the WG Secretary is in position to receive inputs from authors of Internet-Drafts concerning the status and plans they have for their document(s). This is during the preparation phase (when building the WG status material) and during the WG session when authors sometime express such plans at the end of their presentation. The WG Secretary should record and track this information as it is valuable for sketching a plan and a schedule of the actions the WG Chairs will possibly have to take (e.g., poll for adoption, WG Last Call, ...). o Recording and tracking WG Chairs' decisions. Decisions are sometimes taken by WG Chairs during WG sessions. These decisions often imply some follow-up actions that the WG Chairs need to take. The WG Secretary could record and track the action-points for the WG Chairs. o Tracking events. In between the IETF meetings, a number of WG events including WG adoption polls, WG Last Calls, and acknowledging and managing Liaisons and Communications from/to external Standards organizations, will occur. The WG Secretary could track these events and report progress, or deadlines to the Chairs. For the WG adoption polls and WG Last Calls, the WG Secretary could remind the Chairs of the end of the poll/call together with an evaluation of the positions expressed on the WG mailing list in response to these polls/calls. o Monitoring IPR Polls. As per [2] it is important for document authors and contributors to disclosed IPR in a timely fashion. Typically an IPR poll might be conducted prior to a WG adoption poll or WG Last Call. In some cases, it would benefit WG Chairs if the Secretary was to monitor, track and chase authors and contributors where necessary for IPR responses. Where IPR poll responses are not forthcoming, the WG Secretary could notify the Chairs. o Maintaining the Datatracker and ensuring it is up to date. An important tool in support of WG operations is the Datatracker. The WG Secretary could have the responsibility of keeping the Datatracker up to date and reflecting the exact state each document is effectively in. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 7] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 The WG Secretary could also make sure that the replacement status of documents is correct, and request for the application of the proper status in case it is incorrect or not indicated and necessary. o Doing "Chair-like" work. Depending on the established working relationship between the WG Chairs and Secretary, the latter could take actions such as close polls for adoption or WG Last Calls, be the Shepherd as per [3] for a given document. o Attending WG Chairs' training. WG Secretaries are invited to the IETF WG chairs' lunch tutorials. 4. Security Considerations Delegation based on trust is not expected to introduce security issues. 5. IANA Considerations This document does not require any action from the IANA. 6. Conclusions The role of a WG Secretary can range from a few of these possible tasks to the full spectrum of them, and even beyond. This depends of his or her willingness, free time, technical knowledge of the subject matter, and on the expectations and requirements from the WG Chairs. The closer the WG Secretary and Chairs work, the more efficient it will be. As such it is desired that the WG Chairs and Secretary share a common set of information. Finally, clear communication and the setting of expectations by both parties will ensure a successful and mutually beneficial relationship, and will directly facilitate to the success of the WG. 7. References 7.1. Informative References [1] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998. [2] Bradner, S., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology", BCP 79, RFC 3979, March 2005. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 8] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 [3] Levkowetz, H., Meyer, D., Eggert, L., and Mankin, A., "Document Shepherding from Working Group Last Call to Publication", RFC 4858, May 2007. 8. Acknowledgments This document was prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot. WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 9] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries Good Practices October 2013 Authors' Addresses Martin Vigoureux Alcatel-Lucent Email: martin.vigoureux@alcatel-lucent.com Daniel King Old Dog Consulting Email: daniel@olddog.co.uk WG Secretaries Expires April 17, 2014 [Page 10]