Proto Team H. Levkowetz
Internet-Draft D. Meyer
Expires: January 17, 2005 A. Falk
July 19, 2004
Workgroup Chair Document Shepherding
<draft-ietf-proto-wgchair-doc-shepherding-01.txt>
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Abstract
This document describes a pilot implementation of a protocol change
within the IETF. The essence of the change is to have workgroup
chairs more involved in the progress of the document after the
workgroup and document editor have handed over the document for
publication. The activities involved in this are: 1) providing a
writeup for the document, to accompany the request for publication
which is sent to the secretariat and the ADs (Area Directors); 2)
following up on AD Evaluation comments on a draft to the authors and
workgroup; and 3) following up on IESG comments (DISCUSS comments as
well as other) on the draft.
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1. Introduction
As part of the currently ongoing effort to improve the work flow
(particularly speed of approval) of documents, the PROTO team
[PROTO] is defining pilot projects to test possible protocol changes.
This document describes such a pilot.
The purpose of the pilot described here is to test offloading
follow-up work which an Area Director (AD) traditionally has done.
This includes both follow-up after the AD has read through and
evaluated a document submitted to the IESG for publication, and
follow-up on IESG comments (DISCUSS comments and others) on a
document. It is hoped that offloading this onto the chair (or one of
the chairs) of the workgroup which submitted the draft will increase
the speed of follow-up and the transparency of the process, and
reduce the workload of the AD to boot. The pilot does not cover
follow-up for drafts which do not originate in a workgroup.
For a discussion of the reasoning underlying piloting of process
changes, see [JULY14].
2. Pilot description
2.1 Participants
This pilot involves Area Directors of selected areas, and some or all
of the chairs for which the Area Director is Area Advisor.
2.2 Running time and pilot size
This pilot is to be run not less than 4 months, and not more than 8
months, unless early experience shows it to be clearly detrimental.
It is expected that it will be started shortly after the IETF 60
meeting, and completed in time for the results to be reported at the
IETF 62 meeting. The pilot should be run with no fewer than 5
workgroups, up to the number that ADs and WG Chairs feel mutually
they can support.
The running time should be chosen such that the participating ADs and
WG chairs have opportunity to get past the initial learning and
first-time execution barrier, and get some familiarity with the
process before the pilot is closed and evaluated.
3. Process Description
The process changes described in this draft can be divided into three
tasks:
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o Doing a WG Chair Writeup for a document, described in Section 3.1
o Following up on AD review comments, described in Section 3.2
o Following up on IESG DISCUSS comments, described in Section 3.3
3.1 WG Chair Writeup
When a draft is ready to be submitted for publication, it is the task
of the shepherding workgroup chair to do a document writeup for the
draft.
There are two parts to this task. First, the chairs need to answer
questions 1.a to 1.h below so that the responsible Area Director can
get insight into the working group process as applied to this draft.
These questions may appear redundant in some cases but are written to
elicit any tidbits of information that the AD should be aware of.
(Pointers to relevant entries in the WG archive will be helpful.)
The goal is to inform the AD about any issues that may have come up
in IETF meetings, on the mailing list, or in private communication
that they should be aware of prior to taking this draft to IESG.
Don't be surprised if the AD has further questions. Any significant
issues mentioned in the questionnaire will probably lead to a
followup discussion with the AD.
The second part is to prepare the "Protocol Writeup" which is dually
used first as the ballot writeup for the IESG telechat and then the
IETF-wide protocol announcement. Item number 1.i describes the
elements of the writeup. For guidance for those who haven't done
this before, try looking at other protocol announcements (in the IETF
Announce archive) and expect some comments from the AD on the draft.
1.a) Have the chairs personally reviewed this version of the ID and
do they believe this ID is sufficiently baked to forward to the
IESG for publication?
1.b) Has the document had adequate review from both key WG members
and key non-WG members? Do you have any concerns about the
depth or breadth of the reviews that have been performed?
1.c) Do you have concerns that the document needs more review from a
particular (broader) perspective (e.g., security, operational
complexity, someone familiar with AAA, etc.)?
1.d) Do you have any specific concerns/issues with this document that
you believe the ADs and/or IESG should be aware of? For
example, perhaps you are uncomfortable with certain parts of the
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document, or have concerns whether there really is a need for
it, etc. If your issues have been discussed in the WG and the
WG has indicated it wishes to advance the document anyway, note
if you continue to have concerns.
1.e) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it
represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with
others being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and
agree with it?
1.f) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
discontent? If so, please summarise what are they upset about.
1.g) Have the chairs verified that the document adheres to _all_ of
the ID nits? (see http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html).
1.h) Does the document a) split references into normative/
informative, and b) are there normative references to IDs, where
the IDs are not also ready for advancement or are otherwise in
an unclear state? (Note: the RFC editor will not publish an RFC
with normative references to IDs, it will delay publication
until all such IDs are also ready for publication as RFCs.)
1.i) For Standards Track and BCP documents, the IESG approval
announcement includes a writeup section with the following
sections:
* Technical Summary
* Working Group Summary
* Protocol Quality
1.j) Please provide such a writeup. (We will hopefully use it as is,
but may make some changes.) For recent examples, have a look at
the "protocol action" announcements for approved documents.
1.k) Note:
* When doing the technical summary, one would expect that the
relevant information is in the abstract and/or introduction
of the document. It turns out that the step of producing
the writeup sometimes points out deficiencies in the
introduction/abstract that are also worthy of rectifying.
* For the Working Group Summary, was there anything in WG
process that is worth noting? (E.g., controversy about
particular points, decisions where consensus was
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particularly rough, etc.)
* For the protocol quality, useful information could include:
+ is the protocol already being implemented?
+ have a significant number of vendors indicated they
plan to implement the spec?
+ are there any reviewers (during the end stages) that
merit explicit mention as having done a thorough
review that resulted in important changes or a
conclusion that the document was fine (except for
maybe some nits?)
3.2 AD Review Shepherding
The steps for workgroup chair shepherding of AD reviews are as
follows:
2.a) If there is more than one chair, the chairs decide on which one
should be responsible for ensuring that the needed fixes are
done when the AD returns comments. This can for instance be
done at the time the publication request is sent. It is
important that this is an explicit agreement.
2.b) The AD reads, evaluates and writes comments pretty much as
before. However, note that since the communication between AD
and authors is not direct, the need for clear and
well-articulated review comments is somewhat larger.
2.c) Depending on the magnitude of the issues found (and other
considerations?), the AD returns the full review to the chairs,
and requests either:
* that further workgroup work be undertaken to put the
document into shape to be published
* that authors and workgroup are informed of the issues found
and resolve them in a revised draft
* that the authors fix nits as needed.
As covered below, the comments will be posted to the workgroup
mailing list. The comments will normally also be posted by the
AD in the ID Tracker [IDTRACKER]. Working groups that use issue
tracking should also record the issues (and eventually their
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resolution) in the issue tracker.
2.d) The chair responsible reads through the AD Evaluation comments,
making very certain that all comments are understood, so that it
is possible to follow up on them with the authors and workgroup.
If there is some uncertainty as to what is requested, this must
be resolved with the Area Director.
2.e) The responsible chair sends the comments to the author(s) and to
the workgroup mailing list, in order to have a permanent record
of the comments. It is recommended that the chair solicit from
the author(s) an estimate on when the fixes will be done - i.e.,
when the submission of a revised draft can be expected.
2.f) When incorporating the fixes in the new version of the draft, it
is strongly recommended that the revising editor keep a summary
list showing how the issues were addressed issue by issue, and
showing what the revised text is. If such a list is forwarded
to the AD with the revised draft, it will make it possible for
the AD to verify the fixes very quickly.
2.g) The responsible chair follows-up, nudges and iterates until the
authors (and workgroup if required) has fixed the issues found,
and submitted an updated draft. At this point, the AD is
notified of the revised draft, and provided with the summary
list of issues and resulting text changes.
In the event that the working group disagrees with a comment
raised by the AD or has already considered the issue and
previously ruled it out, this must be discussed and resolved
with the AD before the new version of the draft is submitted.
2.h) The Area Director verifies that the issues he found during AD
Evaluation are resolved by the new version of the draft.
2.i) (Hopefully, that's it, but in the worst case this starts over at
1 again...)
3.3 IESG Discuss Shepherding
In this section we detail the steps that a shepherding WG chair will
take in resolving the DISCUSS items against a given ID. The steps
are given below, in the order that they are to be executed.
3.a) Immediately after the weekly IESG conference call, the
shepherding WG chair queries the ID tracker [IDTRACKER] to
collect any DISCUSS comments raised against the ID. In order to
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accomplish this, the shepherding WG chair's email address must
be added to the "State Change Notice To:" field in the ID
tracker. This will result in an email to the shepherding WG
chair when the document is moved from the "IESG Evaluation"
state to the states requiring Shepherd actions: ("IESG
Evaluation: Revised ID Needed", "IESG Evaluation: AD Followup").
This notification indicates to the the shepherding WG chair that
the DISCUSS comments have been registered.
Note that there may be exceptional cases when DISCUSS comments
are registered after the IESG teleconference. In these cases,
the DISCUSSing AD should notify the shepherding WG chair that
new comments have been entered.
3.b) The shepherding WG chair analyses comments from the tracker, and
initialises contact with any AD's who have placed comments
(blocking or non-blocking) on a draft, notifying them that the
shepherding WG chair is the current document shepherd and
seeking any additional clarification necessary to understand the
comment. Note that the responsible AD must copied on this
correspondence.
+------+ Comments +--------+ Comments +-------+
| (3.a)| ------------> | (3.b) | -------------> | (3.c) |
+------+ Collected +--------+ Understood +-------+
/|\ |
| | Comments not fully understood
| | (Further AD/shepherding WG
| | chair Discussion Required)
+----+
3.c) The shepherding WG chair then coordinates DISCUSS comments, and
builds a a consistent interpretation of the comments. This step
may require iteration with step (2). above. That is:
+------+ Consistent +-------+
| (3.b)| ---------------> | (3.c) |
+------+ Interpretation +-------+
/|\ |
| | Further AD/shepherding WG
| | chair Discussion Required
+--------------------------+
3.d) The DISCUSS comments are then communicated to the working group.
3.e) After the author(s) resolve the issues provided by the
shepherding WG chair (i.e., the distilled DISCUSS issues), the
shepherding WG chair reviews the updated document to ensure that
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(in her/his option) the DISCUSS issues have been resolved.
Note that the shepherding WG chair may also propose resolutions
to these issues, file them in an issue tracker, or do other
steps to streamline the resolution of the comments.
3.f) The shepherding WG chair communicates the resolution-so-far to
the responsible AD and the DISCUSSing AD(s).
3.g) DISCUSSing AD removes DISCUSS comment, or tells the shepherding
chair and adds information to the I-D tracker about why the
comment is not resolved. The shepherd informs the workgroup
accordingly.
If the DISCUSS comment in question was not resolved to the
satisfaction of the DISCUSSing and responsible ADs, two
possibilities exist:
(a) The process returns to step (3.c), or
(b) If no progress can be made on the resolution of the DISCUSS
with the DISCUSSING AD, despite clarification and
additional involvement of the Responsible AD, the
shepherding WG chair and the WG might at last resort
consider an appeal in accordance with the procedures
described in RFC 2026 [RFC2026] and referred to in RFC 2418
[RFC2418].
Otherwise, the process continues with step (3.h).
3.h) The responsible AD moves document to APPROVED state, or if the
changes are deemed significant, there is a short new WG last
call, and then the document goes to the IESG for re-review.
4. Wrap-up
At the end of the pilot lifetime, it is expected that an evaluation
of the experienced benefits is made, using input solicited from the
participating Area Directors and Workgroup Chairs by means of an
email questionnaire, web-page form or something similar. The
questions are given below, in Section 4.2. A per-review
questionnaire is also provided in Section 4.1.
4.1 Questionnaire to be done after each individual AD Review
To be done by both WG Chair and AD.
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R1. I'm submitting this questionnaire as
1. Area Director
2. Workgroup Chair
R2. Document name:
R3. WG Chair shepherding of this draft speeded up the procedure:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
R4. WG Chair shepherding of this draft resulted in the comments
being resolved in a satisfactory manner:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
R5. WG Chair shepherding of this draft resulted in a more
transparent process:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
R6. WG Chair shepherding of this draft resulted in a more
well-documented process:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
R7. The interaction with the document editors in resolving the
comments worked out well:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
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R8. - Public Comments?
R9. - Comments to IESG and PROTO-Team only?
R10. WG Chair shepherding of this draft worked out well, overall:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
R11. - Public Comments?
R12. - Comments to IESG and PROTO-Team only?
4.2 Questionnaire for the Pilot as a Whole
To be done by both WG Chair and AD.
X1. I'm submitting this questionnaire as
1. Area Director
2. Workgroup Chair
X2. I clearly understood what was expected of me in this pilot.
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
Comments?
X3. What is your evaluation of the benefit of the procedure you've
tried out in this pilot?
1. Definitely harmful
2. Somewhat harmful
3. Mixed feelings
4. Somewhat beneficial
5. Definitely beneficial
Comments?
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X4. What is your evaluation of the added effort required for the
procedure you've tried out in this pilot?
1. Major increased effort
2. Somewhat increased
3. No change
4. Somewhat decreased effort
5. Major decreased effort
Comments?
X5. Considering all factors, this procedure should be made the
normal way of handling documents.
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Undecided
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
Comments?
X6. What do you consider to be the major advantages of this
procedure change?
X7. What do you consider to be the major disadvantages of this
procedure change?
X8. How would you change the procedure to minimise the
disadvantages?
X9. Comments to the IESG and PROTO-Team only:
5. Security Considerations
This document specifies a pilot implementation of a change in IETF
procedures. It does not raise or consider any protocol-specific
security issues. When evaluating the result of the pilot, the IESG
should check if the changes has reduced the quality of security
review and consideration for protocols, and take this into
consideration when deciding whether the changes should be made
permanent.
6. Acknowledgments
The content of this document is based on contributions from the whole
PROTO team, not only the named authors; specifically : Aaron Falk,
Allison Mankin, Bill Fenner, Barbara Fuller, Margaret Wasserman.
Thanks are due to all for the PROTO team work of which this document
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is a result.
7 Informative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC2028] Hovey, R. and S. Bradner, "The Organizations Involved in
the IETF Standards Process", BCP 11, RFC 2028, October
1996.
[RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
[JULY14] Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A model for IETF Process
Experiments", draft-klensin-process-july14-02 (work in
progress), April 2004.
[SIRS] Carpenter, B. and D. Crocker, "Careful Additional Review
of Documents (CARD)by Senior IETF Reviewers (SIRS)",
draft-carpenter-solution-sirs-01 (work in progress), June
2003.
[IDTRACKER]
"The IETF Draft Tracker", Web Application:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/.
[PROTO] "The IESG Process and Tools (PROTO) Team", Web Page:
http://psg.com/~mrw/PROTO-Team.
Authors' Addresses
Henrik Levkowetz
Torsgatan 71
Stockholm S-113 37
SWEDEN
Phone: +46 708 32 16 08
EMail: henrik@levkowetz.com
David Meyer
EMail: dmm@1-4-5.net
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Aaron Falk
EMail: falk@isi.edu
Appendix A. Working documents
(This section should be removed by the RFC editor before publication)
The current working documents for this draft are available at this
web site:
http://ietf.levkowetz.com/drafts/proto/wgchair-doc-shepherding/
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