Network Working Group M. Vigoureux
Internet Draft Alcatel-Lucent
Updates: 2418 (if approved) D. King
Intended status: Best Current Practice Old Dog Consulting
Expires: December 2014 C. Pignataro
Cisco Systems, Inc.
June 12, 2014
IETF Working Groups' Secretaries
draft-secretaries-good-practices-06
Abstract
The Working Group Secretary's role was succinctly defined in RFC
2418. However, this role has greatly evolved and increased both in
value and scope, since the writing of RFC 2418. This document updates
RFC 2418 by providing a new definition of the Working Group
Secretary's role. This document also provides a compilation of good
practices and general guidelines regarding the fulfilment of the
role.
This document is intended for established Working Group Secretaries,
individuals motivated by taking up that role, or anyone else simply
interested in understanding better the Working Group Secretary's
role. This document may also be useful for Working Group Chairs to
better appreciate and help develop the value of Working Group
Secretaries.
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".
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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 December 12, 2014.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction...................................................2
2. WG Secretary...................................................4
3. WG Secretary's Functions and Responsibilities..................4
3.1. IETF Meeting Specific Tasks...............................4
3.1.1. Pre WG Session Phase.................................4
3.1.2. WG Session Phase.....................................7
3.1.3. Post WG Session Phase................................8
3.2. Continuous Tasks..........................................8
4. Complementary Considerations..................................10
5. Conclusions and Perspectives..................................11
6. Security Considerations.......................................12
7. IANA Considerations...........................................12
8. References....................................................12
8.1. Normative References.....................................12
8.2. Informative References...................................12
9. Acknowledgments...............................................13
Contributors' Addresses..........................................13
Authors' Addresses...............................................14
1. Introduction
The Working Group (WG) Secretary's role was defined as a minute taker
and to record WG discussions' points, and decisions (see Section 6.2
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of RFC 2418 [1]). Over time, the WG Secretary role's has greatly
evolved to include a number of additional functions and
responsibilities which are critical to the smooth operation of IETF
WGs. This document describes these additional functions and
responsibilities. However, the framework and perimeter of action
associated to the WG Secretary's role, depends on the WG Secretary
and the Chairs, as well as on the professional relationship they
establish. Therefore this document does not prescribe what must be
performed, but lists what might be performed by a WG Secretary. Also,
this list is intended to be as complete as possible, but it shall not
be considered as exhaustive. This document is therefore not a rigid
job description.
Also, IETF WGs differ from one another according several aspects.
Amongst those aspects is the "effective size" of the WG (number of
active participants, number of active documents, rate of WG
document's adoption polls and WG Last Calls, and mailing list
traffic). In that regard, part or even all of the guidelines it
provides might not be relevant for the smaller WGs, the Chairs of
which do not need to delegate operational tasks as they handle them
by themselves.
It shall be noted that a certain number of tools and means exist in
support of WG operation (e.g., Session Request Tool, Meeting Material
Manager, the Datatracker, Etherpad, Trac Tool, Wiki). Most, if not
all, of these are accessible from the WG Chairs' page
(https://www.ietf.org/wg/chairs-page.html). However, it is out of the
scope of this document to describe the use of these tools and means.
It shall also be noted that no specific tool exists in support of
certain actions and tasks that can fall under the responsibility of a
WG Secretary. It is expected that a WG Secretary would procure the
right set of tools for the job, based on availability and personal
preference. This might entail searching and finding, or developing,
tools.
Finally, while the WG Secretary function can be viewed as being a
support function to the Chairs, it is crucial that the Chairs also
provide support to the Secretary as needed. For example, certain
tasks described herein require the use of credentials and some rights
associated to these. The WG Chairs should make sure the Secretary has
the necessary access and privileges to perform the various tasks.
More generally, the WG Chairs should make sure the Secretary has all
the necessary information to perform his/her function.
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Section 2 of this document is normative and updates the whole Section
6.2 of RFC 2418. Section 3 of this document gives detailed
descriptive information of the WG Secretary's functions,
responsibilities, and good practices.
2. WG Secretary
The WG Secretary is a resource leveraged by WG Chairs, and is
concerned with supporting the operations of a WG to make forward
progress, and with assisting in managing the WG processes. While WG
Chairs are accountable for ensuring that a number of tasks are
performed, the WG Secretary embodies a role explicitly assigned to
carry over a subset of those tasks.
The WG Secretary supports the processes and workflows to make the WG
successful during its lifetime, with specific actions at the times of
IETF meetings.
3. WG Secretary's Functions and Responsibilities
We classify the functions and responsibilities of a WG Secretary
according to tasks specific to an IETF meeting, and to continuous
tasks. The following sub-sections reflect that classification.
3.1. IETF Meeting Specific Tasks
The set of tasks specific to an IETF meeting can be further sub-
classified into three phases: the WG session held during that meeting
as well as both the pre and post phases of that session.
3.1.1. Pre WG Session Phase
o Submitting a request for a WG session
Using the means available, the WG Secretary could submit a request
for a WG session at the upcoming IETF meeting. The WG Secretary
should coordinate with the Chairs in order to correctly formulate the
request, especially with regards to the number of sessions to request
for, their respective duration, and the conflicts to avoid.
Concomitantly, the WG Secretary could formulate the request to have
collaborative software (e.g., WebEx, Meetecho) support during the WG
session. It shall be noted that holding a WG session is typically
driven by the need for the WG to discuss some topics or documents,
and that the identification of this need may imply having
interactions with the WG before requesting a session.
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o Calling for discussion slots
Working Group Chairs may organise WG sessions in different ways. As
part of this organisation, they may allocate all or part of the WG
session to people wishing to discuss their work (e.g., with the
objective to resolve issues and make progress). In that context, and
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 discussion slots at the upcoming
WG session. Note that WG Chairs may wish to set policies for
accepting discussion's slot requests. The call for discussion slots
should remind these policies as well as how should the requests be
formulated, together with a deadline for sending them. The call would
also typically include information on when will the particular WG
session be held during the IETF meeting noting that the IETF agenda
is draft until being final.
o Collecting the discussion's slot requests
As a preliminary step to building the WG session agenda, the WG
Secretary could collect all the requests for discussion slots. In
order to be able to do so, the WG Secretary should make sure that
he/she is aware of all the formulated requests by 1) clearly
indicating in the call for discussion slots that he/she must be one
of the recipients of the requests, and 2) checking with the Chairs
that they would not have received requests sent to them only.
o Proposing a WG session agenda
Based on the collected discussion's slot requests, and depending on
the known preferences of the WG Chairs for the typical structure of
their WG sessions, or on the objectives Chairs have for a particular
WG session, and/or on his/her personal view, the Secretary could
propose to the Chairs a structured agenda for the upcoming WG
session. Following that, the WG Secretary could work with the Chairs
to finalise the agenda in view of publishing a first draft agenda.
o Submitting the WG session agenda
At the deadline, or even earlier, the WG Secretary could publish the
draft and then final agenda for the WG session. The WG Secretary
could then inform the WG that the agenda has been published. When
doing so, the WG Secretary could ask the WG participants to verify
that discussion's slot requests have not been accidentally missed.
Also, in the case where some requests have not been granted, the WG
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Secretary could inform the participants having requested the
discussion slots, of the reason(s) why they were not allocated a slot
in the final WG session agenda.
o Requesting presentations materials
In combination with the notification of the publication of the WG
session agenda, or separately, the WG Secretary could ask the
individuals who were granted a discussion slot to send the material
in support of their upcoming presentation. This request should come
with a deadline so as to give sufficient time to upload the materials
before the WG session.
Optionally the request could also include information on the practice
the WG Chairs apply if the materials fail to be delivered prior to
the deadline.
o Securing Jabber relays and minute takers
Supporting remote participation is very important. As such, the WG
Secretary could ask for one specific volunteer: a Jabber scribe,
responsible for acting as a gateway for remote participants, by way
of relaying remote questions and annotating slide numbers. Also, it
is crucial that discussions' points and decisions be written down.
The WG Secretary could make sure that minutes will be taken. The WG
Secretary may self-designate and/or find at least one other volunteer
tasked with taking notes during the WG session. Securing these two
roles in advance sets up for a successful meeting.
For the purpose of minutes taking, the WG Secretary may suggest the
use of the Etherpad tool (available from each WG web page at
https://tools.ietf.org) which enables the other WG participants to
also contribute, as well as provides immediate access to the minutes.
o Preparing the WG Status material
Working Groups sessions typically start with a slot allocated to the
Chairs during which is presented a 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 the plans they have for- their 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
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no apparent need to query 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 materials and to the person responsible
for displaying the materials during the WG session.
3.1.2. WG Session Phase
o Before the WG session
For the WG Chairs to enjoy their lunch, cookie, coffee, tea (or any
other favoured drink) until the last minute, the Secretary could
sacrifice his/her time and enter the meeting room well in advance to
prepare the WG session. This might include: checking if blue sheets
are available, preparing the session's material to be displayed,
launching collaborative software environments, preparing minute
taking, etc. The usefulness of such preparation depends of course on
the WG and on the WG session. A WG session with a light agenda might
not require all this. On the other hand, a WG session with an
extremely packed agenda, and for which every minute counts, shall
surely benefit from such preparation.
The WG Secretary could also confirm the Jabber scribe assignment, as
well as the minute taker assignment if applicable.
o During the WG session
The WG Secretary could be responsible for displaying the material and
running through the slides as speakers advance through their
presentation. The WG Secretary could also act as the time keeper to
ensure there is sufficient remaining time for all discussions to
happen.
In case the WG Secretary also takes minutes, performing multiple
tasks in parallel might pose certain challenges but nothing
insurmountable.
o After the WG session
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After the end of a WG session, the WG Secretary could bring the blue
sheets to the IETF Secretariat and socialize with the very supportive
and welcoming people composing it.
3.1.3. Post WG Session Phase
o Publishing the WG session minutes
While it is highly recommended that the minutes of a WG session 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/she could polish the notes taken
(correcting typos, or even complementing missing parts with audio
recordings) and send these to the Chairs for validation.
Alternatively, depending on the WG Chairs' preferences, the Secretary
could nearly immediately share with the WG the raw minutes and
collect corrections.
Once the WG Chairs agree on the written minutes, the Secretary could
publish these using the means available and ask the WG participants
to review them and inform him/her of changes that would need to be
performed before final publication.
3.2. Continuous Tasks
Tracking is the word dominating the tasks a WG Secretary could be
expected to continuously perform.
o Recording and tracking authors' inputs
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 WG session
preparation phase (when building the WG status material) and during
the WG session when authors sometimes communicate such plans. The WG
Secretary should record and track this information as it is valuable
for sketching a plan and a schedule of the actions the Chairs will
have to take (e.g., WG document's adoption polls, 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 Chairs, as well as remind them of these when necessary.
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o Tracking events
Between IETF meetings, a number of WG events, including WG document's
adoption polls, WG Last Calls, publication of new revisions of
Internet-Drafts, will occur. The WG Secretary could track these
events and report progress, or deadlines to the Chairs. For the WG
document's adoption polls and WG Last Calls, the WG Secretary could
notify 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 those polls/calls. For Internet-Drafts that require a
revision before being progressed further, the WG Secretary could also
notify the Chairs when the expected revision is published.
o Watching over compliance with IETF IPR rules
As per [2] it is important for people making IETF contributions to
disclose relevant IPR in a timely manner. Verification that authors
are in compliance with IETF IPR rules may for example be conducted
prior to a WG document's adoption poll or WG Last Call (see [3]). The
WG Secretary could monitor and track responses to such verifications,
and chase authors and contributors where necessary. Where responses
are not forthcoming, the WG Secretary could notify the Chairs.
o Tracking of documents' issues
Working Groups have issue trackers to facilitate the tracking of
documents issues. The WG Secretary could identify the issues raised
in a review of a WG document or during WG discussions and record the
information in the issue tracker. The WG Secretary could liaise with
the document editor to find which issues were resolved and how they
were resolved and record that information.
o Maintaining the Datatracker and ensuring it is up to date
An important tool in support of WG operations is the Datatracker [4].
The WG Secretary could have the responsibility of keeping the
Datatracker up to date so that it reflects the exact state each
document is effectively in. See RFC 6174 [5] for further information
on the states of IETF WG Documents. The WG Secretary could also make
sure that the replacement status of documents is correct, and apply
of the proper status in case it is incorrect or not indicated and
necessary. Note that performing actions on the Datatracker requires
greater privileges than those associated to the WG Secretary status;
see the following section for further information.
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o Shepherding documents
By convention and default WG Chairs tend to be Document Shepherds.
This may lead to overloading the WG Chairs and they should recall
that they are allowed to assign anyone to be a Document Shepherd (see
[6]). One option is to assign the shepherding role for some documents
to the WG Secretary.
o Doing "Chair-like" work
Depending on the established working relationship between the WG
Chairs and the Secretary, the latter could take actions, typically
under the direct responsibility of WG Chairs, such as to launch or
close WG document's adoption polls or WG Last Calls.
4. Complementary Considerations
When appointed as WG Secretary, the concerned person shall be
identified as such on the WG charter page of the Datatracker.
Additionally, his/her e-mail address shall be added both to the WG
Chairs general alias (wgchairs@ietf.org) and to the specific WG
Chairs alias (<wgname>-chairs@tools.ietf.org).
As noted in the previous section, performing actions on the
Datatracker requires greater privileges than those associated to the
WG Secretary status. Working Group Chairs have the possibility to
delegate part of their privileges on the Datatracker (while retaining
them) to anyone. As a result, the person inheriting the delegation is
identified as Delegate on the WG charter page of the Datatracker, and
benefits from an extended scope of action. It is up to the WG Chairs
to decide whether a Secretary should also be a Delegate or not, and
conversely whether a Delegate is expected to also act as a Secretary
or not. It is nevertheless preferable that if a Delegate is expected
to act as WG Secretary, he/she also be explicitly identified as such.
Although typically a WG might only have one Secretary there is no
reason why two Secretaries might not be appointed. This might be to
help transition a new WG secretary into the role, before the previous
Secretary steps down, or simply to load balance the tasks across two
Secretaries. Reciprocally, a person may perfectly be Secretary of
multiple WGs. This primarily depends on his/her ability to deal with
the induced workload, noting nevertheless that synergies may be
realised in such a situation. In any case, this document does not
give a recommendation on what should be the appropriate value for the
"Secretary / WG" ratio.
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There are tasks that the WG Secretary might be expected to perform
but in fact may further delegate. Typical examples of those tasks are
jabber scribing and minute taking. More generally, there are
situations where the WG Secretary is unable to perform certain tasks
(absence at an IETF meeting, agenda conflict with the WG session,
participation to the technical discussions during the WG session,
...). The WG Secretary may fall back on the Chairs for performing the
impacted tasks but this would defeat the purpose of the Secretary's
role. Therefore it is preferable that, in those situations, the WG
Secretary further delegates those tasks, in agreement with the
Chairs.
As a final consideration, WG Secretaries are invited to the IETF WG
Chairs' lunch tutorial held during IETF meetings, usually on
Wednesdays. The WG Secretaries are also welcome to attend, when it is
scheduled, the Sunday afternoon training on WG Leadership.
5. Conclusions and Perspectives
Section 3 has listed the typical functions and responsibilities of WG
Secretaries. The role of a WG Secretary can range from a few of these
to the full spectrum of them, and even beyond. In that regard, there
is a number of additional WG related events to which the support of
the WG Secretary would be useful. Those for example include planning
and setting for WG interim meetings, design team meetings, etc.
Nevertheless, some tasks described herein apply to these contexts.
It is essential that over time the WG Secretary and Chairs build
trust to facilitate an effective and productive working relationship.
No secret recipe is however given here on how to achieve such
relationship. Nevertheless, making clear expectations from both
perspectives and clear communication, the higher the probability of a
an efficient and productive relationship.
The WG Secretary's role is not mandatory in WGs, hence no formal
selection process exists and it is also difficult to identify a
general practice for that purpose. Reality is that WG Chairs select
their Secretary in different ways. Nevertheless, to become a WG
Secretary, the first step is to be active and involved in the WG of
interest as well as show willingness and have time to dedicate to
that function.
While the apparent value of a good WG Secretary might be in the
delegation of tasks that the Chairs are expected to manage and in the
smoothed operation of WGs, this role carries a second important
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value. As the WG Secretary develops the knowledge to fulfil the above
functions and responsibilities he/she will be in a position to both
extend the scope of his/her actions, and to be more and more involved
in WG operation and decision-making. The WG Secretary's role is
therefore an excellent means for training individuals in the art of
WG operation, and ideally towards the role of WG Chair.
6. Security Considerations
Delegation based on trust is not expected to introduce security
issues.
Nevertheless, while the WG Chairs may delegate a number of tasks to
the Secretary, they maintain the overall responsibility and
accountability 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/her choices and actions are in line with the
Chairs views on any given matter.
Also, the WG Secretary might have access to sensitive information,
usually only destined to the Chairs. Therefore, it is very important
that a WG Secretary acts with ethics, respecting the privacy of these
data.
7. IANA Considerations
This document does not require any action from the IANA.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures",
BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
8.2. Informative References
[2] Bradner, S., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology",
BCP 79, RFC 3979, March 2005.
[3] Polk, T., and Saint-Andre, P., "Promoting Compliance with
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Disclosure Rules", RFC 6702,
August 2012.
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[4] "The IETF Datatracker tool", Web Application:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/, Version 5.5.0, June 2014.
[5] Juskevicius, E., "Definition of IETF Working Group Document
States", RFC 6174, March 2011.
[6] Levkowetz, H., Meyer, D., Eggert, L., and Mankin, A., "Document
Shepherding from Working Group Last Call to Publication", RFC
4858, May 2007.
9. Acknowledgments
The authors thank a number of Working Group Secretaries (in
alphabetical order) who have contributed to the development of this
document: Daniele Ceccarelli, Luigi Iannone, Subramanian Moonesamy,
Ines Robles, and Sam Weiler. The authors also thank Scott Bradner for
his thorough review and useful input. The authors also thank the
following WG Chairs for their reviews and comments: Lou Berger,
Spencer Dawkins, and Hannes Tschofenig, as well as Loa Andersson for
also acting as Document Shepherd. Finally, the authors thank Adrian
Farrel, as Area Director, for sponsoring this document.
This document was prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot.
Contributors' Addresses
Daniele Ceccarelli
Ericsson
Via Melen 77, Genova, Italy
Email: daniele.ceccarelli@ericsson.com
Luigi Iannone
Telecom ParisTech
23, Avenue d'Italie, 75013 Paris, France
Email: ggx@gigix.net
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Subramanian Moonesamy
76, Ylang Ylang Avenue
Quatre Bornes
Mauritius
Email: sm+ietf@elandsys.com
Ines Robles
Universidad Tecnologica Nacional - FRM
Rodriguez 273, Mendoza, Argentina
Email: ines.robles@gridtics.frm.utn.edu.ar
Samuel Weiler
Parsons
7110 Samuel Morse Drive
Columbia, Maryland, 21046, USA
Email: weiler@tislabs.com
Authors' Addresses
Martin Vigoureux
Alcatel-Lucent
Email: martin.vigoureux@alcatel-lucent.com
Daniel King
Old Dog Consulting
Email: daniel@olddog.co.uk
Carlos Pignataro
Cisco Systems, Inc.
7200-12 Kit Creek Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
Email: cpignata@cisco.com
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