Dear Councilors,

For those who are interested – there is a response from ICANN Planning to SOPC regarding headcount growth (attached)

In short:

The 37 new hires budgeted in FY23 roughly corresponds to the open positions that lCANN is currently recruiting.

The need for new hires comes from the expanding of workload in volume and complexity. For example new resources will be needed to implement about 250 recommendations from reviews and ccWGs (i.e., ATRT3, SSR2, CCT, RDS, WS2, Effectiveness of MSM, and others), and the RSS governance model.

Because of the variables and unknowns, ICANN does not allocated to service groups and functional activities, and presents them at the total organizational level. As and when position requests have been submitted and approved, they are accurately reported into the appropriate functional activities.

ICANN has a process to strategically evaluate each new hire. Each request must be approved by the ICANN CEO, CFO, and SVP of Global HR.

This information will be included in ICANN’s staff report of FY23 budget Public Comment

Regards,

Irina

From: Ccnso-sopcommittee <ccnso-sopcommittee-bounces@icann.org> On Behalf Of Bart Boswinkel via Ccnso-sopcommittee
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2022 2:37 PM
To: ccNSO-SOPCommittee@icann.org
Cc: Planning <planning@icann.org>
Subject: [ccnso-sopcommittee] FW: [Gnso-sc-budget] Meeting Minutes - GNSO Council - Standing Committee on ICANN's Budget & Operations (SCBO) - 26 Jan 2022 14:00

Dear all,

Please find included responses from ICANN’s planning team on questions with respect to headcount during the joint SCBO-ccNSO call.

Kind regards,

Bart

From: Planning
Date: Tuesday, 22 February 2022 at 22:51
To: Bart Boswinkel, Berry Cobb
Subject: FW: [Gnso-sc-budget] Meeting Minutes - GNSO Council - Standing Committee on ICANN's Budget & Operations (SCBO) - 26 Jan 2022 14:00

Bart and Berry,

During a joint meeting with the GNSO’s SCBO and the ccNSO’s SOPC, the SOPC asked about the 37 Budgeted New Hires shown in section 4.4 “Expenses by Service Group and Functional Activity” of the FY23 Draft Budget document. That meeting was on 26-Jan-2022 and the meeting minutes are below for reference.

Although an initial response was provided during the call, ICANN org has written the attached response to further explain the FY23 budgeted headcount and the overall process. In addition, we plan to provide this information in our staff report of Public Comments and revise the next published version of our FY23 Budget to provide more clarity and details for all community members regarding this topic.

Could you please forward the attached response to your respective groups and let us know if there are any questions? Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

ICANN Planning

Subject: [Gnso-sc-budget] Meeting Minutes - GNSO Council - Standing Committee on ICANN's Budget & Operations (SCBO) - 26 Jan 2022 14:00

Dear GNSO Council - Standing Committee on ICANN's Budget & Operations (SCBO),

Please find below the meeting minutes from 26 Jan 2022 14:00:

Session Recording: https://icann.zoom.us/rec/play/VTbwwrJxjrNIhC7RbV4VUGDGSEMLOgMhtbQ79P9bE-QK84qta6fc3RwUr958-xVr5wA5fM6_dkZ6CqPM.NPRxuBAh_7Z6TJkD
Chat Log: https://icann.zoom.us/rec/sdownload/ng2daxhljGZW34N6kHeB33spFJ1ccwwdjAmJ57B_sWRI5j-o4dJhIoqcS2D7Pyx_4J3ZrFWhrbfplISS.fEfZEV2C2ZdkrhYj
Audio Recording: https://icann.zoom.us/rec/play/eG3L4Dw6EIx3ZPUo4-dNoHvr8lJemSBMkjjfx7mIxng2bK1ujt_xeSF4LYtWngn9A5AfG-QELdZKhpXM.v8Ymh2WigL2GLAtd

Notes/Action Items/Minutes:

Welcome and Roll call 2 minutes

• None

Introductions to group’s leadership teams 5 minutes

• Sebastien has volunteered to serve as vice-chair.
• Andreas Musielak is the new chair and Irina Danelia is the vice-chair.

Major Findings

Major Findings SCBO + Q&A / Major Findings SOPC + Q &A)

• Shift in focus. Generally focus only on Operating Initiatives 3 and 4, which focus on policy development. and 14, which concentrates on project management. However, need to focus more on implementation, particularly for IRTs.
• Second focus is that many of the past comments from the SCBO related to software and tools have been supported, via other functions. There is also the SFICR now, which the SCBO believes is reason to ensure ICANN is aware of the forecast of upcoming work.
• Resource allocations – asked for increases and ICANN has delivered. Does the SOPC plan to consider? The SOPC believes it will be difficult to hire and expects the lower range of projected new hires. Not always clear how new hires will benefit the community in particular.
• In terms of identifying upcoming work and resource intensity, GNSO created an extract of upcoming work from its program management tools. This helps make clear what work will continue and likely begin in the upcoming FY.
• The SOPC wants have a conversation with HR to determine rationale for increases in staffing levels.
• Q: What is specifically unclear, to help understand if HR is the right group? A: 37 new hires, but it is unclear how they are allocated across functions and it is also unclear how the community benefits. Also important to understand what factors the Org uses to determine when additional resources are needed.
• What initiates increases in FTEs – a department/function identifies and demonstrates a need, why that work requires additional FTE, level/qualifications, how the new FTE fits in the org chart. Also requires exec approval, review from HR, and heads of finance and HR, and CEO.
• SFICR is for implementation work spanning more than one FY and exceeds $2million. This work seemingly would have been covered by the contingency fund. The SOPC believes the answers from Org are sufficient to understand the SFICR. Noted that using the SFICR to fund the SSAD will be insufficient.
• Support for budgeting 3 F2F meetings, even if that may not end up being the case. Believes there is a need for additional KPIs.
• Q: Does the SCBO believe the projections for high, medium, low seem reasonable. A: Not something the SCBO has considered. Something the registries and registrars would have better understanding. In the past, the projections have been quite close. Are driven primarily by .com and .net.
• The Operating Initiatives and Functional Activities have Targeted Outcomes. Are the additional KPIs needed relative to the Target Outcomes, or something different? KPIs were developed for IANA, which is service/transaction oriented. However, KPIs for other less operational activities (e.g., policy) is far different. There could potentially be KPIs to be considered for the community side.
• Example of KPI that does not mean much – number of reports published in a year
• The GNSO has focused on project management and effective planning, which helps inform comments to the budget.

Next Steps per group & exploring possible joint initiatives

Next Steps SCBO & initiatives + Q&A / Next Steps SOPC & Initiatives + Q&A 

• SOPC wants to work jointly with ICANN to develop KPIs. Need to understand which projects are bringing the most benefit. Anything the GNSO can help to define the KPIs?
• Seek to better understand factors and process for FTEs, rationale for any increases
• Sebastien to run model on gTLD forecasting
• Finance will seek to better account for SCBO/SOPC concerns proactively, and not just wait for public comments.
• Share comments with other group, determine if there is any need for further discussion. SCBO will have a draft by 31 Jan.

AOB (2 minutes)

• None

Future meetings, if any, wrap-up (5 minutes)

• TBD, based on email exchanges?
• Believes an additional meeting, not necessarily just jointly, to discuss headcount, would be helpful.

Closing

• None