I agree with Heather’s comments that a standing committee (if there is to be one) should review the SCI activities from 5 years ago if those recommendations are still relevant.

 

As the Chair of the PPSC that came up with the notion of the SCI, it was not intended to be a small group of Councilors only, but to members of the community familiar with PDPs, Working Groups, etc.  Therefore I agree with Heather’s comment that this is a good topic for the SG/C leaders to work on with Council Leadership.

 

Sincerely,

 

Jeff

 

Jeffrey J. Neuman

Founder & CEO

JJN Solutions, LLC

p: +1.202.549.5079

E: jeff@jjnsolutions.com

http://jjnsolutions.com

 

 

From: council <council-bounces@gnso.icann.org> On Behalf Of Heather Forrest
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2021 10:23 PM
To: Wolf-Ulrich Knoben <wuknoben@gmail.com>
Cc: Selli, Claudia <claudia.selli@intl.att.com>; Raoul Plommer <plommer@gmail.com>; GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org>; Sue Schuler <secretariat@rysg.info>; Zoe Bonython <secretariat@icannregistrars.org>; Bruna Martins dos Santos <bruna.mrtns@gmail.com>; Wolf-Ulrich Knoben <Wolf-Ulrich.Knoben@t-online.de>; Demetriou, Samantha <sdemetriou@verisign.com>; Brenda Brewer <brenda.brewer@icann.org>; GNSO Chairs <gnso-chairs@icann.org>; aheineman@godaddy.com; chair@rysg.info; Raphaël Beauregard-Lacroix <rbeauregardlacroix@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [council] GNSO Standing Committee for Continuous Improvement – Ideas and Possible Approach

 

Many thanks, Philippe, Pam and Tatiana, for initiating this discussion about the formation of a new standing committee.

 

I have some general reluctance based on the experience of the prior SCI, as well as specific thoughts about the Action Decision Radar. 

  • While the Action Decision Radar is admittedly frighteningly long, here are relatively few items on that list that fall squarely into the bucket of "improvements", as opposed to policy development. I can see only these:
    • Council to decide when to launch review of   Policy & Implementation recommendations review 
    • Council to monitor for assignments related to the Evolution of  Multi Stakeholder model (currently a watch-and-wait)
    • Council to monitor for ATRT3 implementation assignments; awaiting Board adoption of    ATRT3 recommendations (to be updated following Board adoption, but as yet this too is a watch-and-wait, and is related to another item on this list, which is planning/scoping the GNSO3 Review)
    • SSR2 Results to be reviewed 
  • The first item on this list, a review of the SCI's recommendations of June 2015, must, in my view, be undertaken prior to any formation of a new Standing Committee on Improvements. This review should not be a 'kitchen sink' type review, but rather an identification of any SCI recommendations that remain unimplemented (and an analysis of why/whether timely and appropriate to implement now, etc) and an identification of those which were implemented but perhaps may not be working optimally or as expected. This group could also be tasked with identifying any other potential improvements. Like Wolf-Ulrich, my concern is that the rationale or justification for forming a new SCI-like body isn't yet made out. The numerous dot points on the SCCI Ideas and Possible Approach document are not yet sufficiently tangible to justify forming a new group, in my opinion.
  • The Council in place at the time the SCI recommendations were approved in 2015 had difficulty bridging the gap between the SCI's recommendations and actual Council practice. Many members of the SCI had never served on Council and were not familiar with the workaday processes of how Council operates. While I am always in favour of efforts that have Councilors and broader GNSO community members working together, we need to ensure that we don't end up with a relatively inexperienced group that makes idealised recommendations for how Council can do its work better. I'm not suggesting that we do a post-mortem on the SCI 5 years after its closure, but simply that we as a community reflect carefully before launching any new initiative. 
  • I prefer the idea of task forces on a particular topic to another SCI. This enables those with expertise on particular matters to selectively volunteer their time to relevant efforts, while a generally-themed SCI-like body may actually repel such subject matter experts. A small committee within the GNSO (not necessarily Council) could be set up to oversee this work. Unless there is a clear link to Council's remit under the Bylaws as manager of the PDP or to one of the narrow EC Responsibilities in which Council plays an administrative function, I do not see many of the tasks in the proposed remit of this new body as falling resolutely within Council's remit. I'll copy this final comment into the SCCI Ideas and Possible Approach document to ensure these views are captured there.

I think this is an opportunity for the Council and GNSO SG/C leaders to work more closely together. One of the ways to make Council more efficient and effective is to slough off those tasks which are GNSO-related but not PDP- or EC-related to the GNSO community. The more Council takes on, obviously the less well it can do everything it already has on its plate, and in any event, the Bylaws do not envisage such an all-encumbered body as the GNSO Council is becoming.

 

Best wishes,

 

Heather

 

 

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 7:35 AM <wuknoben@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Philippe and all,

 

I’ve checked the paper, and it causes some questions regarding the target and the remit of the suggested SCCI which should cover GNSO “processes and procedures”.

  1. With the understanding that the Council including the related WGs is responsible for any kind of PDP and ICANN staff – together with the community – is responsible for the implementation the SCCI should not undertake any policy and policy implementation tasks like

·        Implementation of WS2 recommendations that are not SG/C specific (if policy related)

·        Review of Policy & Implementation WG recommendations

 

  1. By deducting the a.m. items from the SCCI to do list the remaining remit would still cover an extremely broad range of items which – as suggested – may only be covered by specialized sub-teams. In this case I’d like to ask for which purpose the SCCI is needed. Couldn’t the council themselves lay the ground for these sub-teams?

 

  1. I support the idea of “continuous improvement” and see also the need to institutionalize it. But don’t overload it.

 

Best regards

Wolf-Ulrich

 

 

Von: Carlton Samuels <carlton.samuels@gmail.com>
Gesendet: Sonntag, 3. Januar 2021 20:43
An: Fouquart <philippe.fouquart@orange.com>
Cc: GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org>; Heather Forrest <haforrestesq@gmail.com>; Selli, Claudia <claudia.selli@intl.att.com>; Wolf-Ulrich Knoben <Wolf-Ulrich.Knoben@t-online.de>; Bruna Martins dos Santos <bruna.mrtns@gmail.com>; Raoul Plommer <plommer@gmail.com>; Raphaël Beauregard-Lacroix <rbeauregardlacroix@gmail.com>; aheineman@godaddy.com; Demetriou, Samantha <sdemetriou@verisign.com>; chair@rysg.info; Sue Schuler <secretariat@rysg.info>; Zoe Bonython <secretariat@icannregistrars.org>; Brenda Brewer <brenda.brewer@icann.org>; gnso-chairs@icann.org
Betreff: Re: [council] GNSO Standing Committee for Continuous Improvement – Ideas and Possible Approach

 

Thank you Chair.  I made a few comments.

 

Carlton


==============================
Carlton A Samuels
Mobile: 876-818-1799
Strategy, Process, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround
=============================

 

 

On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 8:39 AM <philippe.fouquart@orange.com> wrote:

Dear Councilors, SG/C Chairs,

 

As you may be aware, there are quite a number of projects on the Council’s Action Decision Radar (see https://community.icann.org/x/14vzC) that deal with improvements to GNSO processes and procedures. We heard from you during the Strategic Planning Session about the importance of prioritizing work as well as considering the resources available to conduct work as efficiently as possible. To this end, the suggestion was made to explore the possibility of creating a Standing Committee that would be tasked with addressing projects or assignments that are mainly focused on improving existing GNSO processes and procedures. 

 

To further explore this possible approach, the Council leadership team has worked with the staff support team on developing a high-level outline for your review and input (see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HBCXMkLb7vFkWClgCpsr8WjYScz3UDh4/edit). Although the Standing Committee would be chartered by and operate under the oversight of the GNSO Council, it is intended to be a GNSO effort which can only be successful with the full support and participation of all SG and Cs. We appreciate that it may be challenging to comment on this approach without having all the details, but our hope is that by soliciting input at this point in time, we would be able to develop a more detailed proposal as a next step factoring in your suggestions and perspectives. 

 

Some of the questions we hope you can focus on are:

·         Is this the right approach to benefit from synergies? If not, how should all the projects listed be tackled instead?

·         How to ensure appropriate scoping of work? The idea is that the standing committee would tackle topics that cut across the GNSO community and/or would benefit from a cross-GNSO collaboration. A possible approach could be that the charter provides an indication of the topics that are expected to be tackled, but specific assignments are confirmed in the form of a clear scoping document and work plan that is approved by the GNSO Council, with input from SG/Cs via their respective Council members. Are there other approaches that could be considered?

·         What should membership look like? How to ensure a balanced composition which at the same time is nimble enough to work effectively? How to introduce sufficient flexibility to allow for expert participation?

·         What decision-making methodology should be applied? Or is this to be determined based on the assignment the Standing Committee is tasked with? 

·         Is it feasible to consider tackling some of the projects identified in parallel through different sub-committees?

·         How should the work be prioritized if a Standing Committee is created? Each of the possible projects identified could take a substantial amount of time to address and resolve which means certain items could take a while to get addressed.

 

Of course, there may be other topics you want to weigh in on.

 

We hope to receive your feedback in advance of the next Council meeting which is scheduled for Thursday 21 January, either via your input on the google doc (see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HBCXMkLb7vFkWClgCpsr8WjYScz3UDh4/edit) or in response to this email. As you will have seen, a number of the possible projects for the Standing Committee are fairly high on the Council’s Action Decision Radar so we hope to agree on an approach for tackling these sooner rather than later.  

 

Best regards and happy holidays,

 

Philippe Fouquart

Chair, GNSO

 

 

 

 

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