To: GNSO Council From: Work Prioritization Model Drafting Team (WPM-DT) Dear Councilors: Since being organized by the GNSO Council at the Seoul ICANN meeting (Nov 2009), the WPM-DT has been working diligently over the past five months to scope out and complete a set of activities leading to a proposed methodology for prioritizing the GNSO’s work. As its primary deliverable, the team has drafted a document ( http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/wpmg-section-6-and-annex-09apr10-en.pdf) and recommends that it be approved for inclusion in the GNSO Operating Procedures as Chapter 6 along with its accompanying ANNEX. The procedure contains three main sections: Purpose (6.1), Scope (6.2), and Methodology (6.3) followed by an ANNEX, which includes detailed steps/procedures that may be amended as the Council gains experience with the approach. The DT’s goals in developing the methodology were to ensure that the process: 1. is user-friendly, unambiguous, and straightforward to execute; 2. produces realistic outputs that will help the Council to make effective management decisions; and 3. is structured as an on-going task that accommodates change including the introduction of new projects as they are proposed in the future. The DT believes that prioritization is an important first step of the Council’s broader project management role, which should be further defined and will require appropriate tools to assist in the active and effective management of the workload. To facilitate these managerial responsibilities, the DT recommends that: 1) a process be developed to allow timely tracking of GNSO projects on an on-going basis; and 2) its process be supported with a web-based software toolkit (e.g. excellent open source applications are available) that will assign Staff and Community resources to projects/tasks and offer time/milestone tracking plus advanced collaboration capabilities allowing work to be managed efficiently, effectively, and transparently. The DT remains available to assist the Council in the implementation of these new Work Prioritization procedures and to work with any other team(s) on scoping out the program/project management disciplines that will become central in the Council’s role as manager of the policy development process. Olga Cavalli Chair, WPM-DT 9 April 2010