Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning?
Dear Council colleagues, With the meeting request notice having been sent round to the leaders of Cs and SGs recently, I'm wondering if now is an opportune time to raise some concerns raised by both Houses about the process of developing the GNSO meeting schedule. The two main concerns I've heard are that 1) the decision-making process of which GNSO meetings get onto the ICANN schedule isn't very transparent and 2) there isn't a clear rationale for this task falling to the Council Vice Chairs, given the limited remit of Council under the Bylaws. I'd have to say I agree with both. My understanding is that some years ago, there was a community volunteer-populated "meetings committee", but that this died a slow death as it met infrequently, was too large to be effective, and struggled to meet difficult deadlines. It faded into nothingness, and our GNSO support staff took up the task. When concerns were raised about staff making the scheduling decisions, staff brought the Vice Chairs into the process. I don't think we can fully alleviate these concerns prior to Hyderabad, but we can try to shift our practices to introduce an opportunity for input from the broader GNSO community. What I'm thinking is that if SGs and Cs are willing and able to get their meeting requests in a few days earlier than the 12 Sept deadline (say, one week after the upcoming Council meeting, so Sept. 8th) then the Vice Chairs (sorry, Donna, I'm volunteering us for speedy action) could ASAP assess requests and circulate a list showing the outcome of that assessment to the GNSO community (via SG/C chairs or Councillors, whichever seems most efficient/suitable) for comment/input before the request list gets submitted to the ICANN scheduling team. SGs and Cs who aren't able to get their requests in early won't benefit from this simply because we're to short on time for this meeting, and even the turnaround for comment on those that are submitted in time won't be generous. That said, this could be an experiment, and if we start Copenhagen planning immediately with this kind of process, I hope we can achieve the twin goals of getting the community involved and meeting our scheduling deadlines with a workable schedule as an outcome. In short, Council Vice Chairs would still be involved, but in more of an administrative capacity, with community input into the decision-making. I've put this out on the list in advance of our upcoming meeting to give time to think about the idea in advance. Hyderabad planning will be an item on our upcoming agenda, and this could factor into that discussion. Best wishes, Heather
Dear Heather, thanks for your initiative here! I agree that a high degree of transparency is expected and that “somebody” has to take the driver seat in planning/organizing these meetings. It must be clear what we’re talking about: a.. meetings of the entire GNSO (like the incumbent weekend ones, public council meeting) or b.. meetings of parts of the GNSO (e.g. between CSG and NCSG or – cross community wise – ISPs and SSAC) or c.. agendas of those meetings or d.. alltogether I personally think we should just discuss the meetings and agendas of the entire GNSO resp. council. Planning/organization of meetings on SG/C-level should be left under their responsibility. What should the council here talk about? Rationale and ranking? In addition, I’m not convinced that the output of a “meetings team” would be better than what we have at present. Even the coordination of the 2 VCs may be a challenge (during my term we rotated between the VCs). I saw and still see this job having an administrative character, and I’m very much in favor of putting this load to the VCs. The decision or – less formal – confirmation of the meeting types and agendas is up to the council on the basis of interaction with the resp. communities. In practice: a.. start early – immediately after an ICANN meeting maybe a first planning frame could be shared at the first council meeting after to solicit council input since the attendance of people with otherwise full agendas is needed for the various topics (e.g. Board, ICANN leaders...), nail them (and their secretariats) early – friendly but definitely a.. the council should be aware at which council calls decisions re the meetings have to be taken; and the council members should trigger their resp. communities If you miss a rationale for the VCs being charged with the (administrative) task, I’m sure the SCI replacement would be happy to fix this in the GNSO procedures . Looking forward to the next council call Wolf-Ulrich From: Heather Forrest Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 12:56 AM To: council@gnso.icann.org Subject: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Council colleagues, With the meeting request notice having been sent round to the leaders of Cs and SGs recently, I'm wondering if now is an opportune time to raise some concerns raised by both Houses about the process of developing the GNSO meeting schedule. The two main concerns I've heard are that 1) the decision-making process of which GNSO meetings get onto the ICANN schedule isn't very transparent and 2) there isn't a clear rationale for this task falling to the Council Vice Chairs, given the limited remit of Council under the Bylaws. I'd have to say I agree with both. My understanding is that some years ago, there was a community volunteer-populated "meetings committee", but that this died a slow death as it met infrequently, was too large to be effective, and struggled to meet difficult deadlines. It faded into nothingness, and our GNSO support staff took up the task. When concerns were raised about staff making the scheduling decisions, staff brought the Vice Chairs into the process. I don't think we can fully alleviate these concerns prior to Hyderabad, but we can try to shift our practices to introduce an opportunity for input from the broader GNSO community. What I'm thinking is that if SGs and Cs are willing and able to get their meeting requests in a few days earlier than the 12 Sept deadline (say, one week after the upcoming Council meeting, so Sept. 8th) then the Vice Chairs (sorry, Donna, I'm volunteering us for speedy action) could ASAP assess requests and circulate a list showing the outcome of that assessment to the GNSO community (via SG/C chairs or Councillors, whichever seems most efficient/suitable) for comment/input before the request list gets submitted to the ICANN scheduling team. SGs and Cs who aren't able to get their requests in early won't benefit from this simply because we're to short on time for this meeting, and even the turnaround for comment on those that are submitted in time won't be generous. That said, this could be an experiment, and if we start Copenhagen planning immediately with this kind of process, I hope we can achieve the twin goals of getting the community involved and meeting our scheduling deadlines with a workable schedule as an outcome. In short, Council Vice Chairs would still be involved, but in more of an administrative capacity, with community input into the decision-making. I've put this out on the list in advance of our upcoming meeting to give time to think about the idea in advance. Hyderabad planning will be an item on our upcoming agenda, and this could factor into that discussion. Best wishes, Heather
Colleagues - Thanks for kicking off this topic, Heather, and for contributing your thoughts, Wolf-Ulrich. From my (somewhat limited) experience, the meeting planning process has never been fully clear, and that’s true of this cycle particular, owing to the new Meeting B and Meeting C formats. In most cases, conflicts and gaps are resolved by Staff. (Not to throw them under the proverbial bus; they’ve done their best to reconcile conflicting schedules and agendas with limited meeting resources.) I agree with Heather that a higher degree of consistency and community input is desirable, and we should reach out to the SGs/Cs and begin this process immediately following our call Thursday. And Wolf-Ulrich’s is correct that a degree of scoping is also necessary, as we lock down GNSO Council sessions and F2F PDPs, and allocate calendar space for sessions involving cross-GNSO policy development or implementation. I don’t think we should constrain SGs and Cs from holding their own sessions, closed or otherwise, so long as they are able to obtain space from the Meetings Staff team. Attached, please find the ICANN57 high-level “block schedule”, which displays Council sessions and blocks earmarked for other GNSO sessions, is attached. This was previously circulated to SGs and Cs, but let’s plan to publish an updated version after our meeting, along with the expedited call for meeting requests, with the assessment following shortly thereafter (mid-September). Looking forward to discussing on Thursday. Thanks, J. From: <owner-council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org>> on behalf of WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de<mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de>> Reply-To: WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de<mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de>> Date: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 4:46 To: Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au<mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au>>, GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>> Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Heather, thanks for your initiative here! I agree that a high degree of transparency is expected and that “somebody” has to take the driver seat in planning/organizing these meetings. It must be clear what we’re talking about: * meetings of the entire GNSO (like the incumbent weekend ones, public council meeting) or * meetings of parts of the GNSO (e.g. between CSG and NCSG or – cross community wise – ISPs and SSAC) or * agendas of those meetings or * alltogether I personally think we should just discuss the meetings and agendas of the entire GNSO resp. council. Planning/organization of meetings on SG/C-level should be left under their responsibility. What should the council here talk about? Rationale and ranking? In addition, I’m not convinced that the output of a “meetings team” would be better than what we have at present. Even the coordination of the 2 VCs may be a challenge (during my term we rotated between the VCs). I saw and still see this job having an administrative character, and I’m very much in favor of putting this load to the VCs. The decision or – less formal – confirmation of the meeting types and agendas is up to the council on the basis of interaction with the resp. communities. In practice: * start early – immediately after an ICANN meeting maybe a first planning frame could be shared at the first council meeting after to solicit council input since the attendance of people with otherwise full agendas is needed for the various topics (e.g. Board, ICANN leaders...), nail them (and their secretariats) early – friendly but definitely * the council should be aware at which council calls decisions re the meetings have to be taken; and the council members should trigger their resp. communities If you miss a rationale for the VCs being charged with the (administrative) task, I’m sure the SCI replacement would be happy to fix this in the GNSO procedures [Smiley] . Looking forward to the next council call Wolf-Ulrich From: Heather Forrest<mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au> Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 12:56 AM To: council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> Subject: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Council colleagues, With the meeting request notice having been sent round to the leaders of Cs and SGs recently, I'm wondering if now is an opportune time to raise some concerns raised by both Houses about the process of developing the GNSO meeting schedule. The two main concerns I've heard are that 1) the decision-making process of which GNSO meetings get onto the ICANN schedule isn't very transparent and 2) there isn't a clear rationale for this task falling to the Council Vice Chairs, given the limited remit of Council under the Bylaws. I'd have to say I agree with both. My understanding is that some years ago, there was a community volunteer-populated "meetings committee", but that this died a slow death as it met infrequently, was too large to be effective, and struggled to meet difficult deadlines. It faded into nothingness, and our GNSO support staff took up the task. When concerns were raised about staff making the scheduling decisions, staff brought the Vice Chairs into the process. I don't think we can fully alleviate these concerns prior to Hyderabad, but we can try to shift our practices to introduce an opportunity for input from the broader GNSO community. What I'm thinking is that if SGs and Cs are willing and able to get their meeting requests in a few days earlier than the 12 Sept deadline (say, one week after the upcoming Council meeting, so Sept. 8th) then the Vice Chairs (sorry, Donna, I'm volunteering us for speedy action) could ASAP assess requests and circulate a list showing the outcome of that assessment to the GNSO community (via SG/C chairs or Councillors, whichever seems most efficient/suitable) for comment/input before the request list gets submitted to the ICANN scheduling team. SGs and Cs who aren't able to get their requests in early won't benefit from this simply because we're to short on time for this meeting, and even the turnaround for comment on those that are submitted in time won't be generous. That said, this could be an experiment, and if we start Copenhagen planning immediately with this kind of process, I hope we can achieve the twin goals of getting the community involved and meeting our scheduling deadlines with a workable schedule as an outcome. In short, Council Vice Chairs would still be involved, but in more of an administrative capacity, with community input into the decision-making. I've put this out on the list in advance of our upcoming meeting to give time to think about the idea in advance. Hyderabad planning will be an item on our upcoming agenda, and this could factor into that discussion. Best wishes, Heather
From a staff perspective, we have always felt uncomfortable in this role of reconciling ‘conflicting schedules and agendas with limited meeting resources’ and as such we are pleased that there is now a more transparent process developing in which decision-making no longer falls on us. The challenge previously was also that all meeting requests would be prepared at the same time and as such conflicts between GNSO and SG/C sessions could only be identified at a relatively late stage in the process at which it turned out difficult to move meetings around as people had already planned their schedule around them. The hope is by sharing as early as possible a draft outline that indicates the plans in relation to GNSO Council as well as GNSO policy sessions, this will facilitate the schedule planning by SG/Cs and reduce GNSO sessions competing with each other as much as possible.
Best regards, Marika Marika Konings Senior Policy Director & Team Leader for the GNSO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Email: marika.konings@icann.org Follow the GNSO via Twitter @ICANN_GNSO Find out more about the GNSO by taking our interactive courses and visiting the GNSO Newcomer pages. From: <owner-council@gnso.icann.org> on behalf of "James M. Bladel" <jbladel@godaddy.com> Date: Tuesday 30 August 2016 at 22:05 To: WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de>, Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au>, "council@gnso.icann.org" <council@gnso.icann.org> Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Colleagues - Thanks for kicking off this topic, Heather, and for contributing your thoughts, Wolf-Ulrich. From my (somewhat limited) experience, the meeting planning process has never been fully clear, and that’s true of this cycle particular, owing to the new Meeting B and Meeting C formats. In most cases, conflicts and gaps are resolved by Staff. (Not to throw them under the proverbial bus; they’ve done their best to reconcile conflicting schedules and agendas with limited meeting resources.) I agree with Heather that a higher degree of consistency and community input is desirable, and we should reach out to the SGs/Cs and begin this process immediately following our call Thursday. And Wolf-Ulrich’s is correct that a degree of scoping is also necessary, as we lock down GNSO Council sessions and F2F PDPs, and allocate calendar space for sessions involving cross-GNSO policy development or implementation. I don’t think we should constrain SGs and Cs from holding their own sessions, closed or otherwise, so long as they are able to obtain space from the Meetings Staff team. Attached, please find the ICANN57 high-level “block schedule”, which displays Council sessions and blocks earmarked for other GNSO sessions, is attached. This was previously circulated to SGs and Cs, but let’s plan to publish an updated version after our meeting, along with the expedited call for meeting requests, with the assessment following shortly thereafter (mid-September). Looking forward to discussing on Thursday. Thanks, J. From: <owner-council@gnso.icann.org> on behalf of WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de> Reply-To: WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de> Date: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 4:46 To: Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au>, GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org> Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Heather, thanks for your initiative here! I agree that a high degree of transparency is expected and that “somebody” has to take the driver seat in planning/organizing these meetings. It must be clear what we’re talking about: meetings of the entire GNSO (like the incumbent weekend ones, public council meeting) or meetings of parts of the GNSO (e.g. between CSG and NCSG or – cross community wise – ISPs and SSAC) or agendas of those meetings or alltogether I personally think we should just discuss the meetings and agendas of the entire GNSO resp. council. Planning/organization of meetings on SG/C-level should be left under their responsibility. What should the council here talk about? Rationale and ranking? In addition, I’m not convinced that the output of a “meetings team” would be better than what we have at present. Even the coordination of the 2 VCs may be a challenge (during my term we rotated between the VCs). I saw and still see this job having an administrative character, and I’m very much in favor of putting this load to the VCs. The decision or – less formal – confirmation of the meeting types and agendas is up to the council on the basis of interaction with the resp. communities. In practice: start early – immediately after an ICANN meeting maybe a first planning frame could be shared at the first council meeting after to solicit council input since the attendance of people with otherwise full agendas is needed for the various topics (e.g. Board, ICANN leaders...), nail them (and their secretariats) early – friendly but definitely the council should be aware at which council calls decisions re the meetings have to be taken; and the council members should trigger their resp. communities If you miss a rationale for the VCs being charged with the (administrative) task, I’m sure the SCI replacement would be happy to fix this in the GNSO procedures . Looking forward to the next council call Wolf-Ulrich From: Heather Forrest Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 12:56 AM To: council@gnso.icann.org Subject: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Council colleagues, With the meeting request notice having been sent round to the leaders of Cs and SGs recently, I'm wondering if now is an opportune time to raise some concerns raised by both Houses about the process of developing the GNSO meeting schedule. The two main concerns I've heard are that 1) the decision-making process of which GNSO meetings get onto the ICANN schedule isn't very transparent and 2) there isn't a clear rationale for this task falling to the Council Vice Chairs, given the limited remit of Council under the Bylaws. I'd have to say I agree with both. My understanding is that some years ago, there was a community volunteer-populated "meetings committee", but that this died a slow death as it met infrequently, was too large to be effective, and struggled to meet difficult deadlines. It faded into nothingness, and our GNSO support staff took up the task. When concerns were raised about staff making the scheduling decisions, staff brought the Vice Chairs into the process. I don't think we can fully alleviate these concerns prior to Hyderabad, but we can try to shift our practices to introduce an opportunity for input from the broader GNSO community. What I'm thinking is that if SGs and Cs are willing and able to get their meeting requests in a few days earlier than the 12 Sept deadline (say, one week after the upcoming Council meeting, so Sept. 8th) then the Vice Chairs (sorry, Donna, I'm volunteering us for speedy action) could ASAP assess requests and circulate a list showing the outcome of that assessment to the GNSO community (via SG/C chairs or Councillors, whichever seems most efficient/suitable) for comment/input before the request list gets submitted to the ICANN scheduling team. SGs and Cs who aren't able to get their requests in early won't benefit from this simply because we're to short on time for this meeting, and even the turnaround for comment on those that are submitted in time won't be generous. That said, this could be an experiment, and if we start Copenhagen planning immediately with this kind of process, I hope we can achieve the twin goals of getting the community involved and meeting our scheduling deadlines with a workable schedule as an outcome. In short, Council Vice Chairs would still be involved, but in more of an administrative capacity, with community input into the decision-making. I've put this out on the list in advance of our upcoming meeting to give time to think about the idea in advance. Hyderabad planning will be an item on our upcoming agenda, and this could factor into that discussion. Best wishes, Heather
Thank you, Marika. I think it’s generally understood that Staff has done their best with limited guidance. Councilors - If there are no objections, then let’s proceed as Heather & Wolf-Ulrich have proposed: * Put out a renewed call for session requests to the leadership of the SGs and Cs. Emphasize the change in due date (from 12 SEP to now 8 SEP). * Include with this call a "template”: really just some basic information that should accompany the request, such as session length, invited audience (open/closed), estimated attendance (room sizing), remote access/translation needs, etc. * I’l volunteer to help Donna and Heather assess the incoming requests, if they are open to this. Would also be good if we could have someone from GNSO Staff to help liaise with the meeting team once this is complete (Glen?). Any other thoughts? Thanks— J. From: Marika Konings <marika.konings@icann.org<mailto:marika.konings@icann.org>> Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 7:23 To: James Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com<mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>>, WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de<mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de>>, Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au<mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au>>, GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>> Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning?
From a staff perspective, we have always felt uncomfortable in this role of reconciling ‘conflicting schedules and agendas with limited meeting resources’ and as such we are pleased that there is now a more transparent process developing in which decision-making no longer falls on us. The challenge previously was also that all meeting requests would be prepared at the same time and as such conflicts between GNSO and SG/C sessions could only be identified at a relatively late stage in the process at which it turned out difficult to move meetings around as people had already planned their schedule around them. The hope is by sharing as early as possible a draft outline that indicates the plans in relation to GNSO Council as well as GNSO policy sessions, this will facilitate the schedule planning by SG/Cs and reduce GNSO sessions competing with each other as much as possible.
Best regards, Marika Marika Konings Senior Policy Director & Team Leader for the GNSO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Email: marika.konings@icann.org<mailto:marika.konings@icann.org> Follow the GNSO via Twitter @ICANN_GNSO Find out more about the GNSO by taking our interactive courses<http://learn.icann.org/courses/gnso> and visiting the GNSO Newcomer pages<http://gnso.icann.org/sites/gnso.icann.org/files/gnso/presentations/policy-efforts.htm#newcomers>. From: <owner-council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org>> on behalf of "James M. Bladel" <jbladel@godaddy.com<mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com>> Date: Tuesday 30 August 2016 at 22:05 To: WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de<mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de>>, Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au<mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au>>, "council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>" <council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>> Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Colleagues - Thanks for kicking off this topic, Heather, and for contributing your thoughts, Wolf-Ulrich. From my (somewhat limited) experience, the meeting planning process has never been fully clear, and that’s true of this cycle particular, owing to the new Meeting B and Meeting C formats. In most cases, conflicts and gaps are resolved by Staff. (Not to throw them under the proverbial bus; they’ve done their best to reconcile conflicting schedules and agendas with limited meeting resources.) I agree with Heather that a higher degree of consistency and community input is desirable, and we should reach out to the SGs/Cs and begin this process immediately following our call Thursday. And Wolf-Ulrich’s is correct that a degree of scoping is also necessary, as we lock down GNSO Council sessions and F2F PDPs, and allocate calendar space for sessions involving cross-GNSO policy development or implementation. I don’t think we should constrain SGs and Cs from holding their own sessions, closed or otherwise, so long as they are able to obtain space from the Meetings Staff team. Attached, please find the ICANN57 high-level “block schedule”, which displays Council sessions and blocks earmarked for other GNSO sessions, is attached. This was previously circulated to SGs and Cs, but let’s plan to publish an updated version after our meeting, along with the expedited call for meeting requests, with the assessment following shortly thereafter (mid-September). Looking forward to discussing on Thursday. Thanks, J. From: <owner-council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org>> on behalf of WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de<mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de>> Reply-To: WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de<mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de>> Date: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 4:46 To: Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au<mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au>>, GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>> Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Heather, thanks for your initiative here! I agree that a high degree of transparency is expected and that “somebody” has to take the driver seat in planning/organizing these meetings. It must be clear what we’re talking about: * meetings of the entire GNSO (like the incumbent weekend ones, public council meeting) or * meetings of parts of the GNSO (e.g. between CSG and NCSG or – cross community wise – ISPs and SSAC) or * agendas of those meetings or * alltogether I personally think we should just discuss the meetings and agendas of the entire GNSO resp. council. Planning/organization of meetings on SG/C-level should be left under their responsibility. What should the council here talk about? Rationale and ranking? In addition, I’m not convinced that the output of a “meetings team” would be better than what we have at present. Even the coordination of the 2 VCs may be a challenge (during my term we rotated between the VCs). I saw and still see this job having an administrative character, and I’m very much in favor of putting this load to the VCs. The decision or – less formal – confirmation of the meeting types and agendas is up to the council on the basis of interaction with the resp. communities. In practice: * start early – immediately after an ICANN meeting maybe a first planning frame could be shared at the first council meeting after to solicit council input since the attendance of people with otherwise full agendas is needed for the various topics (e.g. Board, ICANN leaders...), nail them (and their secretariats) early – friendly but definitely * the council should be aware at which council calls decisions re the meetings have to be taken; and the council members should trigger their resp. communities If you miss a rationale for the VCs being charged with the (administrative) task, I’m sure the SCI replacement would be happy to fix this in the GNSO procedures [miley] . Looking forward to the next council call Wolf-Ulrich From: Heather Forrest<mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au> Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 12:56 AM To: council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> Subject: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Council colleagues, With the meeting request notice having been sent round to the leaders of Cs and SGs recently, I'm wondering if now is an opportune time to raise some concerns raised by both Houses about the process of developing the GNSO meeting schedule. The two main concerns I've heard are that 1) the decision-making process of which GNSO meetings get onto the ICANN schedule isn't very transparent and 2) there isn't a clear rationale for this task falling to the Council Vice Chairs, given the limited remit of Council under the Bylaws. I'd have to say I agree with both. My understanding is that some years ago, there was a community volunteer-populated "meetings committee", but that this died a slow death as it met infrequently, was too large to be effective, and struggled to meet difficult deadlines. It faded into nothingness, and our GNSO support staff took up the task. When concerns were raised about staff making the scheduling decisions, staff brought the Vice Chairs into the process. I don't think we can fully alleviate these concerns prior to Hyderabad, but we can try to shift our practices to introduce an opportunity for input from the broader GNSO community. What I'm thinking is that if SGs and Cs are willing and able to get their meeting requests in a few days earlier than the 12 Sept deadline (say, one week after the upcoming Council meeting, so Sept. 8th) then the Vice Chairs (sorry, Donna, I'm volunteering us for speedy action) could ASAP assess requests and circulate a list showing the outcome of that assessment to the GNSO community (via SG/C chairs or Councillors, whichever seems most efficient/suitable) for comment/input before the request list gets submitted to the ICANN scheduling team. SGs and Cs who aren't able to get their requests in early won't benefit from this simply because we're to short on time for this meeting, and even the turnaround for comment on those that are submitted in time won't be generous. That said, this could be an experiment, and if we start Copenhagen planning immediately with this kind of process, I hope we can achieve the twin goals of getting the community involved and meeting our scheduling deadlines with a workable schedule as an outcome. In short, Council Vice Chairs would still be involved, but in more of an administrative capacity, with community input into the decision-making. I've put this out on the list in advance of our upcoming meeting to give time to think about the idea in advance. Hyderabad planning will be an item on our upcoming agenda, and this could factor into that discussion. Best wishes, Heather
From a staff perspective, we have always felt uncomfortable in this role of reconciling 'conflicting schedules and agendas with limited meeting resources' and as such we are pleased that there is now a more transparent
Thanks James. This seems sensible to me. Everyone is trying their best to adapt to new meeting formats and shifting roles. Thank you to Staff and to you, James, Heather and WU for constructing a way forward. Best, Paul From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of James M. Bladel Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 12:32 PM To: Marika Konings <marika.konings@icann.org>; council@gnso.icann.org Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Thank you, Marika. I think it's generally understood that Staff has done their best with limited guidance. Councilors - If there are no objections, then let's proceed as Heather & Wolf-Ulrich have proposed: * Put out a renewed call for session requests to the leadership of the SGs and Cs. Emphasize the change in due date (from 12 SEP to now 8 SEP). * Include with this call a "template": really just some basic information that should accompany the request, such as session length, invited audience (open/closed), estimated attendance (room sizing), remote access/translation needs, etc. * I'l volunteer to help Donna and Heather assess the incoming requests, if they are open to this. Would also be good if we could have someone from GNSO Staff to help liaise with the meeting team once this is complete (Glen?). Any other thoughts? Thanks- J. From: Marika Konings <marika.konings@icann.org <mailto:marika.konings@icann.org> > Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 7:23 To: James Bladel <jbladel@godaddy.com <mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com> >, WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de <mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de> >, Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au <mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au> >, GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org <mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> > Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? process developing in which decision-making no longer falls on us. The challenge previously was also that all meeting requests would be prepared at the same time and as such conflicts between GNSO and SG/C sessions could only be identified at a relatively late stage in the process at which it turned out difficult to move meetings around as people had already planned their schedule around them. The hope is by sharing as early as possible a draft outline that indicates the plans in relation to GNSO Council as well as GNSO policy sessions, this will facilitate the schedule planning by SG/Cs and reduce GNSO sessions competing with each other as much as possible. Best regards, Marika Marika Konings Senior Policy Director & Team Leader for the GNSO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Email: <mailto:marika.konings@icann.org> marika.konings@icann.org Follow the GNSO via Twitter @ICANN_GNSO Find out more about the GNSO by taking our <http://learn.icann.org/courses/gnso> interactive courses and visiting the <http://gnso.icann.org/sites/gnso.icann.org/files/gnso/presentations/policy- efforts.htm#newcomers> GNSO Newcomer pages. From: <owner-council@gnso.icann.org <mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org> > on behalf of "James M. Bladel" <jbladel@godaddy.com <mailto:jbladel@godaddy.com> > Date: Tuesday 30 August 2016 at 22:05 To: WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de <mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de> >, Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au <mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au> >, "council@gnso.icann.org <mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> " <council@gnso.icann.org <mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> > Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Colleagues - Thanks for kicking off this topic, Heather, and for contributing your thoughts, Wolf-Ulrich. From my (somewhat limited) experience, the meeting planning process has never been fully clear, and that's true of this cycle particular, owing to the new Meeting B and Meeting C formats. In most cases, conflicts and gaps are resolved by Staff. (Not to throw them under the proverbial bus; they've done their best to reconcile conflicting schedules and agendas with limited meeting resources.) I agree with Heather that a higher degree of consistency and community input is desirable, and we should reach out to the SGs/Cs and begin this process immediately following our call Thursday. And Wolf-Ulrich's is correct that a degree of scoping is also necessary, as we lock down GNSO Council sessions and F2F PDPs, and allocate calendar space for sessions involving cross-GNSO policy development or implementation. I don't think we should constrain SGs and Cs from holding their own sessions, closed or otherwise, so long as they are able to obtain space from the Meetings Staff team. Attached, please find the ICANN57 high-level "block schedule", which displays Council sessions and blocks earmarked for other GNSO sessions, is attached. This was previously circulated to SGs and Cs, but let's plan to publish an updated version after our meeting, along with the expedited call for meeting requests, with the assessment following shortly thereafter (mid-September). Looking forward to discussing on Thursday. Thanks, J. From: <owner-council@gnso.icann.org <mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org> > on behalf of WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de <mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de> > Reply-To: WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de <mailto:wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de> > Date: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 4:46 To: Heather Forrest <Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au <mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au> >, GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org <mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> > Subject: Re: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Heather, thanks for your initiative here! I agree that a high degree of transparency is expected and that "somebody" has to take the driver seat in planning/organizing these meetings. It must be clear what we're talking about: ? meetings of the entire GNSO (like the incumbent weekend ones, public council meeting) or ? meetings of parts of the GNSO (e.g. between CSG and NCSG or - cross community wise - ISPs and SSAC) or ? agendas of those meetings or ? alltogether I personally think we should just discuss the meetings and agendas of the entire GNSO resp. council. Planning/organization of meetings on SG/C-level should be left under their responsibility. What should the council here talk about? Rationale and ranking? In addition, I'm not convinced that the output of a "meetings team" would be better than what we have at present. Even the coordination of the 2 VCs may be a challenge (during my term we rotated between the VCs). I saw and still see this job having an administrative character, and I'm very much in favor of putting this load to the VCs. The decision or - less formal - confirmation of the meeting types and agendas is up to the council on the basis of interaction with the resp. communities. In practice: ? start early - immediately after an ICANN meeting maybe a first planning frame could be shared at the first council meeting after to solicit council input since the attendance of people with otherwise full agendas is needed for the various topics (e.g. Board, ICANN leaders...), nail them (and their secretariats) early - friendly but definitely ? the council should be aware at which council calls decisions re the meetings have to be taken; and the council members should trigger their resp. communities If you miss a rationale for the VCs being charged with the (administrative) task, I'm sure the SCI replacement would be happy to fix this in the GNSO procedures . Looking forward to the next council call Wolf-Ulrich From: Heather Forrest <mailto:Heather.Forrest@acu.edu.au> Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 12:56 AM To: council@gnso.icann.org <mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> Subject: [council] Improvements to f2f GNSO meeting planning? Dear Council colleagues, With the meeting request notice having been sent round to the leaders of Cs and SGs recently, I'm wondering if now is an opportune time to raise some concerns raised by both Houses about the process of developing the GNSO meeting schedule. The two main concerns I've heard are that 1) the decision-making process of which GNSO meetings get onto the ICANN schedule isn't very transparent and 2) there isn't a clear rationale for this task falling to the Council Vice Chairs, given the limited remit of Council under the Bylaws. I'd have to say I agree with both. My understanding is that some years ago, there was a community volunteer-populated "meetings committee", but that this died a slow death as it met infrequently, was too large to be effective, and struggled to meet difficult deadlines. It faded into nothingness, and our GNSO support staff took up the task. When concerns were raised about staff making the scheduling decisions, staff brought the Vice Chairs into the process. I don't think we can fully alleviate these concerns prior to Hyderabad, but we can try to shift our practices to introduce an opportunity for input from the broader GNSO community. What I'm thinking is that if SGs and Cs are willing and able to get their meeting requests in a few days earlier than the 12 Sept deadline (say, one week after the upcoming Council meeting, so Sept. 8th) then the Vice Chairs (sorry, Donna, I'm volunteering us for speedy action) could ASAP assess requests and circulate a list showing the outcome of that assessment to the GNSO community (via SG/C chairs or Councillors, whichever seems most efficient/suitable) for comment/input before the request list gets submitted to the ICANN scheduling team. SGs and Cs who aren't able to get their requests in early won't benefit from this simply because we're to short on time for this meeting, and even the turnaround for comment on those that are submitted in time won't be generous. That said, this could be an experiment, and if we start Copenhagen planning immediately with this kind of process, I hope we can achieve the twin goals of getting the community involved and meeting our scheduling deadlines with a workable schedule as an outcome. In short, Council Vice Chairs would still be involved, but in more of an administrative capacity, with community input into the decision-making. I've put this out on the list in advance of our upcoming meeting to give time to think about the idea in advance. Hyderabad planning will be an item on our upcoming agenda, and this could factor into that discussion. Best wishes, Heather
participants (5)
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Heather Forrest -
James M. Bladel -
Marika Konings -
Paul McGrady -
WUKnoben