Sent on behalf of Paul McGrady

 

Dear DNSAM PDP1 WG members,

 

thank you for today’s call. As briefly noted before the meeting ended,  I would like to take a moment to outline the plan for how the Working Group will approach its deliberations and methodology moving forward. We alluded to this during ICANN85 but it is always good to recap and make sure all members are on the same page. 

 

Firstly, it is encouraging to see the level of ambition within the group and the clear willingness to collaborate and develop workable solutions. This is the spirit of volunteerism that I love so much about our community. At the same time, our early discussions have demonstrated that reaching consensus will take time and due consideration, given the range of perspectives, needs, and considerations that proposed recommendations must undergo. There is no “silver bullet” but we do have good tools to accomplish our work in a timely, thorough fashion.

 

  1. Staying within scope: As a reminder, the charter defines the scope of this PDP (the nature of our universe), and it is essential that our discussions remain within those boundaries. Where ideas arise that fall outside of scope, these can certainly be captured for future consideration by Council but should not slow down or divert our current work. I know it would be great to solve every problem all at once, but that is not what Council asked us to do.
  2. Focus on recommendations: At this stage and as noted during our ICANN85 session 2 on Consensus Building, the Working Group should prioritize identifying needs and developing policy recommendations, rather than jumping directly to specific implementation/policy language solutions. This will help ensure that our outputs remain policy-focused and aligned with the role of the PDP. However, I do appreciate the specific language provided so far as it helps to inform where recommendations can go and can give us something concrete to haggle over. So, don’t be shy but understand we won’t be recommending specific contract language, just high level Policy.
  3. Consensus building throughout the process: As highlighted in our consensus-building discussions, we should ensure that all SGs/Cs and community stakeholders understand not only what the Working Group is proposing, but also why. Drawing on lessons learned and best practices (including those captured in the consensus building playbook and ICANN85 session2), clear rationale and transparency in our recommendations will be key to achieving broad support and avoiding delays later in the process.
  4. Iterative and collaborative workflow

To support efficient progress, we will follow an iterative workflow, which includes:

·         Pairing focused discussion during meetings with substantive asynchronous work between meetings;

·         Rolling development of draft recommendations for each charter question;

·         Conducting periodic impact checks during the drafting process, rather than deferring all impact analysis to the end of the PDP.

  1. Collaboration document for the WG to contribute, provide feedback, and change as the WG sees fit. 

·         Based on the discussions to date and the language provided by Working Group members, leadership and staff have developed a working document to capture discussions and draft language for each charter question. 

·         This document is intended to support clear navigation, transparency, and effective asynchronous work, allowing members to review, comment, and refine proposals between meetings in a structured way.

·         Each charter question is listed and 3 different coloured boxes are provided for each. 

·         First (orange), the key takeaways from the previous discussion

·         Second box (green), the draft language provided by the WG and some overarching themes that can be derived from that language

·         Third (blue), a box for when the WG is ready to stabilise the language for their recommendation on each Charter Question. 

·         Link:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GxM-Yrgv6sZPEYU8ikW4cRM5YqWsJuWGiQyO39pLqNE/edit?tab=t.0 

 

Please take a look and provide your feedback within the document by the means of commenting on the document rather than making direct edits to the text. Staff will help us capture the comments and we can wordsmith the draft recommendations together as we iterate. 

. 

Thank you all for your continued contributions and great, positive energy that you are bringing to the conversation.Talk soon!

 

Best,

Paul