Re: IG charter: modification suggestion

Hi Charles,

> Thank you, in general I think the modifications are a good idea

Thank you for your kind understanding regarding care for TV related  
industries.

> Teleconferences:
>
> The big problem with these is that there is no time of day which  
> doesn't mean someone is asked to be awake when their body is asleep.  
> While occasionally they can be useful, making them regular and  
> assuming that participation depends on attending teleconferences,  
> rather than active participation in mailing list discussions, can  
> lead to low participation and problems of remaining relevant.
>
> If people are expected to attend the teleconference to be counted as  
> a participant, we waste a lot of time deciding who is going to be  
> asleep when the teleconference takes place. In general, whoever it  
> is becomes disadvantaged by being asleep, sometimes to the point  
> where they are unable to justify the expense of attending, so they  
> stop. Bit by bit others decide that the teleconference is not so  
> useful without active participation from everyone, so they stop too.  
> This is a process I have observed repeatedly in many standards  
> groups, over a couple of decades.
>
> In addition, it is not sensible to assume that decisions can be made  
> by the people at teleconferences. Many people are busy from time to  
> time (e.g. meeting customers, urgent technical work, business  
> requirements, etc) and cannot attend all teleconferences. It makes  
> no sense to assume that these people should be shut out of  
> expressing their opinion on a proposal.
>
> Finally, holding a regular teleconference without a clear agenda  
> being prepared and distributed well in advance, and without sticking  
> carefully to the agenda (to enable people to miss a teleconference  
> if they really don't care about a particular agenda), is simply  
> pointless. But preparing and chairing such meetings is a large  
> amount of work. Given the uncertainty about the outcome, I don't  
> think we should bind ourselves to this work pattern over two or  
> three years.
>
> All that said, it may be that the way to achieve particular goals is  
> to hold a series of teleconferences, so we should have them listed  
> on an as-needed basis. In particular, dealing with a particular set  
> of deliverables might be best done through a couple of  
> teleconferences.

Now I understand your image regarding work style of the IG.  I think  
your suggestion is based on your image and experience of the possible  
commitment of participants in IGs, and I suppose your suggestion is a  
practical approach for planning how to run the IG.

At the same time, I am slightly anxious for us only to consider work  
style at the very first.  We had better think three topics at once;  
work style, deliverables (the other side of scope) and timeline.   
These are firmly related each other.  I do not mean you are the person  
who think only work style first.  Actually, you mentioned deliverables  
simultaneously as below.  I would like only to clarify the key point  
of discussion regarding this topic for all the members in this ML.

On that premise, I would like to express my opinion.  I think there is  
at least one alternative approach for how to run the IG.  Short term,  
high commitment and strong performance, so to speak.   Why?  Because I  
am somewhat worried that low commitment of many people for long term  
will not bring good deliverables (by itself).  I think we need some  
kind of layered structure in the organization of the IG.  One layer is  
public; low commitment, many people and somewhat long term.  The other  
layer is restricted, high commitment, not so many people and several  
short terms.  This is the reason why I suggested ML should be public  
but IG itself should be restricted in my modified charter.  Both  
layers have merits and demerits.  We can get two merits if we add  
those two layers carefully. (We can also get two demerits if...)

Just in case: I do not mean this work style alone is superior to your  
suggestion alone.  Which approach is appropriate for the IG depends on  
the decision about deliverables and timeline.  The balance among these  
three factors is important.  If the balance is established, it does  
not matter for me which approach is adopted; your approach, my  
approach or whatever approach.

Just in case again:  You insisted repeatedly we should start soon.   
But I think finishing early -- i.e. making good deliverables early --  
is more important.   I agree with you that starting soon is important,  
because the end never comes if we do not start.  But I would like to  
say that going wrong direction or starting without insufficient  
equipments for success is much worse than doing nothing.  You know, in  
such a situation, our effort will come to nothing.  This is the very  
reason why I think we need a little more time before the IG started.   
I would like to suggest topic list that we should discuss before the  
IG started in a few days.

> 2. Deliverables:
>
> The modifications suggest that only a particular set of items from  
> the Workshop are considered as priorities. I think there are two  
> problems with this approach:
>
> The first is the manner of selection. While one workshop presented a  
> certain set of issues, and then slected the ones that the  
> participants thought were important, both the representation in the  
> workshop and the selection process were biased. The understanding we  
> had was that there would be at least a second workshop in Europe,  
> and probably one in the Americas, and we expect different workshops  
> to identify different priorities (and even different work items).  
> This is not a negative reflection on the workshop, but a consequence  
> of the process that the workshop was part of.
>
> Second, while the TV industry doesn't always move fast, it can do  
> so, and the Web industry does so. We should be prepared to consider  
> that things which seem important now might not be so important in  
> late 2011, and that things which don't seem important now might  
> become important by then.
>
> For both these reasons, while I agree that we should begin the work  
> with the concrete tasks as described in your modifications, I think  
> it is important to leave the Interest Group with the ability to take  
> on new tasks or re-prioritise existing tasks - most especially in  
> light of the workshop planned for Q1 2011 in Europe.

Honestly speaking, I just copy-and-pasted the W3M suggestion regarding  
deliverables in my modified charter.  I have some opinion about this  
topic as well.  Before discussing this topic, I would like to ask you  
to what extent we should consider the importance of W3M suggestions on  
the IG.  I felt it must have strong influence, therefore I just copy- 
and-pasted.  Though I am a member of W3C now, I am new to W3C.  And I  
guess the considerable number of participants in this public ML are  
new to W3C too.  I appreciate you if you clarify this point to promote  
discussion about this topic.


Regards,
Yosuke



On 2010/09/28, at 22:30, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> Hi Funahashi-san
>
> On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:57:35 +0200, FUNAHASHI Yosuke <yfuna@tomo-digi.co.jp 
> > wrote:
>
>> I have reviewed the initial draft charter and wrote out my
>> modification suggstion.
>>
>> I modified the inital draft charter directly, for my concern lie
>> mainly with improving the expression itself in order not to be
>> misunderstood by people in various industries, especially TV
>> industries or broadcasters.
>
> Thank you, in general I think the modifications are a good idea
>
>> I have also merged or reflected ongoing comments and discussions on
>> the ML in my modified version of the charter.  I know some of them
>> require additional discussions.  So I just tried to suggest balanced
>> solutions to them.
>
> There are a couple of points I think should be further discussed.
>
> Teleconferences:
>
> The big problem with these is that there is no time of day which  
> doesn't mean someone is asked to be awake when their body is asleep.  
> While occasionally they can be useful, making them regular and  
> assuming that participation depends on attending teleconferences,  
> rather than active participation in mailing list discussions, can  
> lead to low participation and problems of remaining relevant.
>
> If people are expected to attend the teleconference to be counted as  
> a participant, we waste a lot of time deciding who is going to be  
> asleep when the teleconference takes place. In general, whoever it  
> is becomes disadvantaged by being asleep, sometimes to the point  
> where they are unable to justify the expense of attending, so they  
> stop. Bit by bit others decide that the teleconference is not so  
> useful without active participation from everyone, so they stop too.  
> This is a process I have observed repeatedly in many standards  
> groups, over a couple of decades.
>
> In addition, it is not sensible to assume that decisions can be made  
> by the people at teleconferences. Many people are busy from time to  
> time (e.g. meeting customers, urgent technical work, business  
> requirements, etc) and cannot attend all teleconferences. It makes  
> no sense to assume that these people should be shut out of  
> expressing their opinion on a proposal.
>
> Finally, holding a regular teleconference without a clear agenda  
> being prepared and distributed well in advance, and without sticking  
> carefully to the agenda (to enable people to miss a teleconference  
> if they really don't care about a particular agenda), is simply  
> pointless. But preparing and chairing such meetings is a large  
> amount of work. Given the uncertainty about the outcome, I don't  
> think we should bind ourselves to this work pattern over two or  
> three years.
>
> All that said, it may be that the way to achieve particular goals is  
> to hold a series of teleconferences, so we should have them listed  
> on an as-needed basis. In particular, dealing with a particular set  
> of deliverables might be best done through a couple of  
> teleconferences.
>
> 2. Deliverables:
>
> The modifications suggest that only a particular set of items from  
> the Workshop are considered as priorities. I think there are two  
> problems with this approach:
>
> The first is the manner of selection. While one workshop presented a  
> certain set of issues, and then slected the ones that the  
> participants thought were important, both the representation in the  
> workshop and the selection process were biased. The understanding we  
> had was that there would be at least a second workshop in Europe,  
> and probably one in the Americas, and we expect different workshops  
> to identify different priorities (and even different work items).  
> This is not a negative reflection on the workshop, but a consequence  
> of the process that the workshop was part of.
>
> Second, while the TV industry doesn't always move fast, it can do  
> so, and the Web industry does so. We should be prepared to consider  
> that things which seem important now might not be so important in  
> late 2011, and that things which don't seem important now might  
> become important by then.
>
> For both these reasons, while I agree that we should begin the work  
> with the concrete tasks as described in your modifications, I think  
> it is important to leave the Interest Group with the ability to take  
> on new tasks or re-prioritise existing tasks - most especially in  
> light of the workshop planned for Q1 2011 in Europe.
>
>> I have not touched the section on `Decision Policy', because I did  
>> not
>> follow the discussion yet.  I would like to comment it on the ML  
>> later.
>
> cheers
>
> Chaals
>
> -- 
> Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
>    je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
> http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com
>

Received on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 16:09:06 UTC