different WG tasks

I observed that we have often recurring discussions in a BOF on what
a working group should tackle. The participants have interest in
various areas, generally there is not time enough to do a thorough
job in all areas and in the right sequence.

In the current, complex Internet world a working group needs to go
through a number of steps:
1  Document what is around already. Challenge: make it complete
   and finish at a certain time.
2  Identify the problems which need to be solved. Challenge: agree
   on the problems
3  Collect the requirements: Challenge: keep this to a minimum to
   allow a solution
5  Define the architecture: Challenge: agree on a common view for
   the future
6  Specify the protocols: Challenge: find dedicated authors and keep
   community interested until the very end

In earlier times it was OK to roughly touch 2 and then directly jump to 6.
All project management theories (or software development strategies)
show something among the lines of the 6 steps above and definitely warn
to ignora step. This takes time and needs a lot of work. But since
the world got more complex, we need better thought out solutions,
and following the easiest rules of software development would help.


Urs Eppenberger, SWITCH

Received on Tuesday, 8 December 1998 13:46:10 UTC