Re: Exit Criteria (CR/PR) Interoperability report

At 09:29 AM 2002-02-25 , Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
>> 
>> "In an effort to meet these suggestions and address the implementation 
>> requirements of the Process Document, some Working Groups have included 
>> the development of conformance materials as part of their CR-exit and 
>> PR-entrance criteria."
>
>
>IJ: Please delete "CR-exit and" from this sentence. It adds 
>confusion if people think that CR-exit and PR-entrance are different 
>are essentially the same, but it's easier to model using entrance 
>criteria.
>
> 
>> and
>> 
>> "Checkpoint 1.2. In the Working Group charter, specify completion and 
>> publication of test materials to be a criterion for CR-exit and 
>> PR-entrance. [Priority 2]"
>
>
>IJ: Same comment: please don't talk about CR-exit.
>
>
>> 
>> *************************
>> 
>> Saying all of that, there's no clear way, for people to know what they 
>> should/must do to have a clear and not ambiguous report. How to present 
>> their data, How to explain why it fails, how to deal with wrong tests etc.
>> 
>> Maybe we need a new checkpoint. Because it's one of the formal thing 
>> written in the Process document but not yet clearly explained. :)
>
>
>IJ: I think it's explained very clearly. Read it without thinking 
>about CR exit and I trust you will find that the process holds 
>together. I don't think the description is currently broken, I think 
>that people are used to talking about "exit" criteria even though 
>the Process Document does not.
>

AG:

While agreeing with Ian the the definitive binding of the criteria is that
"these are the criteria which will be applied as a condition of entrance into
the Proposed Recommendation status" it is still better to talk about _both_
exit from the Candidate Recommendation _phase_ _and_ ascending into the
Proposed Recommendation _status_ and make clear that the criteria inherit from
one to the other.

Since people differ in whether they approach the topic with their mind oriented
in a timeline view or a technology maturity view, we need to get the integrated
product/process policy clear with language that touches on both views.

So, where it says

>> the development of conformance materials as part of their CR-exit and 
>> PR-entrance criteria."

.. which is ambiguous as to whether the criteria for CR-exit and PR-entrance
are one and the same or different things, based on how one parses the English
(which is ambiguous in this regard); it is yet better to say something touching
both views but making the logic clear, such as

"...the development of materials providing clear evidence that their
PR-entrance criteria have been met, as required for a successful exit from CR
status."  

It is, after all, possible to exit from CR without entering PR, by formally
abandoning the pursuit of the PR entrance criteria.  Or sending it back to the
Working Group or a new Working Group to develop something against new
requirements, having discovered that the original charter was fatally flawed. 
When a document fails to gain PR, it is not necessarily any failing of the
Working Group.  It can be the process working as it should.

Although "chalk it up to education" is usually pronounced ruefully, it is true
that if we don't launch activities and attempt things at a risk level where
some fail, we are operating too far behind the frontier of progress to be
leading anything.

[cliche:  "Now we know 1000 things that don't work." -- Thomas A. Edison,
stated positively, as progress.]

Al

Received on Monday, 25 February 2002 10:40:00 UTC