Network Working Group M. Vigoureux Internet Draft Alcatel-Lucent Updates: 2418 (if approved) D. King Intended status: Best Current Practice Old Dog Consulting Expires: December 2014 C. Pignataro Cisco Systems, Inc. June 12, 2014 IETF Working Groups' Secretaries draft-secretaries-good-practices-06 Abstract The Working Group Secretary's role was succinctly defined in RFC 2418. However, this role has greatly evolved and increased both in value and scope, since the writing of RFC 2418. This document updates RFC 2418 by providing a new definition of the Working Group Secretary's role. This document also provides a compilation of good practices and general guidelines regarding the fulfilment of the role. This document is intended for established Working Group Secretaries, individuals motivated by taking up that role, or anyone else simply interested in understanding better the Working Group Secretary's role. This document may also be useful for Working Group Chairs to better appreciate and help develop the value of Working Group Secretaries. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress". WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 1] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html This Internet-Draft will expire on December 12, 2014. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Table of Contents 1. Introduction...................................................2 2. WG Secretary...................................................4 3. WG Secretary's Functions and Responsibilities..................4 3.1. IETF Meeting Specific Tasks...............................4 3.1.1. Pre WG Session Phase.................................4 3.1.2. WG Session Phase.....................................7 3.1.3. Post WG Session Phase................................8 3.2. Continuous Tasks..........................................8 4. Complementary Considerations..................................10 5. Conclusions and Perspectives..................................11 6. Security Considerations.......................................12 7. IANA Considerations...........................................12 8. References....................................................12 8.1. Normative References.....................................12 8.2. Informative References...................................12 9. Acknowledgments...............................................13 Contributors' Addresses..........................................13 Authors' Addresses...............................................14 1. Introduction The Working Group (WG) Secretary's role was defined as a minute taker and to record WG discussions' points, and decisions (see Section 6.2 WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 2] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 of RFC 2418 [1]). Over time, the WG Secretary role's has greatly evolved to include a number of additional functions and responsibilities which are critical to the smooth operation of IETF WGs. This document describes these additional functions and responsibilities. However, the framework and perimeter of action associated to the WG Secretary's role, depends on the WG Secretary and the Chairs, as well as on the professional relationship they establish. Therefore this document does not prescribe what must be performed, but lists what might be performed by a WG Secretary. Also, this list is intended to be as complete as possible, but it shall not be considered as exhaustive. This document is therefore not a rigid job description. Also, IETF WGs differ from one another according several aspects. Amongst those aspects is the "effective size" of the WG (number of active participants, number of active documents, rate of WG document's adoption polls and WG Last Calls, and mailing list traffic). In that regard, part or even all of the guidelines it provides might not be relevant for the smaller WGs, the Chairs of which do not need to delegate operational tasks as they handle them by themselves. It shall be noted that a certain number of tools and means exist in support of WG operation (e.g., Session Request Tool, Meeting Material Manager, the Datatracker, Etherpad, Trac Tool, Wiki). Most, if not all, of these are accessible from the WG Chairs' page (https://www.ietf.org/wg/chairs-page.html). However, it is out of the scope of this document to describe the use of these tools and means. It shall also be noted that no specific tool exists in support of certain actions and tasks that can fall under the responsibility of a WG Secretary. It is expected that a WG Secretary would procure the right set of tools for the job, based on availability and personal preference. This might entail searching and finding, or developing, tools. Finally, while the WG Secretary function can be viewed as being a support function to the Chairs, it is crucial that the Chairs also provide support to the Secretary as needed. For example, certain tasks described herein require the use of credentials and some rights associated to these. The WG Chairs should make sure the Secretary has the necessary access and privileges to perform the various tasks. More generally, the WG Chairs should make sure the Secretary has all the necessary information to perform his/her function. WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 3] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 Section 2 of this document is normative and updates the whole Section 6.2 of RFC 2418. Section 3 of this document gives detailed descriptive information of the WG Secretary's functions, responsibilities, and good practices. 2. WG Secretary The WG Secretary is a resource leveraged by WG Chairs, and is concerned with supporting the operations of a WG to make forward progress, and with assisting in managing the WG processes. While WG Chairs are accountable for ensuring that a number of tasks are performed, the WG Secretary embodies a role explicitly assigned to carry over a subset of those tasks. The WG Secretary supports the processes and workflows to make the WG successful during its lifetime, with specific actions at the times of IETF meetings. 3. WG Secretary's Functions and Responsibilities We classify the functions and responsibilities of a WG Secretary according to tasks specific to an IETF meeting, and to continuous tasks. The following sub-sections reflect that classification. 3.1. IETF Meeting Specific Tasks The set of tasks specific to an IETF meeting can be further sub- classified into three phases: the WG session held during that meeting as well as both the pre and post phases of that session. 3.1.1. Pre WG Session Phase o Submitting a request for a WG session Using the means available, the WG Secretary could submit a request for a WG session at the upcoming IETF meeting. The WG Secretary should coordinate with the Chairs in order to correctly formulate the request, especially with regards to the number of sessions to request for, their respective duration, and the conflicts to avoid. Concomitantly, the WG Secretary could formulate the request to have collaborative software (e.g., WebEx, Meetecho) support during the WG session. It shall be noted that holding a WG session is typically driven by the need for the WG to discuss some topics or documents, and that the identification of this need may imply having interactions with the WG before requesting a session. WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 4] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 o Calling for discussion slots Working Group Chairs may organise WG sessions in different ways. As part of this organisation, they may allocate all or part of the WG session to people wishing to discuss their work (e.g., with the objective to resolve issues and make progress). In that context, and as soon as the IETF agenda for a given meeting is published, the WG Secretary could send an e-mail to the WG mailing list asking the WG participants to submit requests for discussion slots at the upcoming WG session. Note that WG Chairs may wish to set policies for accepting discussion's slot requests. The call for discussion slots should remind these policies as well as how should the requests be formulated, together with a deadline for sending them. The call would also typically include information on when will the particular WG session be held during the IETF meeting noting that the IETF agenda is draft until being final. o Collecting the discussion's slot requests As a preliminary step to building the WG session agenda, the WG Secretary could collect all the requests for discussion slots. In order to be able to do so, the WG Secretary should make sure that he/she is aware of all the formulated requests by 1) clearly indicating in the call for discussion slots that he/she must be one of the recipients of the requests, and 2) checking with the Chairs that they would not have received requests sent to them only. o Proposing a WG session agenda Based on the collected discussion's slot requests, and depending on the known preferences of the WG Chairs for the typical structure of their WG sessions, or on the objectives Chairs have for a particular WG session, and/or on his/her personal view, the Secretary could propose to the Chairs a structured agenda for the upcoming WG session. Following that, the WG Secretary could work with the Chairs to finalise the agenda in view of publishing a first draft agenda. o Submitting the WG session agenda At the deadline, or even earlier, the WG Secretary could publish the draft and then final agenda for the WG session. The WG Secretary could then inform the WG that the agenda has been published. When doing so, the WG Secretary could ask the WG participants to verify that discussion's slot requests have not been accidentally missed. Also, in the case where some requests have not been granted, the WG WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 5] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 Secretary could inform the participants having requested the discussion slots, of the reason(s) why they were not allocated a slot in the final WG session agenda. o Requesting presentations materials In combination with the notification of the publication of the WG session agenda, or separately, the WG Secretary could ask the individuals who were granted a discussion slot to send the material in support of their upcoming presentation. This request should come with a deadline so as to give sufficient time to upload the materials before the WG session. Optionally the request could also include information on the practice the WG Chairs apply if the materials fail to be delivered prior to the deadline. o Securing Jabber relays and minute takers Supporting remote participation is very important. As such, the WG Secretary could ask for one specific volunteer: a Jabber scribe, responsible for acting as a gateway for remote participants, by way of relaying remote questions and annotating slide numbers. Also, it is crucial that discussions' points and decisions be written down. The WG Secretary could make sure that minutes will be taken. The WG Secretary may self-designate and/or find at least one other volunteer tasked with taking notes during the WG session. Securing these two roles in advance sets up for a successful meeting. For the purpose of minutes taking, the WG Secretary may suggest the use of the Etherpad tool (available from each WG web page at https://tools.ietf.org) which enables the other WG participants to also contribute, as well as provides immediate access to the minutes. o Preparing the WG Status material Working Groups sessions typically start with a slot allocated to the Chairs during which is presented a status of the WG. The WG Secretary could produce part, or the totality, of the WG status slides by compiling the appropriate information. As part of this step, the WG Secretary could query the authors of WG documents to know the status of -and the plans they have for- their document (e.g., envisaged date of readiness for WG Last Call). This, mostly if not only, applies to WG documents the state of which is not evident. For example there is WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 6] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 no apparent need to query authors of a WG document which is in IESG processing. o Uploading the materials The WG Secretary could, sufficiently ahead of time, upload the presentations materials. This is useful both to the WG participants wanting to have access to the materials and to the person responsible for displaying the materials during the WG session. 3.1.2. WG Session Phase o Before the WG session For the WG Chairs to enjoy their lunch, cookie, coffee, tea (or any other favoured drink) until the last minute, the Secretary could sacrifice his/her time and enter the meeting room well in advance to prepare the WG session. This might include: checking if blue sheets are available, preparing the session's material to be displayed, launching collaborative software environments, preparing minute taking, etc. The usefulness of such preparation depends of course on the WG and on the WG session. A WG session with a light agenda might not require all this. On the other hand, a WG session with an extremely packed agenda, and for which every minute counts, shall surely benefit from such preparation. The WG Secretary could also confirm the Jabber scribe assignment, as well as the minute taker assignment if applicable. o During the WG session The WG Secretary could be responsible for displaying the material and running through the slides as speakers advance through their presentation. The WG Secretary could also act as the time keeper to ensure there is sufficient remaining time for all discussions to happen. In case the WG Secretary also takes minutes, performing multiple tasks in parallel might pose certain challenges but nothing insurmountable. o After the WG session WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 7] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 After the end of a WG session, the WG Secretary could bring the blue sheets to the IETF Secretariat and socialize with the very supportive and welcoming people composing it. 3.1.3. Post WG Session Phase o Publishing the WG session minutes While it is highly recommended that the minutes of a WG session be published as quickly as possible, this might only be feasible after the end of the week of an IETF meeting. In any case, if the WG Secretary was the minute taker he/she could polish the notes taken (correcting typos, or even complementing missing parts with audio recordings) and send these to the Chairs for validation. Alternatively, depending on the WG Chairs' preferences, the Secretary could nearly immediately share with the WG the raw minutes and collect corrections. Once the WG Chairs agree on the written minutes, the Secretary could publish these using the means available and ask the WG participants to review them and inform him/her of changes that would need to be performed before final publication. 3.2. Continuous Tasks Tracking is the word dominating the tasks a WG Secretary could be expected to continuously perform. o Recording and tracking authors' inputs At least on two occasions, the WG Secretary is in position to receive inputs from authors of Internet-Drafts concerning the status and plans they have for their document(s). This is during the WG session preparation phase (when building the WG status material) and during the WG session when authors sometimes communicate such plans. The WG Secretary should record and track this information as it is valuable for sketching a plan and a schedule of the actions the Chairs will have to take (e.g., WG document's adoption polls, WG Last Call). o Recording and tracking WG Chairs' decisions Decisions are sometimes taken by WG Chairs during WG sessions. These decisions often imply some follow-up actions that the WG Chairs need to take. The WG Secretary could record and track the action-points for the Chairs, as well as remind them of these when necessary. WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 8] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 o Tracking events Between IETF meetings, a number of WG events, including WG document's adoption polls, WG Last Calls, publication of new revisions of Internet-Drafts, will occur. The WG Secretary could track these events and report progress, or deadlines to the Chairs. For the WG document's adoption polls and WG Last Calls, the WG Secretary could notify the Chairs of the end of the poll/call together with an evaluation of the positions expressed on the WG mailing list in response to those polls/calls. For Internet-Drafts that require a revision before being progressed further, the WG Secretary could also notify the Chairs when the expected revision is published. o Watching over compliance with IETF IPR rules As per [2] it is important for people making IETF contributions to disclose relevant IPR in a timely manner. Verification that authors are in compliance with IETF IPR rules may for example be conducted prior to a WG document's adoption poll or WG Last Call (see [3]). The WG Secretary could monitor and track responses to such verifications, and chase authors and contributors where necessary. Where responses are not forthcoming, the WG Secretary could notify the Chairs. o Tracking of documents' issues Working Groups have issue trackers to facilitate the tracking of documents issues. The WG Secretary could identify the issues raised in a review of a WG document or during WG discussions and record the information in the issue tracker. The WG Secretary could liaise with the document editor to find which issues were resolved and how they were resolved and record that information. o Maintaining the Datatracker and ensuring it is up to date An important tool in support of WG operations is the Datatracker [4]. The WG Secretary could have the responsibility of keeping the Datatracker up to date so that it reflects the exact state each document is effectively in. See RFC 6174 [5] for further information on the states of IETF WG Documents. The WG Secretary could also make sure that the replacement status of documents is correct, and apply of the proper status in case it is incorrect or not indicated and necessary. Note that performing actions on the Datatracker requires greater privileges than those associated to the WG Secretary status; see the following section for further information. WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 9] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 o Shepherding documents By convention and default WG Chairs tend to be Document Shepherds. This may lead to overloading the WG Chairs and they should recall that they are allowed to assign anyone to be a Document Shepherd (see [6]). One option is to assign the shepherding role for some documents to the WG Secretary. o Doing "Chair-like" work Depending on the established working relationship between the WG Chairs and the Secretary, the latter could take actions, typically under the direct responsibility of WG Chairs, such as to launch or close WG document's adoption polls or WG Last Calls. 4. Complementary Considerations When appointed as WG Secretary, the concerned person shall be identified as such on the WG charter page of the Datatracker. Additionally, his/her e-mail address shall be added both to the WG Chairs general alias (wgchairs@ietf.org) and to the specific WG Chairs alias (-chairs@tools.ietf.org). As noted in the previous section, performing actions on the Datatracker requires greater privileges than those associated to the WG Secretary status. Working Group Chairs have the possibility to delegate part of their privileges on the Datatracker (while retaining them) to anyone. As a result, the person inheriting the delegation is identified as Delegate on the WG charter page of the Datatracker, and benefits from an extended scope of action. It is up to the WG Chairs to decide whether a Secretary should also be a Delegate or not, and conversely whether a Delegate is expected to also act as a Secretary or not. It is nevertheless preferable that if a Delegate is expected to act as WG Secretary, he/she also be explicitly identified as such. Although typically a WG might only have one Secretary there is no reason why two Secretaries might not be appointed. This might be to help transition a new WG secretary into the role, before the previous Secretary steps down, or simply to load balance the tasks across two Secretaries. Reciprocally, a person may perfectly be Secretary of multiple WGs. This primarily depends on his/her ability to deal with the induced workload, noting nevertheless that synergies may be realised in such a situation. In any case, this document does not give a recommendation on what should be the appropriate value for the "Secretary / WG" ratio. WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 10] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 There are tasks that the WG Secretary might be expected to perform but in fact may further delegate. Typical examples of those tasks are jabber scribing and minute taking. More generally, there are situations where the WG Secretary is unable to perform certain tasks (absence at an IETF meeting, agenda conflict with the WG session, participation to the technical discussions during the WG session, ...). The WG Secretary may fall back on the Chairs for performing the impacted tasks but this would defeat the purpose of the Secretary's role. Therefore it is preferable that, in those situations, the WG Secretary further delegates those tasks, in agreement with the Chairs. As a final consideration, WG Secretaries are invited to the IETF WG Chairs' lunch tutorial held during IETF meetings, usually on Wednesdays. The WG Secretaries are also welcome to attend, when it is scheduled, the Sunday afternoon training on WG Leadership. 5. Conclusions and Perspectives Section 3 has listed the typical functions and responsibilities of WG Secretaries. The role of a WG Secretary can range from a few of these to the full spectrum of them, and even beyond. In that regard, there is a number of additional WG related events to which the support of the WG Secretary would be useful. Those for example include planning and setting for WG interim meetings, design team meetings, etc. Nevertheless, some tasks described herein apply to these contexts. It is essential that over time the WG Secretary and Chairs build trust to facilitate an effective and productive working relationship. No secret recipe is however given here on how to achieve such relationship. Nevertheless, making clear expectations from both perspectives and clear communication, the higher the probability of a an efficient and productive relationship. The WG Secretary's role is not mandatory in WGs, hence no formal selection process exists and it is also difficult to identify a general practice for that purpose. Reality is that WG Chairs select their Secretary in different ways. Nevertheless, to become a WG Secretary, the first step is to be active and involved in the WG of interest as well as show willingness and have time to dedicate to that function. While the apparent value of a good WG Secretary might be in the delegation of tasks that the Chairs are expected to manage and in the smoothed operation of WGs, this role carries a second important WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 11] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 value. As the WG Secretary develops the knowledge to fulfil the above functions and responsibilities he/she will be in a position to both extend the scope of his/her actions, and to be more and more involved in WG operation and decision-making. The WG Secretary's role is therefore an excellent means for training individuals in the art of WG operation, and ideally towards the role of WG Chair. 6. Security Considerations Delegation based on trust is not expected to introduce security issues. Nevertheless, while the WG Chairs may delegate a number of tasks to the Secretary, they maintain the overall responsibility and accountability over the WG and the decisions and actions that are taken. As such, it is recommended that the WG Secretary does not operate without the agreement of the Chairs, or at least without the confidence that his/her choices and actions are in line with the Chairs views on any given matter. Also, the WG Secretary might have access to sensitive information, usually only destined to the Chairs. Therefore, it is very important that a WG Secretary acts with ethics, respecting the privacy of these data. 7. IANA Considerations This document does not require any action from the IANA. 8. References 8.1. Normative References [1] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998. 8.2. Informative References [2] Bradner, S., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology", BCP 79, RFC 3979, March 2005. [3] Polk, T., and Saint-Andre, P., "Promoting Compliance with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Disclosure Rules", RFC 6702, August 2012. WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 12] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 [4] "The IETF Datatracker tool", Web Application: https://datatracker.ietf.org/, Version 5.5.0, June 2014. [5] Juskevicius, E., "Definition of IETF Working Group Document States", RFC 6174, March 2011. [6] Levkowetz, H., Meyer, D., Eggert, L., and Mankin, A., "Document Shepherding from Working Group Last Call to Publication", RFC 4858, May 2007. 9. Acknowledgments The authors thank a number of Working Group Secretaries (in alphabetical order) who have contributed to the development of this document: Daniele Ceccarelli, Luigi Iannone, Subramanian Moonesamy, Ines Robles, and Sam Weiler. The authors also thank Scott Bradner for his thorough review and useful input. The authors also thank the following WG Chairs for their reviews and comments: Lou Berger, Spencer Dawkins, and Hannes Tschofenig, as well as Loa Andersson for also acting as Document Shepherd. Finally, the authors thank Adrian Farrel, as Area Director, for sponsoring this document. This document was prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot. Contributors' Addresses Daniele Ceccarelli Ericsson Via Melen 77, Genova, Italy Email: daniele.ceccarelli@ericsson.com Luigi Iannone Telecom ParisTech 23, Avenue d'Italie, 75013 Paris, France Email: ggx@gigix.net WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 13] Internet-Draft WG Secretaries June 2014 Subramanian Moonesamy 76, Ylang Ylang Avenue Quatre Bornes Mauritius Email: sm+ietf@elandsys.com Ines Robles Universidad Tecnologica Nacional - FRM Rodriguez 273, Mendoza, Argentina Email: ines.robles@gridtics.frm.utn.edu.ar Samuel Weiler Parsons 7110 Samuel Morse Drive Columbia, Maryland, 21046, USA Email: weiler@tislabs.com Authors' Addresses Martin Vigoureux Alcatel-Lucent Email: martin.vigoureux@alcatel-lucent.com Daniel King Old Dog Consulting Email: daniel@olddog.co.uk Carlos Pignataro Cisco Systems, Inc. 7200-12 Kit Creek Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA Email: cpignata@cisco.com WG Secretaries Expires December 12, 2014 [Page 14]