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Starting Consultation on the IASA2 Retrospective

24 Jun 2021

The IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC) is soliciting community feedback on the first draft of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA 2.0) retrospective. Our goal is to complete this process by October 2021 so that we can present a final report in November 2021 at IETF 112. This time frame provides significant opportunity for community input and revision of the assessment.

This assessment is required by BCP 101 after three years of operation. In April 2021 we announced a proposed process and timing for this retrospective and sought comment from the community. We are now taking the next step in this process, which is to seek input from the community on the first draft. We anticipate making many revisions based on community input. 

It is important to note that this is merely an informational assessment. Should any gaps or other areas of improvement be identified, this would be documented in a report that may include recommendations for later initiation of community-driven processes to address those areas.

Looking back, it is clear that significant changes took place to implement IASA2 and so it is reasonable to envision that some things were missed in the IASA2 design phase. To the extent that gaps or areas of improvement are identified, this is a good thing as it can enable the community to openly discuss them and make course corrections following a community-driven process rather than letting administrative and operational debt accumulate over the course of five or ten years, leading to another significant revision. 

Timeline:

  1. June (now): Share first draft of the assessment and begin an extended period for community review, input, and revision.
  2. July - September: Regular revision of the assessment based on community input.
  3. October: Write a report for the community on the results of the retrospective, including any recommendations for future work.
  4. November: Present the report during the IETF 112 meeting plenary.

Approach to the First Draft:

  1. The LLC documented a list of goals and requirements from RFC 8711 and the Design Team Recommendations, and other relevant IASA2 working group documents, then assessed performance or progress towards meeting each item. This was intended to help to highlight any areas where additional work may be needed. This is Sections A - C of the draft report.
  2. The LLC created an additional section of the document to list any additional administrative, financial, legal, or operational gaps; areas of improvement; and any areas of under-specification or over-specification in IASA2 documents that the IETF LLC Board, IETF Secretariat, IETF Executive Director, or the IETF community perceive that were not otherwise identified in Sections A - C. This is Section D of the draft report.
  3. The report includes potential recommendations for future work. This could conceivably lead to the start of a new community-driven process (e.g. working group, GenArea draft, etc.) following the conclusion of the retrospective after IETF-112. These are included throughout the document as applicable.

How to Provide Input:

  1. Email: send feedback to admin-discuss@ietf.org
  2. GitHub: Open an issue or propose a pull request at https://github.com/ietf-llc/IASA2-Retrospective
  3. Live Webinars: The IETF LLC will hold two live webinars to take live input and questions. The first will take place on July 12 and the second on August 11, 2021.
  4. IETF 111 Office Hours: The IETF LLC will hold open office hours during IETF 111 in July in Gather.town. You can join us at that time to provide input or ask questions.

The first draft can be found here on GitHub. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful review, comment, questions, and any other input.


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