Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process (IMPLEMENTATION)
draft-crocker-ietf-nomcom-process-implement
This document re-organizes the set of Recommendations contained in draft-crocker-ietf-nomcom-process into groups, according to implementation effort.
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.
1. Existing Capabilities
The recommendations in this section are already available. What is needed is more awareness and more exercise of them.
RECOMMENDATION -- Liaison Disclosures
- Liaisons are required to disclose some Nomcom information back to their groups, but there is no clear guidance about what is acceptable to disclose and what is not. Previous efforts to specify this as a strict rule reached an impasse, as did the effort to formulate one for this proposal.
- (Implementation) If a liaison is not completely certain that it is acceptable to convey certain information to the confirming body, or to answer a particular question, they should bring the issue to the Nomcom chair and abide by the chair's guidance.
RECOMMENDATION -- Anonymous Input
- Any individual can submit anonymous comments, by approaching a Nomcom voting member and requesting to have their comments communicated with some obfuscation.
- (Implementation) Private contact with a Nomcom members are existing means of providing anonymous input. However this is not necessarily well known to the community. It will probably be useful to emphasize this alternative in the operations Guide document and possibly the Nomcom web page.
2. Ad Hoc Expert Initiative
These Recommendations can be implemented by anyone having the motivation and knowledge. It requires no formal action and they do not require participation by specific people, although they might be aided through participation of individuals with particular expertise.
RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Operations Guide
- A collection of past Nomcom chairs and participants should write non-normative guidance about common Nomcom operational process choices that have been made, when these choices seemed to work and what their limitations appeared to have been.
- (Implementation) This requires no formal authorization to start happening.
RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Tutorials
- In order to select personnel for the IAB, IESG, and IAOC/Trust, Nomcom members need to understand the current responsibilities, activities and problems with these groups. To this end, it would be extremely helpful to hold a series of scheduled tutorials, during the first IETF meeting of a new Nomcom, by representatives of IAB, IESG, and IAOC/Trust.
- (Implementation) This does not require any formal approval.
RECOMMENDATION -- Etiquette Guide
- In order to ensure that every participant and organization involved in the Nomcom process can be easily and adequately informed of what is expected of them in the process, there should be an "etiquette" guide supplied to all participants, nominees, nominees' organization, interviewees, and others.
- (Implementation) This is not, technically, a formal change to Nomcom rules.
3. Nomcom Internal Procedures
These recommendations may be implemented by action of the Nomcom, at its own initiative. No other formal actions are required
RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Discussion Management
- It is primarily the job of the Nomcom Chair to ensure that no individual dominates the group. All participants in Nomcom discussions are encouraged to assist the Chair in assuring that no participant dominates Nomcom discussions.
- (Implementation) The conduct of meetings and the staffing of interviews is already under the control of the Nomcom chair. So this topic requires no change to Nomcom rules.
RECOMMENDATION -- Confidentiality Agreement
- This is listed in two sub-sections, because it has two levels of implementation...
- Everyone participating in Nomcom needs to sign a formal Confidentiality Agreement.
- (Implementation) Will require a modification to RFC 3777. Note, however, that Nomcom members and those participating in the Nomcom process can voluntarily choose to sign the agreement.
RECOMMENDATION -- Interview Monitoring
- This is listed in two sections, because it has two levels of adoption.
- Liaisons must not sit in on interviews without a specific invitation. In order to achieve the required monitoring of interviews, the Chair and Advisors are tasked with attending interviews as needed, possibly at the specific request of a Liaison. RFC 3777 (section 4, rule 3) gives any committee member the right to propose the addition of advisors to participate in some or all of the deliberations of the committee. Committee members may choose to propose one or more advisors to monitor interviews, under that authority The chair can therefore appoint additional Advisors to assist with this, where the Advisor is not affiliated with any IETF leadership group and is not a candidate for any position with one.
- (Implementation) As a formal prohibition, this is a formal change to Nomcom selection rules, which will require a modification to RFC 3777, presumably as an enhancement to an RFC 3777 revision effort. Note, however, that the Nomcom Chair is entirely responsible for defining Nomcom procedures.
RECOMMENDATION -- Politicking
- Any evidence of politicking should be reported to Nomcom and should be treated as a significant, negative factor when considering the nominee who is intended to benefit from the politicking.
- (Implementation) Nomcoms develop their own criteria.
4. Formal IETF RFC Revision
Adoption of these recommendations requires official modification of the RFC covering Nomcom.
RECOMMENDATION -- Selection Pool
- There needs to be assurance of a minimum presence of Nomcom voting members who have meaningful knowledge of IETF "decision and leadership processes".
- Therefore, create a second pool of volunteers who satisfy more stringent Nomcom participation rules.
- Volunteers in this 'expertise' pool must have been on the IESG, IAB or IAOC/Trust, or have been a working group chair. These positions require a degree of direct involvement in the process of IETF leadership.
- Three (3) volunteers from the 'expertise' pool are selected first. Those who are not selected from that pool are then added to the general pool of volunteers, for the second round of selection. Nomcom is not limited to having only three of its members be experienced.
- (Implementation) This is a formal change to Nomcom selection rules, which will require a modification to RFC 3777.
RECOMMENDATION -- Selective Exclusion
- The Nomcom Chair may selectively exclude any participant from a single Nomcom activity. This action may be overridden by a majority of Nomcom Voting Members.
- (Implementation) This is a formal change to rules concerning Nomcom "members", which will require a modification to RFC 3777.
RECOMMENDATION -- Confidentiality Agreement
- This is listed in two sub-sections, because it has two levels of implementation.
- Everyone participating in Nomcom needs to sign a formal Confidentiality Agreement.
- (Implementation) Will require a modification to RFC 3777. Note, however, that Nomcom members and those participating in the Nomcom process can voluntarily choose to sign the agreement.
RECOMMENDATION -- Interview Monitoring
- This is listed in two sections, because it has two levels of adoption.
- Liaisons must not sit in on interviews without a specific invitation. In order to achieve the required monitoring of interviews, the Chair and Advisors are tasked with attending interviews as needed, possibly at the specific request of a Liaison. RFC 3777 (section 4, rule 3) gives any committee member the right to propose the addition of advisors to participate in some or all of the deliberations of the committee. Committee members may choose to propose one or more advisors to monitor interviews, under that authority The chair can therefore appoint additional Advisors to assist with this, where the Advisor is not affiliated with any IETF leadership group and is not a candidate for any position with one.
- (Implementation) As a formal prohibition, this is a formal change to Nomcom selection rules, which will require a modification to RFC 3777, presumably as an enhancement to an RFC 3777 revision effort. Note, however, that the Nomcom Chair is entirely responsible for defining Nomcom procedures.
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