FW: "Proposed Business Plan" document posted as http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/wg4/archive/sc34-wg4-2011-0220.zip

[Rex Jaeschke]

Thanks very much Jim, I agree with your analysis entirely.

The word in question here is "important" and in my proposal I made no
attempt to define what I meant by that. Suffice it to say that of all the
DRs we've closed thus far, I'd had no objections to 98% of them being closed
during a teleconference. If all the main parties are on the call or their
opinions are represented by someone else or via written submissions (papers
or email) then why not close them?

Regarding "important" things, I had in mind things like deciding to start an
SC 34 or combined ballot for a COR or AMD, establishing business plan rules
including timelines of significant events, deciding to ballot a new work
item, and, occasionally, proposed resolutions for a handful of high-impact
DRs.

Rex
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Thatcher [mailto:Jim.Thatcher at microsoft.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 2:15 PM
To: MURATA Makoto
Cc: John Haug
Subject: RE: "Proposed Business Plan" document posted as
http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/wg4/archive/sc34-wg4-2011-0220.zip

Murata-san,

Apparently my response was bounced by the mail list server. I'm checking on
that, but in the meantime, could you forward my response to the reflector?

Best,
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Thatcher 
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:14 AM
To: 'MURATA Makoto'; SC 34 WG4
Subject: RE: "Proposed Business Plan" document posted as
http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/wg4/archive/sc34-wg4-2011-0220.zip

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding of intent here. It seems that Rex's
proposal that important decisions be made only at F2F meetings is being
interpreted as a recommendation that those important issues not be discussed
or worked on outside of F2F meetings. I'm confident that this is not the
intent behind Rex's proposal. Instead, I believe that Rex is proposing that
official adoption of significant proposals be reserved done during F2F
meetings, where participation is more active.

In my experience with other standards committees that operate under a
general rule that important decisions be taken at F2F meetings I have not
seen this approach resulting in teleconferences being almost useless. What I
have observed is that teleconferences provide a good forum for productive
discussions, consideration of proposals, working through concerns, and
arriving at a general consensus, with the formal decision to adopt that
consensus as the committee's position being made at the following F2F. There
is too little time at F2F meetings to have all of those discussions take
place during the F2F meetings, and very often the discussions need some
"bake time" for participants to think through issues, consider proposed
alternatives, seek feedback from other interested parties, and such.

I'm hopeful that we can start to involve other WG4 participants in the
business plan discussions. That business plan should reflect the general
consensus of WG4 participants regarding the relative priority of the
different pieces of work before the WG. Rex has proposed a set of
priorities, and I see significant merit in his proposal. I also recognize
that there are existing DRs that are very important to particular members,
and all WG members need to understand which issues are important to others.
It's pretty unlikely that we will all agree across the board on the priority
of every DR, but I expect we can agree on the priority level of most DRs.

Beyond agreeing on the relative priority of the DRs it is also important
that WG4 identify the experts that are willing to take responsibility for
developing a proposed resolution for at least the high priority DRs. At
least with respect to the resources that Microsoft sponsors, understanding
the priority that WG4 attaches to each DR and the other experts committed to
work on their resolutions is very important to me as I allocate those
resources.

Regards,
Jim Thatcher

-----Original Message-----
From: eb2mmrt at gmail.com [mailto:eb2mmrt at gmail.com] On Behalf Of MURATA
Makoto
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 7:27 AM
To: SC 34 WG4
Subject: Re: "Proposed Business Plan" document posted as
http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/wg4/archive/sc34-wg4-2011-0220.zip

(Wearing my JP hat)

> As to Ecma, TC45 has no policy to delay anything.

Re: "Taking important decisions at F2F Meetings only"

Providing a solution to DR 09-0040 is probably the most important thing for
Japan.  Thus, this sentence prevents WG4 from addressing it in
teleconferences.  Since most issues are important for somebody, it makes
teleconferences almost useless.

Regards,
Makoto