Question from the Board and our answer

[David Morar]

+1 on everything so far.

My suggestion is to structure the comment this way:

1. Don’t use “small teams” - an internal Council thing - to excuse your
“agile” “innovations”
2. “Agile” is just another word for circumventing the policy-making process.
3. If you want to make things more efficient, stop re-opening issues, stop
pretending GNSO should have equal say in policy-making with ALAC, and GAC,
and creating monster structures that pretend as such, like the closer
generics one.
4. On the specific topic of small teams, we think transparency and
representation matters


On Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 10:04 Tomslin Samme-Nlar <mesumbeslin at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Farzi,
>
> Tha ks for these initial thoughts.
>
> I totally agree with your point on the board refraining from re-opening
> issues. In fact, that is somewhat the Council’s position as well and the
> Council will be mentioning this as well to the board during their meeting.
>
> There is a significant difference between an internal council small team
> and a community-wide process that might be put together to contribute to
> policy development in an attempt to be "agile".  Such a process risk
> circumventing the GNSO policy development procedures and eroding the role
> of the GNSO.
>
> I also agree with Stephanie that we should mention the need for more
> transparency from the Council small team as well.
>
> Warmly,
> Tomslin
>
> On Mon, 13 Mar 2023, 08:21 farzaneh badii, <farzaneh.badii at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> All,
>> We have an NCSG board meeting today and the Board is asking a peculiar
>> question:
>>
>> “The ICANN Board would like to explore how to
>> combine the efficiencies of an agile approach to problem solving, like
>> the Council’s small teams, with the need for accountability and
>> transparency, to make progress on policy conversations. When would such
>> an approach be most appropriate and how can we ensure that it does not
>> circumvent required steps in a policy development process? »
>>
>> We discussed this during the NCSG meeting yesterday. In a nutshell we
>> don't think an "agile approach" that is not predicted in the bylaws is
>> appropriate at all. If the Board wants to make the processes more efficient
>> and effective, they can refrain from re-opening the issues and rehashing
>> the policy recommendations that we make in policy development processes.
>> Also adding layers and layers of implementation and enforcement processes
>> such as ODAs don't help with efficiency. Unfortunately the push for
>> efficiency and the board desire to re-open issues or be creative in
>> resolving unsolved matters has led to creating processes that are ad hoc
>> and might not be in accordance with the bylaws. One such group that the
>> board created and we objected to is the group on closed generics. (*we
>> need to discuss this point)*
>>
>> *this is my opinion which we can discuss:*
>> The Council's small teams are not "agile processes". They are internal
>> processes that don't violate the bylaws because the small teams don't make
>> the decision, they just lay the groundwork for decision-making at the
>> council level and they have to discuss all the issues with the council.
>>
>> Please weigh in so that we can wrap it up by 3 PM. Also what's with the
>> obsession with the word "agile". Somebody got an MBA recently and went to a
>> WEF meeting?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Farzaneh
>>
> --
David Morar, PhD
@morar <https://twitter.com/morar>
davidmorar.com
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