[NCSG-PC] [Suggestion] Additional Budgetary Request - NCSG PC Strategic Planning Session

Mon Jan 15 04:44:26 EET 2018

I am happy to address these concerns on our upcoming PC call; but in short, I disagree and do not think an online webinar can realistically substitute for a two-day, face-to-face strategic planning session. No one is going to log in to Adobe Connect for 16 hours; but when we are on a conference room, we are able to get everyone’s uninterrupted attention. Concerns around preparedness are legitimate but can be addressed by setting clear benchmarks to be met in the months leading up to the session and which must be adhered to before Staff authorise the booking of travel. In terms of participants, while at this point in time there may be overlap, that itself is never sustainable nor necessarily desirable. Volunteer burnout is real and the solution here is to have different sets of Officers involved in different functions working towards a common goal (and we need a way to retain these Officers — and let’s be realistic about what tools we can request from ICANN to make this happen), not to overburden those who are working already with more tasks.

Ayden

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On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 12:39, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the proposal.
> As I stated before, I am not in favor of this request. I will try to elaborate more and respond to some arguments. In term of procedure, ABRs is more in the remit of EC and FC, the proposal would have to go through them.
>
> - I heard the argument several times about having short meetings may be more bearable than long ones. however, it seems not taking into consideration that 2 days meetings would include also 2 days traveling ( regardless a short or long itinerary). I will also highlight that in our last community support comment, we were suggesting that we should arrive earlier. I guess people also need to recuperate after a travel regardless if it is held during a weekend or not. I am not going to talk about the time needed prior to such meeting to get a visa even if we skip the USA as location. I understand there are personal preferences but I think we need to assess in term of fairness and inclusivity.
> - I am concerned about the argument to use travel as an incentive for 2 reasons. it is giving the impression that involvement in ICANN and NCSG equals traveling and so dismissing the real intercessional work that is done most of the time. It is also not scalable neither sustainable in long term and we had examples of supported travelers who never became active or not as expected.
> - there is no real risk of "prying eyes" if the meeting is closed and I guess that is the intent. if there is remote participation, we can check who access to AC or phone bridge but I guess the recording will be public anyway.
> - if it is about PC strategical planning, I am not sure how it can be a different set of attendees in particular for the case of councilors. if it is for the wider NCSG, I guess that will still include officers since they will are supposed to implement such planning and likely attending the other meeting.
> - there are a non-negligible logistics and planning for any meeting. I participated in intersessional planning and currently in a strategical council meeting. It is time-consuming and needs works, it doesn't happen just like that. in fact, I am concerned about the current intersessional in term of NCSG readiness (not sure of co-chairs already started to prepare for their sessions and we are just 2 weeks away). We need to be mindful of how to spend our scare time and attention.
>
> Professionalization means using effectively and efficiently existing resources and not asking for more for sake of doing it. I am more in favor to think this carefully and create mechanisms to get input about strategy and planning and not just think everything in term of meetings. I would support the idea made by Farzaneh to start first with an online meeting to see how it works and what we can do concretely.
>
> Best,
>
> Rafik
>
> 2018-01-15 7:43 GMT+09:00 Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>:
>
>> Hi Farell,
>>
>> Thanks for reviewing the additional budgetary request so thoroughly. I wanted to take a few moments to expand upon my thinking as to why I believe this should be separate to other events like the Intersessional.
>>
>> Firstly, it is of course true that we have a few different sessions like this taking place. As you rightly mentioned we have the two-day Intersessional, and we have the new, three-day GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session. This year these two sessions have been blended together, creating a five-day time commitment for participants.
>>
>> To add on to this our Policy Committee session would make it a seven-day meeting. I don't know about you, but I know from my own experience at ICANN meetings that I become burnt out after five days. If we made this meeting longer it could become less effective.
>>
>> There is also the question of audience, and there are two prongs here. One, we want to have a strategy session away from prying eyes. To do it at roughly the same time as we have colleagues from the contracted and non-contracted parties (on Council) or with our colleagues from the Commercial Stakeholders Group (Intersessional) could prove disadvantageous. Two, and perhaps more importantly, the audience we invite to the Intersessional and to the Council Strategic Planning Session should necessarily be different.
>>
>> As we grow and professionalise the NCSG we need to share the burden of work better. In time I imagine the participant balance for these three sessions would be different. When we blend meetings together the organisation allocates less resources to support travel, and we find ourselves, partly out of necessity, having to invite the same voices to each. We might want to rethink this; we do not necessarily need the same participants, but could see this session as an individual team 'retreat' (in a few years time I hope we can add on a separate Campaigns Strategic Planning Session, when we have an Advocacy Committee or something like that). It sustains the momentum of our work. It gives another 'carrot' to our members to become involved in our activities in a more specialised capacity.
>>
>> I think it is also worth noting that, in the case of the Intersessional, four out of the last five Intersessionals have been held in the United States, because three-quarters of the delegates are from the US. Given our membership is more diverse and many of our members have obstacles obtaining US visas, piggybacking onto a meeting that is typically held Stateside might not work for us.
>>
>> Finally, for some of us, it is easier to take 2 days off than it is 5 or 7. When we host a meeting independent to others we have total flexibility over the dates and the location (within reason). We could, for instance, host this session over a weekend — that might make it easier for our volunteers with families, jobs, or other non-ICANN participants to be able to participate — or in a location where we are confident the majority of the participants will have no obstacles traveling to, be that because of distance or visas.
>>
>> Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,
>>
>> Ayden
>>
>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> Subject: Re: [NCSG-PC] [Suggestion] Additional Budgetary Request - NCSG PC Strategic Planning Session
>>> Local Time: 14 January 2018 9:18 PM
>>> UTC Time: 14 January 2018 20:18
>>> From: farellfolly at gmail.com
>>> To: Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>
>>> ncsg-pc <ncsg-pc at lists.ncsg.is>
>>>
>>> Hello Ayden,
>>>
>>> This is a very good idea. I am in full support of it and as you said the staff should be minimal to avoid a high increase in budget.
>>>
>>> There are another strategic meetings such as the intercessional where many members of the PC already participate. Can we just propose to colocate both and conduct this PC strategic after or before? It will cost only additional days for accomodation for those who already participate to the intercessional and travel tickets for the remaining members, instead of a complete new logistic plan !
>>>
>>> Le dim. 14 janv. 2018 à 14:47, Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com> a écrit :
>>>
>>>> Hi, all-
>>>>
>>>> I have drafted an additional budgetary request that I suggest we submit. [It is on Google Docs here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D_pp_PFOnx6ZiK3qX9CuLanAraIHIyOAHG1JYPJciOY/edit?usp=sharing) and edits are welcomed, of course. I'm not sure whether we as the PC can submit this or if we should escalate it (if we support the proposal) to the NCSG EC to submit instead? Matters of process aside, the general gist of the proposal is as follows:
>>>>
>>>> The NCSG Policy Committee is growing in activity, responding to more requests for public comment than ever before in its history. To sustain this momentum, the NCSG Policy Committee would like to request support to conduct a two-day, face-to-face planning session during FY19. Such a session would allow the Officers of the NCSG Policy Committee to develop an appropriate and ambitious work plan for the year ahead, to negotiate and determine NCSG positions on pressing issues, and, for the first time, to draft a five-year strategic plan for the Policy Committee’s activities. This is a session which we would like to hold outside of the setting of a traditional ICANN meeting. While the Policy Committee does meet during ICANN meetings, given our Officers involvement in other working groups and on the GNSO Council, there is never enough time to think about our more long-term objectives. This session would allow us to develop a work plan for both the next 12 months, and at a higher level, for the next five years, and is best suited to being held in isolation away from the pressures of our other ICANN commitments. This session would be largely self-organised with minimal staff support required.
>>>>
>>>> The deadline for submitting additional budgetary requests is 31 January, so I would like to suggest that we add this to the agenda for our upcoming policy call to discuss further. Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Ayden
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>>>
>>> --
>>> Regards
>>> @__f_f__
>>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/farellf
>>
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