Re: AW: [gnso-et] Evaluation Team Wiki

[William Drake <william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Wolf

Helpful post that pushes the ball downfield.  A couple comments:

On Feb 24, 2010, at 3:01 PM, <KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx> <KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 1. Timing and applications processing
> 
> After the application deadline (07 March) all applications with GNSO 
> self-identification shall be sent to the council chair to be forwarded to the 
> respective SGs. In addition all apps without any self-identification 
> according to the AoC DT action plan shall be sent to the Council (DT or even 
> ET?) for identification purposes.

I would think the ET could take the lead on identifying (and consult Council if 
needed), rather than splitting things up, no?

> If no allocation to any SG or At-Large/ALAC is feasible these apps shall be 
> handled by the ET.
> 
> After SGs notification of their nominations the (SG related) applications 
> left should be sent to the ET for the assessment. Constituency day (09 March) 
> would be an excellent date for the SGs to vote on their nominations. But to 
> do this successfully requires a timely distribution of the relevant 
> applications to the SGs/constituencies on 08 March.

I too think constituency day would be optimal and have suggested to NCSG we try 
to do our process then.  If SGs dawdle that holds back the ET sine we won't 
know which SG-backed candidates are for the allocated slots and don't need to 
be assessed and which are for the competitive slots and do.  Not much point in 
us spending time on the former.
> 
> 
> Lets assume all this can be achieved as outlined then the ET could start on 
> 10 March with the assessment. As members who attend the Nairobi meeting shall 
> be on travel from 12 March at the latest the assessment and report should be 
> ready by this date.
> 
> 2. Assessment
> 
> My suggestion: try to come up with a recommendation of candidates to the 
> council.
> 
> The assessment should be based on the criteria lists (ICANN's and GNSO 
> requirements). Maybe we could do it by rating each application against each 
> criterion if applicable (not "ranking" of candidates). But this to my mind 
> makes sense only in case we have a critical number of apps. The assessment 
> result should be mirrored to the diversity requirements, too.

This sounds right in principle, but I'm not sure how well it will work in 
practice...part of why I was a bit skittish about the ET concept from the 
outset.  How, objectively and fairly, can we assess people in terms of criteria 
like

• Team spirit, adaptability; 
• Willingness to learn; 
• Capacity to put aside personal opinions or preconceptions; 
• Ability to interpret quantitative and qualitative evidence; 
• Capacity to draw conclusions purely based on evidence; 

For people we know or who are known by others we know and trust, judgements may 
be affected by perceptions that knowingly or not intermingle factors like 
whether the person's a forceful or at least persistent advocate of positions 
with which we happen to dis/agree, or does so in a style we find dis/agreeable. 
 For persons nobody has much info on, the challenges are bigger.  Of course 
everyone will act in good faith and try their best to render fair judgements, 
but this process is inherently fraught with difficulties.  And that's 
pre-council voting...as I said at the outset, I'll be very interested to see 
whether ET recs can trump a priori SG positions and preferences if there's 
variance.

Anyway, I personally cannot see any principled methodological basis upon which 
to disaggregate and "rate" people by these criteria.  We may in some cases have 
some sense of whether or not a person is e.g. willing to learn, but attaching 
numerical values to it...I wouldn't know how to justify this, especially if we 
were ever asked to do so.   This will be art, not science, and denying that 
could just get us into trouble.  I suspect Peter and Janis will be making calls 
based on their overall sense of how well people embody and mix desirable 
attributes, and a priori I'd suggest a similar orientation.  Having to explain 
our sense of things to each other and look for any consensus can lead to fine 
tuning, too.

> 
> It seems to me that there is still some time to evaluate the assessment 
> process - it should be clear until 07 March the latest.
> 
> Comments? Ideas?

Anyone know how the NomCom does this?

Best,

Bill
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: owner-gnso-et@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-et@xxxxxxxxx] Im Auftrag von 
> Gomes, Chuck
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 23. Februar 2010 22:43
> An: William Drake
> Cc: Glen de Saint Géry; gnso-et@xxxxxxxxx
> Betreff: RE: [gnso-et] Evaluation Team Wiki
> 
> 
> Is there another volunteer to lead the ET?
> 
> Chuck 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 3:58 PM
>> To: Gomes, Chuck
>> Cc: Glen de Saint Géry; gnso-et@xxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [gnso-et] Evaluation Team Wiki
>> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> On Feb 23, 2010, at 1:09 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> I sent a message last week asking if anyone was willing to 
>> take the lead on the ET but haven't seen any responses.  I 
>> believe it would be very helpful if the ET would begin 
>> preparing for its work right away.
>>> 
>>> Bill - would you be willing and able to do that?
>> 
>> This wouldn't be my preference, as my schedule prior to 
>> leaving for Nairobi is pretty tightly packed, and of course 
>> once I'm there it's the usual wall to wall sessions etc.  
>> Perhaps someone who's not attending would have a little more 
>> time?  Anyway, the DT members here have been subjected to 
>> more than enough email from me of late :-)
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> Bill
>> 
> 

***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
 Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************