[gnso-ppsc-wg] Suggested edits / questions to final draft of WG Guidelines
<<Working Group Guidelines - FINAL - suggested edits [C Greer].doc>> Dear WG WT members, I have some comments and questions on the final draft of the WG Guidelines document. I have made some edits within the attached document where I don't believe that the points particularly require any debate or discussion (feel free to disagree though). However, other points may require discussion and so I have left them open for now. Hopefully this is helpful for the call on Wednesday (which unfortunately I cannot attend). Am happy to discuss on the list. Many thanks. Kind regards, Caroline. 1. Who is responsible for writing the Charter and when should it be written? This probably needs to be spelt out at the beginning of the document. [No edits made as yet]. 2. Ref the 3rd bullet in the 1st paragraph of section 2.1.1. Suggest that the announcement should not only be sent to organizations that have expertise/knowledge but also to organizations who may be impacted by any work produced. [Edits made - see also Section 6.1.1 where the same issue occurs]. 3. Is a SoI different to a DoI [ref Sections 2.1.2 and 6.2.3.4]? This caused some confusion. In some cases they seem to be used interchangeably and sometimes they seem different. SoIs appear to be required from all WG members. Are DoIs also required of all members? Could they be one item? [No edits made as yet]. 4. Section 2.1.4.2 covers the election of a WG chair. If the WG decides to have co-chairs or vice chairs, how would those be elected? This section could be modified slightly to cover "Election of WG Leaders" [Edit made]. Also, it may be helpful to provide minimal criteria for the chair, vice chairs, etc? Because the CO has to approve the chair, it would be very helpful for the CO to be able to base its approval decision on some specific criteria [No edits made]. 5. Ref the last sentence of Section 2.1.4.3 - change "advisable" to "required" [Edit made].It seems reasonable that every WG should have a work plan. 6. Ref the second sentence in the 1st paragraph of Section 2.2. Should this document include skills and qualities that are common to all leaders of WGs? The Charter should then add to the common qualities and skill sets that are specific to the WG [No edits made]. 7. Ref the second paragraph of Section 2.2 - 'statements of qualifications' is omitted. WG leadership is critical for success of the WG model. [Edit made]. 8. Ref end of Section 2.2 - suggest an addition to Staff functions: Liaison with other Staff [Edit made]. 9. Ref section 2.3 - are the terms "sub-teams" and "sub-groups" interchangeable? 10. Ref Section 3.6. This section is lacking in guidance as to how a WG should get to a point of making decisions. Different WGs may use different approaches but providing some alternative approaches could be very useful for a given WG to consider? Also, regarding levels of support as defined, how would the level of support be determined? Could the Council Voting Thresholds be used as a guide? Also, would 'majority' support be a better term than 'strong' support? Finally, ref the first paragraph of Section 3.6 - "encouraged" should be changed to "required" [Edit made]. 11. Suggest changing the last paragraph of Section 4.1 [Edit made] to cover teleconference meetings that are recorded and in-person meetings that may be transcribed directly. 12. Ref Section 6.1 - where is Section II? 13. Ref Section 6.1.4 - it is possible (and likely) that the Liaison may also be a WG member? Otherwise it may prove difficult to recruit a Liaison. Therefore we should distinguish between the different hats that the Liaison could be wearing at any one time [Edit made]. Attachment:
Working Group Guidelines - FINAL - suggested edits [C Greer].doc |