[gnso-wpm-dt] RE: WPM Summary & Action Items-Step 6 (In Progress)

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Please see my comments below.
 
Chuck


________________________________

        From: Ken Bour [mailto:ken.bour@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
        Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 1:45 PM
        To: Gomes, Chuck; gnso-wpm-dt@xxxxxxxxx
        Subject: WPM Summary & Action Items-Step 6 (In Progress)
        
        

        Chuck and WPM Members:

         

        We certainly have precedent for removing projects from the
"Active" prioritized list; in fact, we identified 4 categories as
follows:  

        *         Community Pending ("Pending"):  the work effort has
been put on hold status and is waiting on or pending another action
(e.g. Staff report) or decision (e.g. Council motion) and is not
currently consuming community resources.

        *         Monitor Only ("Monitor"):  the work effort is not
fundamentally prioritized by the Council, but it does maintain an
interest from an informational perspective (Note: also includes liaison
activities).

        *         Not a GNSO Project ("Inactive"):  the work effort is
not or not yet a GNSO initiative and cannot be properly evaluated
(ranked/rated) and prioritized by the Council.

        *         Implementation Phase ("Implem"):  the work effort has
completed the recommendation phase, has been approved, and is ready to
begin or has already started implementation.  While it is not consuming
large amounts of community resources, the Council needs to understand
the impact on Staff as it considers the adoption of new project work
within the GNSO. 

         

        To remove IRTP-B, it seems like we would have to create another
category to accommodate "required" or "non-discretionary" projects for
which a prioritization may be inappropriate. [Gomes, Chuck]  This might
work.  

         

        Re: the GEO project, could it possibly fit under Category "M"?
[Gomes, Chuck]  This might work. 

         

        Lastly, I'm not sure that removing projects from the list
resolves the potential political concern as referenced in my comment.
It seems that, as long as a prioritization is published, which ranks
projects, relatively, from high to low on value/importance, there will
always be projects at the bottom of the list, so even if we remove
certain ones before the final list is created, won't there be others
that take their place?  [Gomes, Chuck]  True but it would reduce the
problem. Also, if we apply this mainly to new projects being considered,
then the negative impact may not be as severe. 

         

        Talk to you tomorrow... 

         

        Ken

         

        From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
        Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 10:06 AM
        To: Ken Bour; gnso-wpm-dt@xxxxxxxxx
        Subject: RE: [gnso-wpm-dt] WPM Summary & Action Items-Step 6 (In
Progress)

         

        Great job Ken. Thanks.

         

        I want to respond to just one issue: "In thinking about this
political implication, Ken wondered if there might be a potential
drawback to publishing a project ranking.  Taking the worst possible
scenario, hypothetically, might certain teams working on the lowest
ranked projects perceive that their time/effort is not worth continuing?
The WPM team should think carefully through possible morale implications
to be certain that a new problem isn't created, unintentionally, that
wasn't there before this exercise began.  In response to this question,
Olga thought that it would be possible to underscore that projects
ranked at the bottom do not necessarily imply a fundamental lack of
worth.  On the other hand, following Jaime's concept of political
prioritization, a project ranking does communicate overall importance.
The Council may not want to suggest, subtly or overtly, that volunteers
should know or even think about any project's relative value in deciding
which team(s) to join - only their interest and expertise concerning the
work itself."

         

        It seems to me that we could avoid possible negative
implications as discussed in the paragraph copied above by eliminating
projects in advance from the prioritization exercise that have special
circumstances. For example, we could eliminate the IRTP-B project for
the following reasons: 1) it is a requirement that the Council approved
when it first approved the Registrar Transfer Policy as a consensus
policy years ago, i.e., to regularly review the policy and make
improvements if possible; 2) there seem to be adequate resourses to
support the project and it is proceeding in a reasonable manner.  We
could also eliminate the Geo Regions project for these reasons: 1) It is
a community-wide project for which GNSO participation has been requested
by the Board; 2) It requires just two GNSO reps and is not taking a lot
of their time.

         

        I believe I recommended an approach like this way back at the
beginning of our work, but the group decided that they wanted to
prioritize all projects. Have we come full circle back to that point
again? 

         

        BTW, doing this would simplify the prioitization exercise by
reducing the number of projects to be rated.

         

        Chuck

                 

                
________________________________


                From: owner-gnso-wpm-dt@xxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-gnso-wpm-dt@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Bour
                Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 5:54 PM
                To: gnso-wpm-dt@xxxxxxxxx
                Subject: [gnso-wpm-dt] WPM Summary & Action Items-Step 6
(In Progress)

                WPM Team Members:

                 

                Following is a summary of the WPM teleconference held on
9 February 2010 (1700 UTC):  

                 

                Team Decisions: 

                 

                1)      Urgency:  Jamie and Ken reported on their email
exchanges between sessions and, after additional consideration during
this teleconference, the team agreed that, although "urgency"
represented an intriguing potential modeling concept, to make use of it
properly would require an objective measurement which does not appear
feasible.  The team agreed that urgency/criticality should become a
natural part of the Value/Benefit assessment and the definition will be
enhanced to include that concept (see Action Items below).  

                 

                2)      Resources Needed:  Ken recommended dropping this
dimension as well as the 4-quadrant model for reasons provided in his
earlier email (8 Feb 2010).  After discussing the pros/cons, the team
agreed to simplify its model to a one-dimensional rating of
Value/Benefit.  There was also consensus that, rather than discard
Resources Needed entirely, it could serve as a potential tie-breaker if
a decision had to be made between two projects that were otherwise tied
on Value/Benefit.  The process would be as follows:  

                Step 1:  Rate all projects using the 1-7 scale on
Value/Benefit 

                Step 2:  If needed as a tie breaker, rank any tied
projects using Resources Needed 

                 

                [Note:  Jamie suggested that the team reconsider the
terminology/title of "Resources Needed" preferring a return to the
original concept of perceived "Difficulty."  Ken will include this
question in a separate email transmitting revised definitions for team
review.]  

                 

                Once these decisions were concluded, the team took up
another important Step 6 question, "How will the Council actually
utilize a prioritization?  

                 

                As framework for this discussion, Ken posited that a
work prioritization exercise presupposes that there is some limitation
of a scarce commodity (e.g. resource capacity).  If there is an
abundance of time and resources and no real constraints, there would be
no obvious need for a project ranking.  The underlying assumption is
that, due to immovable constraints (in the short run), all project work
cannot be undertaken simultaneously.  A prioritization, then, presumes
that hard decisions are expected based on competing interests for scarce
resources, e.g. perform A instead of B or move staffing from one project
to another.  If it turned out that, after developing a prioritization,
no project ever slowed down, stopped, or had its resources altered, a
reasonable question might be:  what was the purpose or value in
generating the prioritization?  

                 

                Chuck acknowledged that we cannot assume that projects
can be eliminated or postponed simply because they have a low position
on relative priority.  Looking at the bottom projects test-ranked by the
WPM team (e.g. GEO, TRAV), he was able to articulate convincing reasons
why they probably can and should be continued even though they occupy
the lowest positions on the ranking list.  

                 

                This discussion led to a hypothesis that, perhaps, the
model may not be as useful in making stop/pause decisions about existing
work, but may be more useful in deciding what to do with new projects
that are introduced after the initial prioritization is performed (e.g.
Vertical Integration).  

                 

                The first question considered was:  how should a new
project be rated/evaluated and placed into the prioritization mix?  The
team reached agreement on an approach to placing a new project into the
ranking.  Assuming that the Council will complete a full prioritization
at least quarterly (TBD), it would never be more than 3 months between
rating sessions.  Presuming that Councilors could readily recall what
they did the last time, if a new project surfaces in the interim and
cannot wait until a new quarterly reprioritization, the Council would
employ the same technique that generated the most recent list.  For
example, 4-5 small groups of Councilors would meet and collectively
vote/decide on a rating from 1-7 considering the same "average project"
that was used at the last rating session.  Once a median rating is
computed from the group consensus scores, the new project would take its
appropriate slot in the ranking.  [Note:  Ken will flesh out this
procedure when we get to the point of preparing Council instructions.]  

                 

                Once a new project is placed into the prioritized list,
Chuck suggested that there might be a sequence of questions that should
be asked/answered by the Council in deciding what to do with it.
Perhaps the team could create a map or process that the Council would
use in evaluating a new project vis a vis the existing workload.  

                 

                In addition to assessing a new project, Jamie ventured
that there might be a political value in performing the prioritization
even if there is not a clear decision-making role related to stopping or
postponing existing work.  He commented that a project prioritization
can establish for the entire organization (top to bottom) an
understanding as to how all work relates to the GNSO's primary mission
and goals.  

                 

                In thinking about this political implication, Ken
wondered if there might be a potential drawback to publishing a project
ranking.  Taking the worst possible scenario, hypothetically, might
certain teams working on the lowest ranked projects perceive that their
time/effort is not worth continuing?  The WPM team should think
carefully through possible morale implications to be certain that a new
problem isn't created, unintentionally, that wasn't there before this
exercise began.  In response to this question, Olga thought that it
would be possible to underscore that projects ranked at the bottom do
not necessarily imply a fundamental lack of worth.  On the other hand,
following Jaime's concept of political prioritization, a project ranking
does communicate overall importance.  The Council may not want to
suggest, subtly or overtly, that volunteers should know or even think
about any project's relative value in deciding which team(s) to join -
only their interest and expertise concerning the work itself.  

                 

                Action Items:

                 

                In addition to the above summary, Ken agreed to complete
the following tasks between now and the next meeting (16 February, 1700
UTC).  

                 

                1)      Suggest draft changes to both Y and X
definitions for team discussion and approval at the next WPM meeting.  

                 

                2)      Identify additional Step 6 questions (e.g.
group/individual methodology) that the team needs to consider. 

                 

                3)      Continue discussion, as challenged by Jaime:
What is/are the real outcome(s) of the prioritization?  Can the team
provide concrete and persuasive answers to this question that would
satisfy others who have not been deeply involved with the process (e.g.
"Red Team")?  

                 

                4)      Ken proposed that the team also consider making
a recommendation related to the implementation of desperately needed
project management tools for both Staff & Community to assist with the
Council's new "managerial" role in the policy development process.  

                 

                Since this summary is already long, the above topics
will be included in one or more separate emails so that the team can
focus on the topics more efficiently and effectively.  

                 

                Prepared by: 

                 

                Ken Bour