[gnso-wpm-dt] WPM: Participant Comments Regarding Step 2

["Ken Bour" <ken.bour@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

WPM-DT Members:

 

I provided a few thoughts privately to Olga in support of her beginning to
address the comments/concerns expressed recently on the GNSO Council list.
She advised me to post them here for team consideration.   

 

The following paragraphs are intended to be exploratory responses in the
spirit of continuing the dialogue, not definitive answers.   

Please feel free to comment, revise, or amplify as you deem appropriate.   

 

Concerning Stéphane?s recent comments, the WPM-DT noted in its cover letter
to the Council that the larger project management question was one that
would have to be tackled subsequent to the prioritization effort.   In its
letter to the Council transmitting the WPM procedures, Olga noted: 

 

?The DT believes that prioritization is an important first step of the
Council?s broader project management role, which should be further defined
and will require appropriate tools to assist in the active and effective
management of the workload.  To facilitate these managerial
responsibilities, the DT recommends that: 

1)      a process be developed to allow timely tracking of GNSO projects on
an on-going basis; and 

2)      its process be supported with a web-based software toolkit (e.g.
excellent open source applications are available) that will assign Staff and
Community resources to projects/tasks and offer time/milestone tracking plus
advanced collaboration capabilities allowing work to be managed efficiently,
effectively, and transparently.  

 

The DT remains available to assist the Council in the implementation of
these new Work Prioritization procedures and to work with any other team(s)
on scoping out the program/project management disciplines that will become
central in the Council?s role as manager of the policy development process.?


 

While Stéphane certainly raises important implementation questions that the
WPM-DT also identified, they were considered beyond the scope of the WPM?s
narrow mission.   Presumably, once a set of project ratings is finalized in
Brussels, the Council will begin to take up the broader considerations that
are essential to the effective utilization of this initial prioritization
work.  

 

In a similar vein, Alan?s comments appear to come from a ?managerial?
perspective in looking at the project workload and, while understandable,
the instructions were drafted to ask participants to rate Value only.   The
narrowly drawn Value definition was provided in the transmittal email to the
ratings spreadsheet as well as in the Chapter 6 and ANNEX
<http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/wpmg-section-6-and-annex-09apr10-en.pdf>
procedures provided to the Council.   As team members know, that definition
intentionally did not contemplate factors such as how near a project is to
completion or how many resources it is consuming, only its benefit to ICANN
and the GNSO.   Originally, as you will recall, the team thoroughly
evaluated a two-dimensional model that attempted to capture costs,
difficulty, even urgency.   After working through the implications of that
substantially more complex modeling process, the team elected to start with
a more straightforward assessment of Value as the first step.  

 

Lastly, I am a bit disappointed to learn, in the aftermath of the ratings
process, that some individuals might have been confused as they were
attempting to decide on specific project ratings.   I tried to make myself
available both by phone and email; however, no one reached out for
assistance or clarification.   I am certain that, in addition to Staff, any
of the WPM-DT?s members would have gladly helped anyone who was confused
about the assignment.    

 

I am looking forward to the session in Brussels!   A few of my Staff
colleagues will be helping me perform a ?practice? run later today using the
same Adobe Connect features that the team exercised back in December.   I am
hopeful that the process we identified and tested many months ago continues
to hold up when extended to a much larger population?  J  

 

Does the team think it should begin engaging the recent questions and issues
via the Council email list and, if so, is there anything else I can provide
by way of assistance?    

 

Regards,

 

Ken Bour