Re: public comment on icann strategic plan

[k claffy <kc@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 12:20:16AM -0800, k claffy wrote:

http://www.icann.org/en/strategic-plan/strategic-plan-2010-2013-01dec09-en.pdf

i appreciate many of the noble goals and objectives in this
document, but there is unfortunately not enough detail to allow
useful public comment; indeed, it is not really yet a 'plan'.
on every slide you seem to disclaim the lack of detail with
"Details of staff work will be provided in the final plan."
maybe a better name of this document would be "strategic goals"?
on that note, it might be useful for ICANN strategic planning 
folks to chat with Internet2 strategic planning folks, who
went thru a 5-year process that incorporated many rounds of 
input from many advisory councils (i was on one) and others.
it took over a year but the granularity of their result was 
impressive: (goals, strategies, governance, teams, tasks)
        http://www.internet2.edu/strategicplanning/
(whether they can sustain resources/momentum to accomplish all 
those tasks is a more sobering question..)

example areas of slide set that need elaboration
in order to give more useful feedback:

slide 1:

"We support the cybersecurity of the domain name system
(DNS) that links Internet names and numbers"

ICANN does add value here but needs to acknowledge
what they can and cannot include in scope. the document alludes
to this point again on slide 3 but provide no details that
would frame accountability, just more lofty phrasing.

not sure what "being invisible" has to do with "high levels
of trust in stewardship", the slide implies that one causes
the other.  again, some details of what you actually plan to
do would help clear up this opaqueness.

slide 2:

-- what are some metrics for success of these objectives?

        -- 100% DNS uptime (of what parts of the DNS infrastructure?)
        -- lower DNS abuse
        -- more secure TLD operations
        -- Improved DNS resilience to ttacks
        -- lower registration abuse
        -- increased industry competition (of which industry?)
        -- increased valid registrations
        -- "everyone connected"  <- not sure what this means
        -- IPv4/IPv6 work

minor typo:

i think in 'community work' row of slide 2, you don't want
one of your objectives to be "registration abuse"...

slide 4:

a bit jagged.   first two sentences are unrelated.  
rest of slide is too high-level to usefully evaluate. 
monitor depletion how?  encourage uptake how?   strengthen
consumer trust how?  maintain robust compliance how?  all of
these are noble goals or objectives, not actual plans.

slide 5:

more goals and objectives, without any plans:

'achieve further improvement'
'enhancement to service capability'
'continuous improvement in this area'
'significant investment in upgrading function'
'further process improvements as well [as] improvements in security'
'maintain or improve service standards on all key
operational measures' (what measures?)

they are all a fine potential set of goals, 
but not clear how many ICANN can reasonably execute on,
some flesh around them would enable the public comment
process to help ICANN refine priorities.

k