Re: [802SEC] +++ EC P&P Revision Ballot +++ compliance with SA Model P&P
Hi Everyone,
Well I really had planned to have an updated version of my P&P revision for tonight, but I don't yet. I will have one by Sunday night but many of you may not see it till then. So I wanted to at least respond to Bill's notes and describe the changes I am making in response.
First I once again want to thank Bill for the detailed reading and effort he put into this. It was not a small job. I will very much miss him when he retires from the EC.
In my mind there are two key comments Bill has made:
1) Some of text incorporated from the model sponsor P&P is more than editorial.
2) There is no requirement to change to the SA model format so why are we doing it?
After a couple hours of discussion with Bill, I now agree with him on the first point. However, the fact that some of the text does not conform with our existing P&P suggests that our P&P may be out of sync with SA requirements. So what I plan to do for Sunday night is present the text in questions in brackets, discuss the possible conflicts it introduces, and then if the rest of the EC feels they are in conflict I will remove the text for this go around, and address it for the next ballot.
As for Bill's second comment, I've had a lot of dialog with Bill, Mary Lynn Neilsen (SA), and Bob Pritchard (AUDCOM). I've also corresponded a little with Jim Moore (CS/SAB). The purpose was to try and see if there are any valid reasons for reformating our P&P around the sponsor model. I think Bill now agrees with me that there are, but for the benefit of everyone else I will now outline the justification for this effort:
1) CS SAB has a new P&P currently being balloted. In that document (Section 5.5 titled Sponsor P&P) you will find the following:
"Each Sponsor shall have and shall adhere to a set of P&P's based upon the IEEE SA Model Operating Procedures for Sponsors for Standards Development."
2) The Model Sponsor P&P itself is more than a recommendation. While the text in the various sections provided is optional, the SECTION HEADINGS / organization are not! At the top of the current Sponsor Model P&P (Dated 10/10/03) you will find the following note:
"... your Sponsor procedures must address each of the items below in bold-face type with text that is consistent with the IEEE-SA governance documents (IEEE-SA Standards Board Bylaws and Operations Manual)"
3) Even though the current CS/SAB P&P being balloted says they will review our P&P, I have confirmed with all parties that the CS/SAB no longer plans to audit our P&P. AUDCOM will now be performing that role. The model sponsor P&P comes from AUDCOM and is intended to accomplish two things:
a) Make sure all the key requirements of SA are addressed in sponsor P&P
For instance we did not have section on appeals until very recently even though it has always been an SA requirement to have such a section. If we had looked at the Model P&P and organized our P&P accordingly, the absence of this section would have been apparent.
b) Make it easier to review the many P&P AUDCOM has to look at.
Let's face it - Reviewing P&P is not the most exciting job in the world. It becomes much simpler if all the documents follow a standard format so you can easily compare and contrast sections. It has also been suggested that SA intends to make AUDCOM reviews more rigorous in the near future. So we want to keep these guys happy, and make their job easier. Otherwise they can make things difficult for us.
Anyway, I hope that explains to folks why this P&P revision is necessary.
See Everyone in Portland.
I'll send out an updated draft as soon as I have one.
Mat
Matthew Sherman, PhD
Senior Member Technical Staff
BAE SYSTEMS, CNIR
Office: +1 973.633.6344
email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-sec@listserv.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@listserv.ieee.org]On Behalf Of Bill
Quackenbush
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 5:39 PM
To: STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802SEC] +++ EC P&P Revision Ballot +++ compliance with SA
Model P&P
All,
Well, this took longer that I wanted.
Upon reviewing the proposed reformatted LMSC P&P, I have a number of concerns.
1. This change was supposed to be limited to a
reformatting/reorganization of the LMSC P&P and minor editorial
corrections. However, the inclusion of some of the Model Operating
Procedures text has enlarged the scope of the proposed change. And some
of the text that has been added is possibly inconsistent with the
existing LMSC P&P.
2. The reformatted LMSC P&P does not, in my view, really comply with the
format of the Model Operating Procedures. The bulk of the existing LMSC
P&P has been placed in section 7 "Subgroups Created by the Sponsor" and
section 8 "LMSC Sessions" without change except for moving text on the
opening plenary meeting into the section on Plenary Sessions. Sections 5
"Officers", 6 "Membership", 8 "Quorum", 9 "Vote" and 12 "Appeals" are
essentially content free and just point to other sections.
3. The Model Operating Procedures are certainly useful for new and/or
small standards committees. However, upon examination, the Model
Operating Procedures, are, in my view, not mature and not well suited to
a complex organization such as the LMSC. The Model Procedures are
incomplete (no sections are provided for revisions or special
procedures), redundant (the suggested content of section 1.
"Organization of the Sponsor" is a subset of the suggested content of
Section 3. "Officers") and somewhat simplistic.
4. There is no IEEE or IEEE-SA requirement that the LMSC P&P must use
the Model Operating Procedures format. It is only a recommendation.
5. Slavish conformance to any model is undesirable if it reduces
document clarity or increases complexity because the model is not well
suited to the task.
5. The proposed reformatting does not solve any of the significant
problems with the LMSC P&P that need to be solved. While I believe there
are problems with the organization of the existing LMSC P&P, the
significant problems are with the text, not the format/organization. I
believe that the proposed reformatting does very little if anything to
simply or clarify the P&P and in fact makes the P&P less clear in a
number of places by adding sections whose only purpose is to point to
other sections where the topic is actually covered or by having related
topics covered in more than one place.
6. The proposed reformatting does not make solving any of the
significant problems that do exist in the LMSC P&P any easier.
Since there are problems with the organization of the current P&P, I
have attached some alternate proposals. They take advantage of some of
the reorganization that are proposed in the ballot change, but add text
only where necessary to knit the reorganized sections together. This
reorganization is done in three steps to make it more evident what is happening.
1) The file "LMSC_P&P_ReformatOnly1.pdf" contains only some
reorganization of existing P&P text. There are no changes to the text
itself. And the 10 Procedures are left untouched at the end of the document.
2) The file "LMSC_P&P_ReformatEdit2.pdf" contains the changes of step
1, but no longer marked as changes, plus some minor editing to make the
old text fit the new format and to correct some typos, inconsistencies
and lack of clarity in the recently added/modified sections 5.1.6, 6,
6.2.1, 6.2.2, 6.3 and Procedure 1.
3) The file "LMSC_P&P_ReformatEdit3.pdf" contains the changes of steps
1 and 2, but no longer marked as changes, plus some additional
reorganization and editing to make the reorganization flow together.
This text reorganization step moves some of the Procedures to more
appropriate places.
Please note that no "new" text has been added in steps 1 through 3.
The file "LMSC_P&P_ReformatEdit3.pdf" is my proposal for the resolution
of my comments.
Then I have taken an additional step in which I suggest several new
sections (2.3 through 2.6) and possible text for some of those sections
to make the P&P at bit more complete and to look at bit more like the
Model Operating Procedures.
4) The file "LMSC_P&P_ReformatEdit4.pdf" contains the changes of steps
1 through 3, but no longer marked as changes, plus possible new sections
and new text.
Step 4 is a suggestion for FUTURE work, NOT for this ballot
Thanks,
wlq
Bill Quackenbush wrote:
>
> Matt,
>
> I vote DISAPPROVE with comments to follow.
>
> Thanks,
>
> wlq
>
> "Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA)" wrote:
> >
> > Dear EC members,
> > This email initiates a EC P&P Revision Ballot. The ballot opens today - May 15, 2004 and closes June 15, 2004 at 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time. (Remember if you do not vote or abstain on this ballot it is equivalent to a DISAPPROVE vote). Buzz, please ensure this gets sent to the "802ALL" email list as well. WG chairs, if you haven't already done so, please invite your WG members to comment through you.
> > Attached you will find a zip file containing:
> > 1) A P&P Revision cover letter
> > (802.0-Compliance_with_SA_Model_P&P-Balloted_P&P_Revision_ballot.pdf)
> > 2) Text for the P&P revision
> > (SA_Model_compliant_LMSC_P&P_040514.doc)
> > 3) A mapping of text from the "old" P&P to the "new" P&P
> > (LMSC_P&P-March_2004_R0_reformat-map_040514.doc)
> > The scope of this P&P revision is to bring the LMSC P&P into "editorial" conformance with the SA Model Sponsor P&P. That is to match the format of the SA model Sponsor P&P, but not to add or deleted any "governance" content from the current LMSC P&P. (I use the term "Governance" here is sense analogous to the term "normative" in standardese.) This letter ballot was approved at the Friday, March 19, 2004 EC meeting. The rationale for the changes being balloted are as given in the attached cover letter.
> > The actual changes are given in the second document listed above. The changes are made in Word track changes mode against the SA model Sponsor P&P (http://standards.ieee.org/board/aud/sponsmod.rtf). Normally, I would provide a pdf of the changes rather than a word document, but I have placed embedded comments in the file, and don't know how to maintain them in pdf format. While this is a set of "editorial changes" to bring our P&P into the same overall format as the SA model P&P, the changes are very extensive, and a number of issues for future P&P are noted. Please review the changes closely. I expect I will have additional recommendations for editorial changes prior to the close of this ballot. Note that all embedded comments will be removed from the document once approved, prior to formal release. The comments are there to highlight issues that have arisen during the reformatting process that will have to be addressed in a future ballot as I believe them to requ!
ire
> > governance changes.
> > Note that a reformat map is provided in the third document listed above. It is a heavily commented version of the current P&P that indicates where in the "New P&P" each section of text from the "old P&P" gets mapped. It will help the reader to confirm that I have neither added nor deleted anything other than editorial content in reformatting the P&P.
> > Regards,
> > Mat
> > PS - Note that because of corporate firewall issues, I have renamed the zip file extension to "renamed_zip". Prior to attempting to open the zip file you should change the file extension back to "zip". If anyone has problems opening the file please contact me and I will provide the contents in uncompressed form.
> >
> > <<Compliance_with_SA_Model_P&P-Balloted_P&P_Revision_ballot.renamed_zip>>
> >
> > Matthew Sherman, PhD
> > Senior Member Technical Staff
> > BAE SYSTEMS, CNIR
> > Office: +1 973.633.6344
> > email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
> >
> > ----------
> > This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Name: Compliance_with_SA_Model_P&P-Balloted_P&P_Revision_ballot.renamed_zip
> > Compliance_with_SA_Model_P&P-Balloted_P&P_Revision_ballot.renamed_zip Type: unspecified type (application/octet-stream)
> > Encoding: base64
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