Adrian -
Dumb idea or not, we used to run closing EC meetings from 7-12PM for many
years; having
them on the Friday PM is a relatively recent thing.
I'm absolutely sure that there were some poor quality decisions taken back
then, but,
having participated in both the evening and the afternoon meetings, no
higher a proportion
IMHO than we manage to make now.
Regards,
Tony
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephens, Adrian P [mailto:Adrian.P.Stephens@intel.com]
Sent: 16 October 2008 10:40
To: Tony Jeffree; STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: RE: [802SEC] Plenary organization
Hello all,
I also agree that there is too little time during the plenary week for
working
group activites.
I wouldn't object to doing more business on Sunday. We already have
various preparation meetings, and this could be extended.
There's a lot of repetition in the opening plenaries. The same material
is presented by different people in the 802 plenary and WG plenary
meetings. I think this can be reduced by marking certain material
within the EC as "for presentation in your WG opening plenary" and
skipping it in the 802 plenary.
Many people head home on friday. I think it is an ineluctable law of
nature
that says this must happen. I don't see that planning a full day
of WG meetings on friday is workable.
I personally am a morning person. Planning a meeting to run to midnight
at the end of a hard week's meetings, at the end of a long day (which
probably starts with 2 hours of email, then a pre-meeting, then a meeting
...) is, IMHO,
dumb. I.e. we won't get quality decisions at the end of an 18-hour
working day. It is close to the "hero" model of process maturity
(which is close to the worst possible model).
My recommendations are as follows:
1. Move 802 plenary to sunday pm and shorten it.
2. Reserve only one evening for tutorial slots and, if necessary, run
parallel threads.
3. Keep friday as is.
My deuce of denarii...
Best Regards,
Adrian Stephens
802.11 minion (i.e. chair of vice)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-sec@ieee.org
[mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@ieee.org] On Behalf Of Tony Jeffree
Sent: 16 October 2008 09:48
To: STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: [802SEC] Plenary organization
Colleauges -
Given the not inconsiderable workload that some working groups
are attempting to tackle, I
feel it is worth re-visiting once again the question of how we
organize our Plenaries to
maximize the time available for useful technical work (which I
believe, when all is said
and done, is why we have these meetings in the first place).
At present, with the existing
meeting format, I get 2 ½ clear days of Task Group meetings;
that is rather less than we
need for effective progress. I am reluctant to move the
closing 802.1 plenary to Friday
morning (as some WGs have done) with the present format,
because firstly I doubt we would
get the right level of attendance to conduct effective
business, given that there would
not be technical meetings that day, and secondly it would
leave me with no time for
preparation for the closing EC meeting.
So how can this be fixed?
Firstly, Monday mornings at Plenary sessions are largely a
no-op in my view. I don't think
that the format of the Monday morning plenary meeting is
useful to the majority of
attendees, and if it didn't happen, I don't believe there are
many attendees that would
miss it at all. If it wasn't there, we could start our WG
opening plenaries before lunch
and in my case, we could be off and running with Task Group
meetings by early-mid
afternoon.
Secondly, we could make the radical move to take the opening
EC meeting out of the
"working week" altogether, by holding it on the Sunday
evening. We already have a Sunday
PM rules meeting; maybe putting the two together on the Sunday
evening would help us to
crispen up both activities. Again, this would help free up
Monday time for WG activity.
Thirdly, although for some EC members, holding the closing EC
on Friday afternoon helps
with their travel plans, for others of us it creates a double whammy:
1) We have to stay over until Saturday anyway, because
even a 6PM close is too late
to get away on the Friday evening; and
2) The fact that the closing meeting is in the afternoon
makes it difficult to make
sensible use of Friday morning (see opening para - we need
some time to prepare stuff for
the EC meeting following our closing WG Plenaries, and holding
a short Plenary on Friday
morning is a guarantee of low attendance).
So I would advocate moving the EC meeting to the 7pm-midnight
slot on Friday evening,
freeing up most of Friday for WG business - finishing the WG
closing plenary at (say) 3pm
would still allow us to get straight for the EC meeting, but
would also give us an extra
morning or part-morning for task group work.
Any thoughts?
Regards,
Tony
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