[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]
Subject: Fwd: [tc-announce] Standards development and TC Administration staff services
I am forwarding this to the [chairs] list, as obviously SLA issues are
of strong interest to TC leaders. Apologies for any duplicate postings.
A few comments on the execution details follow, in a separate
posting.
Regards Jamie
>Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 10:44:32 -0800
>To: members@lists.oasis-open.org,tc-announce@lists.oasis-open.org
>From: James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>
>Subject: [tc-announce] Standards development and TC Administration staff
>services
>
>OASIS Members:
>
>The OASIS Standards Development staff is expanding and reorganizing to
>meet the increased demand presented by our Consortium's growth. We have
>been challenged to maintain support levels as first the number of OASIS
>TCs and then the volume of approved specifications doubled (and continues
>to grow), and as the revised OASIS IPR Policy added new requirements to
>the TC workload.
>
>With the recent hire of Ram Kumar as Manager of Technical Committee
>Development, we now have the equivalent of three full-time staff allocated
>to direct support of TCs: Mary McRae and myself in the US, and Ram in
>Australia. We receive additional assistance from Pim van der Eijk in
>Europe and Brett Trusko, also in the US.
>
>Although OASIS TCs are designed to be mostly self-governing, some degree
>of staff assistance is required to ensure the OASIS TC Process is carried
>out effectively and TCs are receiving the support they require. The OASIS
>TC Process specifically names a "TC Administrator" to conduct specific
>official functions relating to TC management and specification
>advancement. Some of these duties are policy-oriented, such as
>interpreting rules and appeals, but most of this role relates to everyday
>infrastructure acts, such as starting a ballot for an OASIS Standard vote,
>creating a subcommittee, etc.
>
>In order to assure efficient turnaround time on these types of requests,
>we have implemented three changes.
>
>TC ADMINISTRATION REQUESTS. First, we have reallocated Mary McRae's time
>so that her top priority will be to serve as first responder for all TC
>infrastructure requests to "OASIS TC Administration", and keep the service
>queues up-to-date. To enable this change, it will be necessary to
>re-assign some of Mary's direct TC relationships (details will be sent in
>a separate message to the relevant TCs), but we expect this change will
>result in increased service speed for all TCs across the board.
>
>The principal types of TC-Admin support that TCs will obtain centrally via
>Mary will be:
> > Conducting a Public Review of a specification
> > Conducting a Committee Specification approval vote
> > Reviewing a submission and conducting a ballot for OASIS Standard status
> > Reviewing and conducting votes on charter changes
> > Converting pre-2005 TCs to an IPR mode under the IPR Transition Policy
> > Running other TC ballots required to be run by staff
> > Creating subcommittees
>
>TC STAFF CONTACTS. The second step we have taken is to clarify the "TC
>Staff Contact" role, so that TC chairs and members know who to consult for
>the support they need. Over the past two years, each TC has been assigned
>a specific staff member to monitor their activities and provide baseline
>assistance, designated as the "TC Staff Contact" in the TC's roster. To a
>great degree, this has worked very well. We have found, however, that some
>official functions do not lend themselves to decentralization, which is
>why Mary will serve as point person for the requests described above.
>
>Within reasonable limits, the TC Staff Contact will:
> > Assist if needed with TC roster management issues
> > Serve as an additional resource to make sure the TC's web pages are current
> > Serve as a contact point for questions
> > Identify opportunities for liaison and re-use of the TC's work
> > Keep OASIS aware of the progress and obstacles encountered by the TC
>
>As much as we believe it's important to maintain a designated default
>contact for each TC, we must remember that OASIS runs on a thin-client
>model. With over 65 TCs and only a few staff members, a TC Staff Contact
>will be able to devote only a few hours a month to each TC. It is our
>hope that this allocation will be sufficient to assist with challenges and
>opportunities, while still leaving the bulk of the governance and
>administration of the TCs in the hands of our highly capable volunteer TC
>leaders.
>
>EXPLICIT SERVICE TIMES. Finally, our third step is to improve our
>transparency and predictability by posting and executing a list of
>explicit turnaround times ("service level agreements") for various tasks.
>The TC Process establishes deadlines for some aspects of our work; we are
>implementing additional deadlines to enable even greater control and more
>efficient planning.
>
>Not only will these turnaround times provide a metric for staff
>performance, they also will assist in TC planning, enabling chairs and
>editors to take into account the necessary processing and approval
>times. This should reduce the risk of a specification being rushed into
>approval at the last possible moment -- and thus missing a deadline due to
>a technical flaw in the submission.
>
>We have internally redesigned our handling and forwarding of service
>requests to spool to a central location. Going forward, you should direct
>all requests for the key actions listed below to:
> tc-admin@oasis-open.org.
>You may copy your TC Staff Contact on these requests, but please send
>these specific TC-Admin requests directly to the central address above, so
>that we can log and better track each request.
>
>(We're also considering the feasibility of making our service queue
>publicly archived, with each request becoming a visible, time-stamped
>ticket. Your comments on that idea are welcome.)
>
>Here are the turnaround times we will immediately support on items when
>they are sent to "tc-admin@oasis-open.org":
>
>Action: Launch announcement of a public review after receiving and
>evaluating a compliant proposal. (TC Process Sec. 3.2.) No response time
>is specified. Staff will commit to act within five business days (instead
>of previous practice of 15 days).
>
>Action: Launch Committee Specification ballot after receiving and
>evaluating a compliant proposal. (TC Process Sec. 3.3.) No response time
>is specified. Staff will commit to act within five business days (instead
>of previous practice of 15 days).
>
>Action: Launch OASIS Standard ballot after receiving and evaluating a
>compliant proposal. (TC Process Sec. 3.4.) Staff will maintain the
>turnaround time set by the rule as 15 calendar days.
>
>Action: Run "Special Majority" Ballots for other reasons, such as removal
>of TC chair, sec. 2.7. (TC Process Secs. 1(w), 2.13.) No response time
>is specified. Staff will commit to act within three business days.
>
>Action: Create subcommittees on proper request. (TC Process Sec.
>2.14.) No response time is specified. Staff will commit to act within
>three business days.
>
>Action: Announce and post ballot results once ballot successfully
>closed. (Per TC Process Sec. 1(w), 2.13.) No response time is
>specified. Staff will commit to act within three business days.
>
>Action: Review and respond to requests to designate acceptable outside
>facility resources use, such as systems that support tools not provided by
>OASIS. (TC Process Sec. 2.8.) No response time is specified. Staff will
>commit to act within five business days.
>
>Action: Review and publish compliant TC standing rules. (TC Process Sec.
>2.9.) No response time is specified. Staff will commit to act within 5
>business days.
>
>Action: Launch charter clarification ballot after receiving and evaluating
>compliant proposal. (TC Process Sec. 2.11.) Staff will maintain the
>turnaround set by the rule as 15 calendar days.
>
>Action: Launch rechartering ballot after receiving and evaluating
>compliant proposal. (TC Process Sec. 2.12. Staff will maintain the
>turnaround time set by the rule as 15 calendar days.
>
>Action: Launch Joint Committee after receiving and evaluating a compliant
>proposal. (TC Process Sec. 2.16.) Turnaround is set by the rule as 15
>calendar days. Staff will commit to act within 5 business days.
>
>We have omitted actions that relate to prospective or forming TCs (as
>opposed to already-running TCs), from this plan, because we think a
>different channel for handling those requests may be optimal. We will
>propose some changes and improvements to that process as well within the
>next few months.
>
>Obviously the times stated above are our targeted maximums; we will
>perform faster turnaround when feasible. We may also be able to further
>reduce some of these times, and sharpen some definitions, after we accrue
>some experience with them.
>
>We very much appreciate your continued contributions to the development of
>open standards at OASIS, and your support in helping us better assist
>you. We look forward to your feedback on how we can continue to improve
>TC support.
>
>~ James Bryce Clark
>~ Director, Standards Development, OASIS
>~ jamie.clark@oasis-open.org
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: tc-announce-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org For
>additional commands, e-mail: tc-announce-help@lists.oasis-open.org
[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]