RE: [office] ODF TC call agenda and duration

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

If we can keep the main TC meetings to an hour, I think that is 
preferable.  The critical thing is for the meetings to focus on things 
that require a quorum of TC members to accomplish.  These are formally 
items which require votes by OASIS TC process or by the TC's standing 
rules. 

If we are spending TC time on things that does not require all of, then we 
are probably not operating as efficiently as we could.

I notice that we have been spending a large amount of time recently on 
defect reports and errata.  Although this is important work, it is 
probably not something that should dominate our TC  call time.  We should 
be spending most of our time on ODF 1.2 proposals that are ready for 
approval, or nearly so. 

That is my opinion.  Does anyone disagree with that premise?

What we have done in the past is create subcommittees when an important 
side activity requires a prolonged level of communication among a number 
of TC members to produce a draft ready for review by the entire TC.  We 
did this for accessibility initially, and then again for formula and 
metadata.  We recently did this again for ODF Next Requirements.

Subcommittees is how the TC scales its efforts.  If we had to discuss the 
minutia of every proposal on every call, we would never get anything done. 
 But if we have interested TC members prepare drafts in SC's, then we get 
the advantages of having the interested experts produce the draft, while 
preserving the rights of all TC members to review, possibly modify and 
eventually vote on the final version.

Of course, not everything require a SC.  If something can be resolved with 
a week-long discussion on the list, or my having a one-time call with an 
ad-hoc group of TC members, then that can be handled without the formality 
and overhead of a SC.  But let's recognize when a SC is appropriate.

It appears that Japan has submitted a 2nd defect report on ODF 1.0. 
Nothing surprising.  More typographical errors, much of it which we've 
already seen.  But we will need to process these, as well as other 
comments received by the public.  Rather than dominate TC time with these 
important, but less time sensitive issues, I wonder whether it is now 
appropriate to create a Maintenance SC?  Participants in this SC would be 
responsible for reviewing incoming comments and defect reports on existing 
ODF TC deliverables, and proposing dispositions (fix via errata, fix in 
next version, no fix, etc.) and drafting errata documents.  Both proposed 
dispositions and draft errata documents would be submitted to the full TC 
for review and approval.

I'm assuming that such a SC would attract interest from Patrick, Michael, 
Dennis and me.  Maybe others as well.  In many cases we're already doing 
this work.  The important thing would be that we would be taking this work 
off of the TC's agenda, and dealing with it (in the draft stage at least) 
via a separate call, thus preserving our current ODF TC call at 6 minutes.

-Rob



"Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org> wrote on 09/29/2008 
09:33:46 AM:

> [image removed] 
> 
> RE: [office] ODF TC call agenda and duration
> 
> Dennis E. Hamilton 
> 
> to:
> 
> 'OpenDocument Mailing List'
> 
> 09/29/2008 09:40 AM
> 
> Cc:
> 
> Michael.Brauer, robert_weir
> 
> Please respond to dennis.hamilton
> 
> Michael,
> 
> With regard to (2), it seems that we may not need to extend the call 
times.
> I'm basing that on the fact that we ended promptly and covered the 
specific
> agenda items.  There is a problem with some of the standing agenda 
items.
> 
> I also felt that having time blocked out is an excellent idea, and it 
seemed
> to work well in this call.  We were running far overtime on the errata
> discussion, but deferral of resolution on 17.5 put us back on track.
> 
> I have two suggestions for expediting the work further:
> 
> 1. Although straw polls are very useful, we found that they are 
difficult
> during the call.  I think this may be because the practice is 
unfamiliar.  I
> also think that it may be difficult to do quickly because it is 
challenging
> when the working language is not the native language of all 
participants.
> My recommendation that we make use of the TC list for straw polls as a 
way
> to tell whether we seem prepared to come to a conclusion.  This will 
also
> provide more time to confirm understanding of what the question is and 
have
> thoughtful responses.
> 
> 2. With regard to action items:  It might be useful to identify action 
items
> for which movement is requested one or two calls in advance, and have
> responses made to the list.  The call could be used to confirm a status
> change, at most. 
> 
>  - Dennis
> 
> Dennis E. Hamilton
> ------------------
> NuovoDoc: Design for Document System Interoperability 
> mailto:Dennis.Hamilton@acm.org | gsm:+1-206.779.9430 
> http://NuovoDoc.com http://ODMA.info/dev/ http://nfoWorks.org 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM [mailto:Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM] 
> Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 05:30
> To: OpenDocument Mailing List
> Subject: [office] ODF TC call agenda and duration
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> 1) I would like to suggest that we add durations or times to the 
> individual items on the agenda. If the duration we have planned is not 
> sufficient, we may decide whether we continue the discussion, or whether 

> we move the discussion to the mailing list or the next call.
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> 2) I further would like to suggest that we temporarily extend the 
> duration of the call by half an hour.
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> 
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