-----Original
Message-----
From: Rand Anderson
[mailto:randerson@macgregor.com]
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 10:59
AM
To: wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: 'Ben Bloch'; Burdett, David;
'Darran Rolls'; Diane Jordan
Subject: RE: [wsbpel] This telcon
process doesn't work!
Folks,
My initial reaction to today's
kickoff:
We ran into some issues (some
business but mostly protocol, I think), but to me, these seem like mostly
normal issues for the birth-pains of a new group with this kind of mission and
industry interest. The benefit to running into these kinds of issues in our
kickoff meeting is that we can solidify some ground rules and practices early
in our life that will help things go more smoothly the rest of the way, before
we get to the really gnarly issues. BTW, thanks to all who spearheaded,
attended, and supported this, but especially to Diane and John for their
patient leadership.
Some points of order that I might
offer:
A few folks complained about having
a conference call meeting conducted mostly in "listen-only" mode and
needing to resort to speaker queues. I presume they felt that this somehow
would constrain or limit (negatively) the opportunities for contribution and/or
interaction.
In fact, if we were to strictly
follow Robert's Rules of Order, these constraints would be barely noticed by
anyone participating (with maybe a minor exception, see my suggested revisions
below). [In fact, following Robert's Rules on a conf call with speaker-queuing
is better than following Robert's Rules in person in at least one way: the
fairness of the queuing is managed for us by the call system; when in person,
the sequence of hand-raising is somewhat subject to the memory of the chair.]
John, I think you mentioned getting
a FAQ for Robert's Rules posted to the BPEL site - this is crucial, and
everyone needs to get some basic familiarity with operating in a group bound by
Robert's Rules. They are intended (and crafted over many years) to help ensure
fair and orderly conduct of decision making by groups.
To be clear, for BPEL conf call TC
meetings, I am strongly in favor of conducting them roughly as was proposed for
today's call, with listen-mode most of the time (to minimize line noise), plus
the following guidelines:
-
allow folks to get in the speaker queue at any time (this is simply
analogous to raising your hand to be heard at an in-person meeting)
-
ask that the meeting chair simply call on those in the queue in a FIFO
manner, as appropriate to the point at hand
-
note that getting into the queue doesn't mean you can speak at will; you
will get your turn as called upon by the chair
-
again, participants should think of getting in the speaker queue simply
as equivalent to raising your hand. If you 'drop your hand' then re-raise it,
you first fall out of the queue and then get back on at the end of the queue.
This is fair.
-
until we get the hang of it, we maybe need to be a bit more heavy-handed
on enforcing some of the rules of order, e.g., when the item on the floor is
whether or not you object to the current motion, do not use your moment on the
floor to suggest another amendment - that only creates confusion. There are
certain times open for amendments, etc. Read Robert's Rules to get some
understanding of how this works.
[...]