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Subject: [Fwd: [members] Standards development and TC Administration staffservices]
FYI from OASIS today on administration and support.
> clark:
> 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
>
>
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