RE: [oasis-board-comment] Update on what we're doing about the TCAdmin queue

[Michael DeNicola <MDeNicola@us.fujitsu.com>]

Thank you Chet for this update.

I like your attitude. Please keep up the good work.

Regards,

Mike DeNicola
Director, Industry Relations

Fujitsu America, Inc.
1250 East Arques Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA  94085

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-----Original Message-----
From: Chet Ensign [mailto:chet.ensign@oasis-open.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 5:01 PM
To: oasis-board-comment@lists.oasis-open.org; Laurent Liscia
Cc: Paul Knight; Greg Carpenter; Robin Cover; TCA
Subject: [oasis-board-comment] Update on what we're doing about the TC Admin queue

Members of the OASIS Board,

Several questions and ideas have come forward lately for catching up
on the TC Admin work queue. Thanks very much! With 63 open tickets, I
want to hear & consider any and all ideas for addressing these things
faster without compromising on quality or integrity. My goal is to
have the backlog cleared and under control before the end of September
so that we are to the point where work on a ticket begins within 5
days of its entry max.

Pending more information coming to you soon, here is a brief look at
the tactical steps we are taking now to achieve that goal:

- I am triaging the open tickets daily using two criteria:

   - Can this request be satisfied in an hour or less?
   - Will this ticket get the TC over an OASIS milestone?

Under the first are requests for ballots, templates, etc.. Under the
second are publishing Committee Specifications and Candidate OASIS
Standards. They typically take less time because all the editing /
publishing work is finished and they get the TC over the last step of
an OASIS milestone. I sent an explanation of that to the owners of
open tickets yesterday.

- I am bringing on 3 more contractors over the next 2 weeks to
increase the volume of requests we can process. The first contractor
starts tomorrow. The next 2 start next week.

- I am having Committee Specification Drafts and Public Review Drafts
prepared in tandem rather than sequentially to reduce the time from
loading a CSD to announcing its review. (We still have to spend the
same number of hours creating, QC'ing and loading the PR version
however.)

- We are, to put it plainly, not trying to fix every single glitch we
see in a CSD. If something is broken that will reduce the value to the
reader, such as incorrect links from the cover pages to the various
resources, we absolutely fix that. However, if we have a draft ready
to go and we notice minor font hiccups or less than perfect HTML
rendering, we keep moving forward. (We don't skimp however when we are
producing Committee Specifications and OASIS Standards. Those must
stand up to full scrutiny.)

- I am working with the TAB on two ideas to bring to the Board Process
Committee: a revision to how we do Public Review Drafts to eliminate
the additional time spent creating these copies and suggestion for a
list of detailed, specific, trivial changes that TC's could make
without triggering a new round of public reviews. I will try to bring
these forward at the next BPC meeting.

I am also pulling statistics from JIRA to show how we are performing
under the current process now and prepare some suggestions on where we
might be able to scale things back, either through changes to the TC
Process itself or, even simpler, through reinterpretation of how it is
implemented in operating rules and procedures.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I just want to give you
a snap-shot on how we are responding to this crisis. As I wrote to the
ticket-owners yesterday, this is mission-critical for OASIS and it is
my sole point of focus until the backlog is back under control.

Best regards,

/chet
----------------
Chet Ensign
Director of Standards Development and TC Administration
OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society
http://www.oasis-open.org

Primary: +1 973-378-3472
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