Re: [soa-rm-ra] random and nonrandom thoughts on governance

[Francis McCabe <frankmccabe@mac.com>]

Hi Ken
  There is a lot I agree with here. I do have a few differences  
though ... (life would be *so* boring :)

  1. I agree completely that participants can be organizations. And  
that the cardinalities are *..*.
  2. I have a bit of heartache with the way that you characterize  
goals of participants and organizations. I do not think that they  
should be conflated:

  a. An organization may have goals; and governance may be in  
furtherance of those goals. (A link that is not to be assumed, but to  
be strived for I believe.)
  b. A participant's goals are (IMO) distinct from any organization's  
goals. In particular, I do not believe that governance attempts to  
satisfy participants' goals except in so far as they satisfy the  
organization's goals.
  c. One of the questions that a potential participant (or potential  
non-participant) must answer is whether the organization's goals are  
sufficiently aligned with the participants goals to permit the  
membership. We all know that this is normally not a 100% fit; but is  
some kind of balance/juggling act.

  3. I used the term organ as a kind of abstraction of representative  
body. For me, organs of control are the people/bodies that have  
authority of some kind.

   Different governance frameworks will lead to different  
arrangements of organs (some on the left, some on the right :-) And  
yes, in a large well managed framework, there are likely to be many  
layers of organs.

  4. A defining characteristic of an organ of control is its remit  
(an English-english word meaning sphere of control/understanding/ 
influence/authority). The difference between a democratic congress  
and a dictator is one of degree not kind.

  The remit identifies the kinds of policies and rules that the organ  
may promulgate and expect to have enforced. I think that bob's  
functions are another way of expressing the concept of remit; but am  
hesitant to claim this.

  5. I do not see the relationship between organization and  
participant as strictly membership. Organizations are also about the  
relationship between the participants. Again, there is normally a  
limit/definition/constraint on the kind of relationships captured by  
an organization.

  This allows both of us to be both members of the local gym and a  
company and have separate relationships in the different contexts.

Frank

On Sep 6, 2007, at 2:35 PM, Ken Laskey wrote:

> I'm looking at the diagram I uploaded at the beginning of  
> yesterday's meeting and at the diagram Danny uploaded after the  
> meeting and I'm trying to merge all this with what was said during  
> the meeting.  Let's see where this collection of thoughts takes me  
> (and you hearty enough to read on).
>
> I started with the diagrams but then got stuck on Bob's thoughts on  
> governance where there is one "type" that has overriding authority  
> and another "type" where somewhat independent groups work  
> together .  We've often talk about this as within enterprises and  
> across enterprises but for this discussion I'd like to call them  
> Authoritative and Cooperative.  How do these fit with the  
> diagrams?  Well, they could be subclasses of Governance but I think  
> they may more appropriately be at (or near) the ends of a (maybe  
> continuous, maybe stepwise) spectrum.  We'll see where that goes  
> later.
>
> To back up a second, note that my diagram has Participants agreeing  
> to Governance and Danny has Governance having jurisdiction over  
> Participants.  After a chuckle or two, I think these can work  
> together because part of what the participant agrees to is being  
> under a jurisdiction.  Participants can remove themselves from a  
> jurisdiction by moving in some physical sense (e.g. where you live  
> or where you work) or by selectively ignoring the Governance (e.g.  
> outright defiance or the time honored approach of slow-rolling).   
> This doesn't cover being born in an authoritarian (note difference  
> with authoritative) regime and having no escape, but for SOA I  
> think we can consider that an edge case.
>
> So I start with Participants who may be members of Organizations.   
> I could just note that an Organization can be a Participant and do  
> away with this but I wanted to show (although didn't include the  
> cardinality) that a Participant can be a member of more than one  
> Organization and both the Participant and the Organization can (and  
> do) come under multiple sets of Governance Processes (yes, it  
> should probably be plural in my diagram).
>
> While we're at subclasses of Participant, Danny has Decision Makers  
> as a subclass and these entities do all the governance work.  I  
> don't think this is accurate because it isn't always "decision  
> makers" that express Goals.  Participants can act as individuals or  
> representatives of organizations.  If representing an organization,  
> they probably act with some level of cognizance by Decision Makers  
> but the specifics (at least at some level of detail) may not  
> (probably not?) have Decision Makers review.  I would say the whole  
> Participant/Decision Maker combination is demonstrated by Working  
> Group/TC participants.  On the other hand, I see a correspondence  
> between Danny's Decision Makers and my Representative Body, so  
> let's not downplay it too quickly.  (Note, I am no more ond of  
> Decision Makers than I was of Representative Body.  Any other  
> suggestions?)
>
> So let's get back to Authoritative and Cooperative Governance.   
> With Authoritative governance, there is a recognized entity who  
> should be running things.  This says nothing about whether the  
> recognized entity is officially blessed or whether it is  
> particularly effective.  The recognized entity is almost certainly  
> a Participant and a Decision Maker.
>
> With Cooperative governance, the independent entities agree to a  
> Governance Framework under which there will be Governance  
> Processes, and the collection of independent entities form the  
> Decision Makers.  Actually, the collection becomes the recognized  
> entity of the Authoritative governance.
>
> Is it appropriate to say that any Governance requires cooperation  
> and the question of authoritative is really authoritative to whom  
> and can you make decisions (reflected through Rules and Policies)  
> stick?  If this is true, a single governance diagram covers both  
> cases without either being explicitly represented in the diagram.
>
> Some other notes on Danny's diagram:
> - My intent for Governance Framework is it would form the structure  
> for the Governance Processes rather than "support" it.
> - Management needs to have more than knowledge of policy; it has to  
> provide direction for Management.
>
> With respect to Bob's question of where functions fit in, there are  
> processes for performing functions and rules and regulations that  
> provide details.  The operational how falls to management.  That  
> said, I don't think functions get added to the diagrams but can be  
> included in the accompanying text.
>
> Something captured in my diagram I don't think appears in others is  
> the idea that participants create local management to create local  
> rules and regulations in addition to those that may be created more  
> globally.  Thus, Management Body is instantiated at multiple levels.
>
> While writing this, I have been modifying my diagram to capture  
> these and other thoughts.  The result so far is no additional  
> classes but many additional relationships.  I think it is an  
> improvement but YMMV.
>
> One final thing: processes for assessing and enforcing compliance  
> have to be part of the Governance Processes and the particulars are  
> defined by Rules and Regulations.  This includes adjudication, from  
> voluntary negotiation to no-nonsense enforcement.  Compliance is  
> with Rules and Regulation, not Policy; here, I define Policy as  
> statements of what you want to occur whereas Rules and Regulations  
> supply the metrics on which compliance is evaluated.  Now  the last  
> couple sentences may form the basis of a couple more lines on the  
> attached diagram, but frankly at the moment I'm not up to adding them.
>
> Diagram is attached for those who can see it directly.  For others,  
> I'll upload to OASIS.
>
> Ken
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> --------------------
> Ken Laskey
> MITRE Corporation, M/S H305     phone:  703-983-7934
> 7515 Colshire Drive                        fax:        703-983-1379
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>