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.
(A geeky thought: Robert's Rules represents
a set of very structured rules for conducting a certain kind of conversation -
we should consider it as a use case - express Robert's Rules in BPEL!
;)
Later, after we get some
familiarity and trust with each other, I suspect we can feel comfortable
relaxing some aspects of Robert's Rules, and can segue into a little less
formality. But to start, I strongly recommend that we follow the book very
strictly; this lays the ground rules up front and no one will feel they are
being treated unfairly in any way.
If I had any thought of not
attending the face-to-face, those have been erased. I think that meeting in
first-person and getting a chance to know each other will do wonders for
improving our rapport and hopefully comfort with each other, and we can become
efficient at making our way through the work that lies
ahead.
Looking forward,
Rand
-----Original
Message-----
From: Ben Bloch
[mailto:ben_b54@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 16,
2003 1:40
PM
To: Burdett, David; 'Darran Rolls'; Diane
Jordan; wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [wsbpel] This telcon process
doesn't work!
It was tough, wasn't it and the
polling (or rather the handraising - polling itself should be doable in this
manner) mechanism was frustrating indeed. If the TC and the chairs feel
such a large group is too large to manage without a "Coordinator" (100 is a
lot although I have seen it managed), we really should look at moving to
subgroups focusing on specific topics - eg charter, legal, technical
(the reason for the TC don't forget), etc - pretty quickly
where the issues can be hashed out in detail. F2F's probably don't
happen frequently enough to deal with all the issues that require
unobstructed free form interaction.
----- Original Message -----
Sent:
Friday, May 16,
2003 12:12
PM
Subject:
[wsbpel] This telcon process doesn't work!
I
would also like to strongly support Darren's
statement.
1.
Diane asked if there were any objection - I had one as I had an alternative
suggestion
2. We
were asked to press *1 if there was an objection
3. We
were later told to cancel the *1 as someone was needed to second a
motion
Net
result, it was impossible for me to raise my objection. Therefore I am being
prohibited from making a contribution.
There
HAS to be a better way.
-----Original
Message-----
From: Darran
Rolls [mailto:Darran.Rolls@waveset.com]
Sent: Friday, May 16,
2003 7:13
AM
To: Diane Jordan;
wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [wsbpel] Agenda for May
16 WS BPEL TC
Diane
On
the basis that I am not permitted to raise comment on the currently
running call I would like to register my opposition to holding the initial
con-call as a "listen only" call. This seems highly
irregular!!!
=========================================================
Darran
Rolls
http://www.waveset.com
Waveset
Technologies Inc
drolls@waveset.com
512) 657
8360
=========================================================
-----Original
Message-----
From: Diane
Jordan [mailto:drj@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May
14, 2003 10:04 PM
To:
wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [wsbpel] Agenda for May 16
WS BPEL TC
Hello All,
The agenda for the WS BPEL TC
conference call on Friday May 16, 7am
PDT, is below. As a
reminder, dial in information is: US Toll Free: 888-711-4576, Toll:
+1-484-630-9377, Passcode: WS BPEL Technical Committee, Leader name:
Diane Jordan. You will need both the pass code and leader name to be
admitted. Also, to be admitted to the call, your name needs to be on
the TC roster (which it is if you've received this email from me).
During
the call on Friday we will be discussing nominations for several roles on
the Technical committee, including secretary, webmaster, liaison
coordinator, and members of the editing teams for the specification,
issues list and requirements list. One of the slides below has a
few words about each. We will also need someone at the start
of the call to volunteer to take minutes. Please consider
volunteering and feel free to let us know before the meeting.
We will try to
adhere to the times shown in the agenda to get through the TC start up
process. We have a follow on call planned for Wed. May 21 at
8am PDT that
will cover items we do not complete on Friday, if any, so the way will be
clear to focus on the work plan for the TC at the face to face meeting May
28-29.
We'll have an operator
assisting with the call on Friday. The operator will take your name
when you join for our attendance tracking. All lines will be in
listen mode except the speakers until Q&A/Discussion times when the
operator will moderate a speakers queue. We're hoping this will help
make a call with so many participants more productive.
We're looking forward to
working with you and appreciate your support.
Regards, Diane
IBM
Dynamic e-business Technologies
drj@us.ibm.com
(919)254-7221
or 8-444-7221, Mobile:
919-624-5123