2019-09-26 PDP3.0 GNSO Council Liaisons to PDPs

Notes/ Action Items

ACTION ITEMS

-  Staff to arrange another call to accommodate liaisons and Small Team members who could not attend today’s call.

-  Staff to circulate the slides, existing tools, checklist of liaison expectations, and the questions for liaisons to review.

-  Liaisons to review questions 7-11, in particular, and provide additional input via the email thread.

NOTES

- Purpose of the meeting is to find what has worked well and has not worked well for the past/current liaisons. Whether there is still gaps and if so, how we can close those gaps?

- Steve presented the context/background of the Improvement #5, see slides

- Maxim has sent response to the liaison survey questions in writing (Maxim is the liaison to the Transliteration IRT).

- For EPDP, there is a lot of pressure for the liaison (e.g., provide updates to the Council, facilitate/moderate meetings, etc.). There is no such expectation for the other PDPs.

- The relationship between liaison and PDP leadership is not entirely clear.

- One SPS 2019 group was focused on liaisons’ roles & expectations. They want a clearer check list about what a liaison should do at different stages of a WG. There is a working spreadsheet created for this purpose.  

- When a PDP is in trouble, the role of the liaison becomes more critical.  

- Several PDP 3.0 improvements overhaul the way a PDP WG reports its progress. Reporting becomes more standardized and detailed, and is provided in more regular basis. This will help lift the pressure off the liaison.

- EPDP liaison situation is more of an exception. Prior to the EPDP, liaisons did not encounter issues that face major PDPs now.

- It depends on how a liaison uses the checklist. If it's a guide, that helps with flexibility, but that reduces certainty. We need to find the sweet spot between flexibility and certainty if we're going to achieve accountability.

- For SubPro, the liaison attended the leadership calls and WG calls. It was a relatively “easier” experience. When the SubPro WG was not meeting the target, there was no mechanism of managing it.

- It might be wrong if a Liaison makes too many decisions instead of relaying the issue to the Council.

- Nothing prevents a liaison to engage in the WG process as a member.

- We cannot just fix the problems through the liaison. For example, the liaison may have some involvement in managing the timeline, but they cannot be singularly responsible for it. There should be a package of expectations made clear to PDP leadership. This has been reflected in Improvement #6.

- Purpose of the liaison is to report back to the Council, even when a WG leader is a member of the Council.

- Can a liaison act in his/her full capacity when he/she is a member of a WG? There may be challenging for a liaison to act in a neutral manner?

- All the processes in the world will not overcome the challenges of dealing with people, and that can be very hard to do. And by "people", we mean "volunteers", which adds a whole next level of challenge. The MS model makes this even more challenging because no-one is anyone's boss.

- Having said that, processes do provide the Liaisons something to fall back so that expectations and roles are understood. At the end of the day, it's Council the manager, not the PDP leaders or liaison. The process may not fix everything, but it helps make the management of WGs less emotional and more predictable with fewer surprises.

- It is not straightforward to assess problematic situations. When there is a problem with a PDP, it can be the leadership themselves or a WG member who caused it. It can be an emotional thing. But the processes put in place can speak themselves.

- The tools help clarify the reporting process for the liaisons. The liaisons have an input role.

- When there is a conflict, liaisons also have a role there to assist with conflict resolution. GNSO Working Group Guidelines Section 3.6 and 3.7 have several leadership involved, including the PDP WG leadership, the Council leadership, and the liaisons. The conflict resolution piece is going to be more challenging for the liaison, as emotion will be involved.  

- Susan Payne stepped up and it worked in IGO/INGO, but it worked because a) she was willing to step up and b) the PDP leadership was willing for her to do so.

- Indeed 3.7 was intended to be last resort (not first resort, as it has been recently used).

- The core problem is the enforcement ability, e.g., meeting the deadlines. It can involve many factors. The documents/processes developed for project management related improvements can help prevent the slippage of timeline.

- Consensus playbook can help provide more tools for the WG leadership and empower them.

- For Phase 2 EPDP, the structure of primary and alternates with respective group support teams has really worked well.  It allows the conversation/deliberations to continue.


- The working checklist for liaison can go further. Now is more about timing and frequency. Reporting and escalation aspects can go further, for example. Provide the checklist to the liaisons for input?

- The role of liaison needs to be better understood by the community and the WG. Don’t want to create an impression that liaisons are just observing/watching. Liaisons ought to help the WG chairs. It would be helpful to raise the profile of the liaisons. Many Councilors said so at the AGM in 2018, that they had ended the year with a better sense of what the liaison role meant. The first SPS we had clearly raised the level of understanding of the role.

- Make an announcement that we have the Council liaison on the call, when a WG meeting is held. Need to promote the role of the liaison.

- Do working group members understand that they can speak with the liaison if they don't think the Chair/s are doing a good job? Might be a good idea at face-to-face meetings. It may be that members think the liaison is the liaison between PDP leadership and Council, not between the PDP and Council.

- They should be involved with WG leadership to assess the health of the project each month for the council, which can be added to the working checklist.  

- ACTION ITEM: Staff to arrange another call to accommodate liaisons and Small Team members who could not attend today’s call.

- ACTION ITEM: Staff to circulate the slides, existing tools, checklist of liaison expectations, and the questions for liaisons to review.

- ACTION ITEM: Liaisons to review questions 7-11, in particular, and provide additional input via the email thread.