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Results of Questionnaire TPAC 2011 Breakout Followup

The results of this questionnaire are available to anybody. In addition, answers are sent to the following email address: w3t-archive@w3.org

This questionnaire was open from 2011-11-22 to 2011-12-21.

17 answers have been received.

Jump to results for question:

  1. Your session
  2. Was the breakout useful?
  3. Does your session require followup?
  4. If you think that discussion needs to continue...
  5. If you do not think that discussion needs to continue...
  6. Improvements?

1. Your session

Please provide the title of your session

Details

Responder Title
Nick Doty Privacy
Elika Etemad Agile Standardization
Kai Scheppe Revisiting how W3C creates standards
Robin Berjon W3C Publications Ecosystem
Dave Raggett Internet of Things and the Web
Deborah Dahl Demos
Jeff Jaffe Fixing schedule delays
Char James-Tanny Accessibility Q&A and Tips
Ted Leung HTML5 and Games
Alan Bird W3C Social Business Jam
James Graham Browser Testing
Steve Bratt Measuring the Web
Tab Atkins Jr. Agile Standardization in CSS
Hiroyuki Aizu Multi-Screen Web
Tantek Çelik Semantic Syntaxes
Alexandre Bertails Linked Data
Balaji Nerella Venkataramana Web operating system challenges (Ideally it should have been named as "Browser as Operating System - Challenges" )

2. Was the breakout useful?

Did you find your breakout session useful? Please feel free to comment on techniques you used to make the session useful, observations that would have helped make it more useful, etc.

Summary

ChoiceAll responders
Results
yes 16
no 1

Details

Responder Was the breakout useful?Comments
Nick Doty yes Although we had little time to discuss privacy in Web standards generally, it uncovered a lot of interesting ideas and perspectives.
Elika Etemad yes Tab and I prepared materials to present how the CSSWG operates, and Steve Zilles "chaired" the session. We took Q&A throughout.
Kai Scheppe yes I used common moderation techniques.

I adopted the role of moderator.
Personally I have no problem with the W3C process, but see that others have a problem.
I used this emotional detachment to be a better moderator.

In the beginning I made a proposal for an agenda.
Then I proposed a means to go through the agenda. In this case leading off with brainstorming.
It quickly became clear that there were too many points to gather so that we would not get to a solution phase.

I then announce this change in plans clearly to those present.

I kept rambling under control. People tend to use a lot of words, but their core issue has already been voiced.

I made sure to write the core issue onto the flip chart.
I used this technique as a means to prompt the speaker to consolidate his thoughts into a single point.
If there was a problem or in the interest of speed, I sometimes consolidated, using my own words and confirmed with the speaker that I caught their point correctly.

Since we were in a brainstorming session, something that gathers points of view and ideas without judgement, I tried to limit all discussions save for clarification of a point.

General comments:
I wanted to structure the session as a strongly interactive session. I had noticed other sessions that were more sermon like.
I prefer open discussion, for the quality of results. But it needs to be controlled tightly to prevent rambling.

Time limits
In a somewhat more mature discussion culture we could have a comment timer, forcing participants to make a point in, for example, 30 seconds.
Robin Berjon yes Specific techniques weren't needed, we had a bunch of eager people in the room who wanted to make this work.
Dave Raggett yes Demo's were very helpful in explaining the core ideas.
Deborah Dahl yes
Jeff Jaffe yes
Char James-Tanny no Not enough prep (on my part, obviously!) because we changed the speaker that morning. Also not a good enough title because very few people outside of WAI showed up.
Ted Leung yes
Alan Bird yes
James Graham yes
Steve Bratt yes We have a small turnout, but very active discussion. The feedback I received on the Web Index will be helpful as we complete the first index in mid 2012.
Tab Atkins Jr. yes
Hiroyuki Aizu yes
Tantek Çelik yes
Alexandre Bertails yes Most of the comments are actually subsumed by the Linked Enterprise Data Workshop that happened last week :-)

So no follow-up for this session.
Balaji Nerella Venkataramana yes The session was not a great success but managed to bring out some important issues, if not all.

We discussed only the gaps in W3C standards and role of W3C. The summary could be found at: http://www.w3.org/wiki/TPAC2011/web_as_operating_system_challenges



As I was not familiar with important participants of W3C I could not get them to attend the session. That left us with only handful of people who were aware of the subject.

3. Does your session require followup?

You organized a discussion at TPAC. Do you think that discussion should continue in some forum?

Summary

ChoiceAll responders
Results
yes 13
no 4

Details

Responder Does your session require followup?
Nick Doty yes
Elika Etemad yes
Kai Scheppe yes
Robin Berjon yes
Dave Raggett yes
Deborah Dahl no
Jeff Jaffe yes
Char James-Tanny yes
Ted Leung yes
Alan Bird no
James Graham yes
Steve Bratt yes
Tab Atkins Jr. no
Hiroyuki Aizu yes
Tantek Çelik yes
Alexandre Bertails no
Balaji Nerella Venkataramana yes

4. If you think that discussion needs to continue...

summary | by responder | by choice

Please indicate which venue or venues are the most appropriate for continuing the conversation. You can use the comment space to provide additional information or other options.

Summary

ChoiceAll responders
Results
Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below). 11
Conversation should continue in a W3C group that doesn't yet exist (e.g., a community group) 3
W3C staff should help identify forum for next steps 2
Conversation is happening or should happen outside W3C 2
Other (please indicate in the space below) 5

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Details

Responder If you think that discussion needs to continue...Other reason(s)
Nick Doty
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
  • Conversation should continue in a W3C group that doesn't yet exist (e.g., a community group)
 I hope the Privacy Interest Group and public-privacy mailing list will be useful venues to continue this discussion.
Elika Etemad
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
  • Other (please indicate in the space below)
 Some related discussion is happening in the Process CG. Others have happened informally as people ask us questions outside the meetings.
Kai Scheppe
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
 A community group was created already, shortly after the session. It is currently active and chaired by Chaals and myself.
Robin Berjon
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
  • Other (please indicate in the space below)
 We picked spec-prod as the next steps list, and groups are discussing (and experimenting) with ideas.
Dave Raggett
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
  • Conversation should continue in a W3C group that doesn't yet exist (e.g., a community group)
 The discussion on service discovery is proceeding in the Web Intents Task Force organized jointly by DAP and Web Apps WGs. It may be appropriate to launch a CG to cover broader aspects for the Web of Things. This is something I will discuss with stakeholders.
Deborah Dahl
Jeff Jaffe
  • W3C staff should help identify forum for next steps
  • Other (please indicate in the space below)
 I think that the W3C CEO should lead an internal task force based on the output of this breakout session, develop recommendations, and then bring it back to the AC, AB, etc.
Char James-Tanny
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
 EO
Ted Leung
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
 HTML5 and Games Community Group
Alan Bird
  • Other (please indicate in the space below)
 Jam was held, we need to determine what to do with the information that came from it. Harry is working with IBM to get a summary together.
James Graham
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
 Testing IG
Steve Bratt
  • Conversation is happening or should happen outside W3C
Tab Atkins Jr.
Hiroyuki Aizu
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
Tantek Çelik
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
  • Conversation is happening or should happen outside W3C
 venues where discussion is continuing: W3C HTML Data Task Force, microformats community ( irc://irc.freenode.net/microformats , http://microformats.org/wiki )
Alexandre Bertails
  • Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
  • Other (please indicate in the space below)
 Conversation is already happening, not really because of the breakout session.
Balaji Nerella Venkataramana
  • Conversation should continue in a W3C group that doesn't yet exist (e.g., a community group)
  • W3C staff should help identify forum for next steps

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ChoiceResponders
Conversation will continue in or more W3C Groups (please indicate which one(s) below).
  • Nick Doty
  • Elika Etemad
  • Kai Scheppe
  • Robin Berjon
  • Dave Raggett
  • Char James-Tanny
  • Ted Leung
  • James Graham
  • Hiroyuki Aizu
  • Tantek Çelik
  • Alexandre Bertails
Conversation should continue in a W3C group that doesn't yet exist (e.g., a community group)
  • Nick Doty
  • Dave Raggett
  • Balaji Nerella Venkataramana
W3C staff should help identify forum for next steps
  • Jeff Jaffe
  • Balaji Nerella Venkataramana
Conversation is happening or should happen outside W3C
  • Steve Bratt
  • Tantek Çelik
Other (please indicate in the space below)
  • Elika Etemad
  • Robin Berjon
  • Jeff Jaffe
  • Alan Bird
  • Alexandre Bertails

5. If you do not think that discussion needs to continue...

summary | by responder | by choice

Please indicate why.

Summary

ChoiceAll responders
Results
The purpose of the session was just to share information and we accomplished that. 4
The purpose of the session was to introduce a new topic, but no further discussion is necessary at this time.
We finished the discussion during TPAC.
Other (please explain in the space below). 1

(12 responses didn't contain an answer to this question)

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Details

Responder If you do not think that discussion needs to continue...Other reason(s)
Nick Doty
Elika Etemad
  • The purpose of the session was just to share information and we accomplished that.
Kai Scheppe
  • Other (please explain in the space below).
 The purpose was to collect potential discussion points, in order to allow further work.
It was clear from the outset that the topic could not be finished in one session.
Robin Berjon
Dave Raggett
Deborah Dahl
  • The purpose of the session was just to share information and we accomplished that.
Jeff Jaffe
Char James-Tanny
Ted Leung
Alan Bird
  • The purpose of the session was just to share information and we accomplished that.
James Graham
Steve Bratt
Tab Atkins Jr.
  • The purpose of the session was just to share information and we accomplished that.
Hiroyuki Aizu
Tantek Çelik
Alexandre Bertails
Balaji Nerella Venkataramana

View by choice

ChoiceResponders
The purpose of the session was just to share information and we accomplished that.
  • Elika Etemad
  • Deborah Dahl
  • Alan Bird
  • Tab Atkins Jr.
The purpose of the session was to introduce a new topic, but no further discussion is necessary at this time.
We finished the discussion during TPAC.
Other (please explain in the space below).
  • Kai Scheppe

6. Improvements?

Do you have suggestions for improving the organization of the breakout sessions? For example, by making them longer, or having a clear statement of goals up front, or more preparation, or more/less reporting, etc.

Details

Responder Improvements?
Nick Doty I think longer would be helpful. Also, we had combined sessions that seemed similar (with some identity work), but that ended up just cutting the time we had to discuss each topic and splitting the group apart for some of it.
Elika Etemad I think it worked out great.
Kai Scheppe It depends on the goals of the session.
Generally I believe that they are too short for actually creating solutions, but they can be used to clear up a topic and get ready for finding solutions.

Overall, however, I think keeping time short is a good thing. Keeps the pressure on.

I continue to believe that we need stronger moderators to run sessions, working group meetings etc., because the signal to noise ratio in meetings is frighteningly low and this costs enormous amounts of time.
Philosophical discussions, discussions on basic values and ideas, should be relegated to another space, for example coffee breaks.

Meetings/sessions should be clearly goal oriented and maximized for efficiency.
Robin Berjon In some of the other sessions it was not clear to the organisers that they were expected to chair the breakout, and some confusion ensued. It might be worth making that clearer next time around.
Dave Raggett
Deborah Dahl The idea of having breakout sessions was excellent. Everyone could attend sessions that involved their topics of interest and it was much easier to have a discussion with a smaller group.
Some breakout session topics need preparation, for example, my session (demos). So I think it would have been better to have more balance between the sessions that were fixed ahead of time and the ones that were proposed at the meeting. Maybe half and half. Fixing more sessions ahead of time would also help people with corporate travel restrictions justify their attendance at TPAC.
I proposed a couple of sessions, but one of them had to be cancelled when someone changed the time on the grid and I ended up double-booked. By the time I noticed it was too late to change it back. I don't know how to prevent that except by having more sessions with fixed times.
I don't think we needed the full "report back" session at the end. I think it would have been better if the organizers just reported on outcomes that they they thought would really benefit from sharing with the whole group.
How about making the grid be online? Having the grid on paper meant that you had to go physically look at it to see when things were scheduled, and it was difficult to get to the grid in the first place to put up the session. I realize there was an online informative version, but the normative grid was the paper one.
Jeff Jaffe
Char James-Tanny I liked how it was organized, although I was a bit confused...I thought the initial page where sessions were discussed included all of the sessions for that day. (In other words, I didn't realize that it was going to be possible to add more sessions to the day.)
Ted Leung
Alan Bird
James Graham The reporting at the end of the day did not seem especially helpful. Otherwise the length of the sessions was about right; it gave everyone a chance to get involved with the discussion but wasn't so long that people became bored. When individuals wanted more time for discussion of certain topics they provided an ideal starting point for hallway conversations.

In the specific case of my session, better preparation could have improved the use of time, but that was largely my fault for deciding so late that running a session would be a good idea. Nevertheless it was helpful in communicating relevant information to interested parties as evidenced by the followup work that occurred outside of the formal sessions.
Steve Bratt There was not enough time between session. By the time the last of the participants arrived, we lost 15 mins.
Tab Atkins Jr.
Hiroyuki Aizu
Tantek Çelik
Alexandre Bertails Scribing was really difficult, because of a lot of unknown people.

I believe we could improve that by just providing people a big sheet a paper with their usual nickname on it (even if they are not on IRC). This could be asked from the registration form (as we don't have this information in our database).
Balaji Nerella Venkataramana I liked the collaborative method that was used to trigger the thought. The simple process used to get the points to the board was just fascinating. It taught me how to run a collaborative session in such large gatherings. Thanks for the same.

I enjoyed participating some of the sessions and hosting one. I feel, the format and duration were just right.

It would have been great had this feedback form been available right after the session.

One possibility that could be tried is making this process over web and allow people define topics ahead of time. For example that web site could be opened 3 weeks before TPAC and one week before TPAC registration ends. That would give people sufficient time to prepare for involved topics. Hosts would get be able to invite larger audience to the discussions (and more TPAC participants, probably ;-) )

More details on responses

  • Nick Doty: last responded on 22, November 2011 at 23:32 (UTC)
  • Elika Etemad: last responded on 23, November 2011 at 01:42 (UTC)
  • Kai Scheppe: last responded on 23, November 2011 at 08:40 (UTC)
  • Robin Berjon: last responded on 23, November 2011 at 09:01 (UTC)
  • Dave Raggett: last responded on 23, November 2011 at 10:21 (UTC)
  • Deborah Dahl: last responded on 23, November 2011 at 15:42 (UTC)
  • Jeff Jaffe: last responded on 23, November 2011 at 16:49 (UTC)
  • Char James-Tanny: last responded on 23, November 2011 at 18:06 (UTC)
  • Ted Leung: last responded on 2, December 2011 at 21:07 (UTC)
  • Alan Bird: last responded on 5, December 2011 at 14:51 (UTC)
  • James Graham: last responded on 5, December 2011 at 14:55 (UTC)
  • Steve Bratt: last responded on 5, December 2011 at 15:26 (UTC)
  • Tab Atkins Jr.: last responded on 5, December 2011 at 15:39 (UTC)
  • Hiroyuki Aizu: last responded on 9, December 2011 at 04:29 (UTC)
  • Tantek Çelik: last responded on 12, December 2011 at 08:59 (UTC)
  • Alexandre Bertails: last responded on 13, December 2011 at 20:43 (UTC)
  • Balaji Nerella Venkataramana: last responded on 14, December 2011 at 14:02 (UTC)

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