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(reprise of the presentation delivered on 23 Oct 2014)
-> slides
Arnaud: the goal of chair training is to help chairs improve and give them the tools they need
[slide 2: Presenter Overview]
Arnaud: introducing myself; most of my
career has been involved in standards and open source
... I am currently chair or co-chair of 3 WGs
[slide 3: Challenges]
Arnaud: I have been involved in many
different organizations and I can tell you that W3C is very rigorous
... W3C's standards really do represent consensus of the community at
large
... we are dealing with a huge audience and W3C goes to great extents to
include everyone
[slide 4: Process]
Arnaud: as Chair you are responsible for
insuring the Process is implemented and properly followed
... with help from the Team Contact you have to educate people,
especially people new to W3C
[slide 5: Tools]
Arnaud: you need to invest time in learning all these tools so you can help your group do the best job
[slide 6: Keeping WG in Scope]
Arnaud: I find it a very useful exercise to
define use cases & requirements
... it helps further define the problem and to establish common
terminology among the group participants
... a wish list helps manage scope creep
... all you need for the wish list is a wiki page
... it's much easier for people to accept that you're not going to
address a need immediately when you have put it on the wish list
... the wish list also becomes a great source of information for the
next charter
[slide 7: Keeping WG on Time]
Arnaud: we fight the expectation of some
that the timeline in the charter can be ignored
... you may not be able to force the various priorities but at least
keep the Consortium informed
... you can reduce the scope -- make the spec smaller -- if you are
reaching a deadline
... you do have to keep reminding the group that time is passing
[slide 8: Conducting productive meetings]
Arnaud: though hard, it's important to set
detailed agenda; especially at the beginning
... you don't want to reach the end of a 2-day meeting and only then
discover there are many items you haven't talked about
... you have to drive the meeting, not just manage the queue; the
detailed agenda schedule helps you do this
... open-ended questions are killers; you want to keep the discussion as
focussed as possible
... I have found that strawpolls are useful to determine whether a vocal
participant is alone in his/her opinion
[slide 9: Consensus]
Arnaud: the word "consensus" is used by many
organizations but has different meanings
... when I can I will include a specific formal proposal in the agenda
beforehand
... be sure people do understand the straw poll process; new
participants might not understand that "-1" is interpreted as an
objection
... objections should be addressed; sometimes the objector will withdraw
the objection after further discussion
[slide 10: Consensus vs Majority vote]
Arnaud: in this example, the consensus choice is the one that everyone can live with not the one that gets the numerically higher vote
[slide 11: Formal objections]
Arnaud: Formal Objections should not be
allowed to stop the WG from moving on
... as chair it's your responsibility to decide when it's best for the
WG to override the objection and move on
[slide 12: Chair's neutrality]
Arnaud: people have various perspectives on
this but I find it easier to stay neutral
... my choice as chair is to never vote
[slide 13: Issues and Resolutions]
Arnaud: there are many ways to use Tracker;
on slide 13 I describe the method I have found to work well
... I update Tracker on a weekly basis
... because the irc interface does not automatically add a reference to
the resolution of an issue I always enter these links immediately after
a call
... Github is getting more popular; you have to figure out how to use
its tools but the process should be similar
[slide 14: Enabling remote and asynchronous participation]
Arnaud: this is a hard
topic; dealing with timezones, etc.
... some WGs do everything by email. I find that too slow.
... the method I prefer is on the slide; resolutions are published in
the telecon minutes but are tentative until the minutes are approved at
the next call
[slide 15: Action items]
Arnaud: you have to be sure that people
understand the action before accepting it; therefore do not assign
actions to someone who is not present
... for actions that have been overdue for a long time I find it useful
to ask the owner specifically what is blocking them
Ralph: a "Consent
Calender" is a useful technique for identifying items that can be
resolved without discussion
... the agenda identifies these in advance and any participant can ask
for something to be removed from the "calendar"
[slide 16: Developing documents]
Arnaud: there are milestones in the charter
but you need to make sure people are reviewing your documents along the
way
... don't wait until the end to develop your test suite
... when you close an issue and have a resolution often this leads to
good items for your test suite
... when someone says "this is what I expect", that's a good candidate
for a test
[slide 17: Publishing documents]
Arnaud: publication is an essential part of
the W3C Process
... for first-time editors it can be a struggle
... as chair it helps to be familiar with what it takes to move an
editor's draft through the publication process, though your Team Contact
can help
[slide 18: Dealing with comments]
Arnaud: responding to commenters has to be
part of your regular process
... though the term "Last Call" is no longer in the Process, you still
have to demonstrate wide review and that you have address all comments
... you need to document all the things you do so you can demonstrate to
the Director what you have done
[slide 19: Parting thoughts]
Arnaud: when I am asked what it's like to
participate in W3C I always say it is both frustrating and rewarding
... doing your part as chair helps in a big way
[slide 20: Reading material]
Arnaud: I am happy to help; if you have
specific questions feel free to reach out to me
... I want to thank Joseph Reagle for the page he wrote several years
ago
... I was amazed at how relevant Joseph's
page still is
[adjourned]