Role of the Team Contact

Note: W3C designates a Team Contact to monitor the progress of every Submission request and to write a Team Comment which is published as part of the Submission. This document, however, discusses the Team Contact of a Working Group, rather than the Team Contact for a Submission.

W3C designates a Team Contact ("Contact") for every W3C Working Group and Interest Group ("Group"). The Contact helps set the strategic direction of the Group in the chartering phase. Many of the Contact's tasks involve helping the Chair complete his or her roles, such as ensuring that the group runs smoothly, actively aiding consensus building, ensuring wide review of specifications, tracking feedback from implementors, and so forth. The Team Contact reports to the Project Lead.

Technical coordination

Coordination and communication is a primary role for the Team Contact, who acts as the interface between the Group Chair ("Chair"), Group Members, other Working Groups, and the W3C Team:

The team contact role is largely one of communication. This involves becoming as aware as possible of the technical requirements and issues in the group, and simultaneously being aware of the general architecture of the Web as evolving in the other work of W3C. This is of course a general responsibility of the group - and the chair and group members have this duty too. The staff contact has the benefit of being employed full time in W3C, and having access to other team members. The team contact's existence does not dilute in any way the group's obligation to ensure the technology interoperates with that of other groups. [TimBL 2001-09-11]

The Team Contact is also charged with:

• representing the views of the Team to the Working group. Just as all Members do not have the same views, neither does all the Team. The Team Contact collects the various viewpoints and summarizes them so that the Working Group benefits from the widest range of inputs. Where the Team does not have a single position, it is inappropriate to merely abstain. Instead, the various points of view should be summarized. For a good example of Team input where the Team did not have consensus, see Team response on the 'canvas' element.
• supporting the Director, as lead technical architect at W3C, in its authority to make technical judgments and provide oversight. In that sense, no Team Contact is ever completely neutral - W3C wants to benefit from their insight. The Team Contact, however, must provide that contribution without sacrificing their role as a neutral facilitator. Hence they can and should express their technical views, but should not use their central position as Team Contact to unduly influence the proceedings of the WG discussions.

If the W3C Team Contact takes particular technical positions in W3C Working Groups that are not part of their technical coordination role, the Team Contact must announce in advance that they will remove their team contact "hat" at that time in order to participate in technical discussions.

Note that, per the W3C Process, the W3C Team is considered an organization and is allowed at most one vote if a vote is necessary to break a deadlock when resolving a substantive issue. The W3C team, as individuals, may raise formal objections but may not do on behalf of the W3C team without approval from the W3C Director.

Assist Group organizers in creating charter and convening Group

• Assist in creating the group charter. When rechartering, discuss the proposed charter with the existing Working group and with the Team. See the Process Document for information about what must appear in a charter. See also examples of charters.
• Submit the charter to the Strategy or Project lead, or W3M for review. If approved, the Director will announce the creation of the group and issue a call for participation.
• Assist the organizers in understanding dependencies on other groups, and act as coordinator when necessary.
• Ensure that the Chair is familiar with key documents, including:
  • The Process Document
    • General Information about Groups
    • Working Groups
    • Interest Groups
    • Documents
  • The Art of Consensus
    • Pubrules
    • W3C Collaborator and Invited Expert Status
    • Archive of chairs@w3.org (member-only)
• Ensure that Chair is marked as such (checkbox) in the group's DBWG Group.
• Ensure that Chair is a member of the Chairs Group in DBWG (which subscribes him/her to chairs@w3.org)
• Ensure that Group Members are oriented to W3C process and their roles when Group convenes or new Group Members join.
• Ensure that Group sets milestones for document development, charter renewals, etc.
• Ensure that Group Members, when Group convenes or new Group Members join, are aware of external funded programs granted to W3C, if the contract supports the W3C Group or may relate to be used to influence the Group at some time in the future.
• Ensure that Group sets milestones for document development, charter renewals, etc.
• Ensure that Chair understands the different stages of document development (internal Working Drafts, public Working Drafts, Proposed Recommendations, Recommendations), and confidentiality and status issues for each stage.
• Assist Chair in assessing need for charter renewal and/or closing of the Group.
• Ensure that Chair is removed from the Chairs Group in DBWG.

Monitor group participation and operations

• [Active Role] Monitor levels of active participation and address as needed.
• [Active Role]
• Ensure that attendance and minutes are kept.
• Ensure that Chair is aware of any problems and report these problems to W3M when they persist.
• Assist Chair in moderating disputes between participants
• Ensure that Group page is up-to-date
• Assist in reservations for phone bridge as needed
• Ensure sufficient advance notice of meetings by proper channels
• Ensure agendas posted in timely fashion
• Ensure minutes posted in timely fashion
• Assist Chair, as neutral facilitator, to forge consensus fairly and without bias, but can participate in technical discussions to fulfill the technical coordination function.

Serve as Contact with W3C Team

• [Active Role] Keep the Communications Team and Project lead informed of group events, face-to-face meetings, anticipated publication dates, etc.
• [Active Role] Identify host and coordinate with host to organize logistics for face-to-face meetings, events, etc.
• Assist the Communications Team and Chair in soliciting testimonials for press releases.
• [Active Role] Work with Communications Team to draft press releases and/or review for accuracy.
• [Active Role] Coordinate the act of publishing documents with the Communications and Sys/Web Teams.
• [Active Role] Follow communications with other W3C groups and functions to identify areas where coordination is needed.
• Assist Chair in coordinating with other W3C groups as needed.
• Ensure liaisons between Group and other W3C groups are assigned as needed.
• [Active Role] Coordinate with the Systems Team to ensure that Chair and group Editors have appropriate access to the W3C site, and that their access works, they can use CVS, jigedit, etc.).
• Ensure that Group editors understand dataspaces at W3C, notably CVS and secure access.
• Ensure, before publishing any Group document in W3C/TR space, that it is:
  1. Being published properly (see Pubrules).
  2. Spell-checked
  3. HTML validated (see, for example, the HTML validator service).
  4. CSS validated (see, for example, the CSS validator).
  5. Accessible (see Accessibility evaluation resources)
  6. Published in the appropriate places, using Team conventions for document status information, naming schemes, etc.

Questions? Chris Lilley, Judy Brewer, Ian Jacobs
last revised $Date: 2017/05/01 16:05:34 $ by $Author: jeff $