Some basic principles:
It's an AD's job to choose, appoint, train, guide, manage and support WG Chairs. An AD will often know people active in the WG's technical area, but may not have experience of them in a managerial role. Thus, an AD needs to talk to others who have worked with potential WG Chairs to find out if they are likely to succeed. Some ADs have tried making open calls for nominations and volunteers, followed by an interview process. Not only does this help choose a good candidate, but also it gives the community a better view of how the choice was made.
Some WGs have more than one co-chair. It is considered a good practice that co-chairs of the same WG are not affiliated or their particpation is not sponsored by the same company. However this is not a mandatory requirement and situations may happen where individuals change affiliation or sponsorship. It is recommended that such cases are made known to the community and especially to the other WG participants. For this purpose ADs will recommend the chairs of the WGs to disclose their affiliation or participation sponsorship at nomination and in cases of changes of affiliation or sponsorship - especially when these are not obvious from their email addresses - by sending a message to the WG mail list.
Charter
A charter is a contract between the AD and the WG, negotiated between AD and Chairs with the group's participation. The charter requires community discussion and IESG approval, except for very minor updates. The AD should continuously verify that the WG is making progress and staying within its charter.
As well as scoping the tasks of the WG, the charter may define any special requirements or conditions for the work to be produced by the WG. For example, if any specification produced by the WG will need to meet the implementation or operational requirements in section 4.1.1 of RFC 2026 (see also section 3 of RFC 4794), that requirement should be included in the charter.
Sometimes Working Groups change their charters. This can happen at a few different levels of seriousness.
| Type of Update | Requested By | Approved By |
|---|---|---|
| Change to text of charter | AD | IESG |
| Addition, removal, or replacement of a WG Chair | AD | None |
| Deletion of a milestone | AD or WG Chair | None |
| Change the date of a milestone | AD or WG Chair | None |
| Addition of a milestone | AD or WG Chair | AD |
| Completion of a milestone | AD or WG Chair | None |
The content of this page was last updated on 2018-01-26. It was migrated from the old Trac wiki on 2023-02-17.