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RE: [802SEC] Closing SEC Meeting for St Louis




Thanks Howard, your succinct and cogent prose put's this issue in
perspective.  I continue to oppose the 3:00 pm start time.  

Though I would like to, I do not think it appropriate to force a 1:00 pm
start time on the resisting WG chairs for St. Louis (I'd love it if they
agreed to the change).  But this issue is very relevant for July.  If a July
change is to be made, it needs to be decided in or before the St. Louis
Monday Exec meeting.  

Buzz, if I recall correctly, the previous Exec discussion was heavly focused
on changing the closing Exec four days latter.  Therefore, little of the
discussion focused on the long term ramifications of the 3:00 pm start time.

--Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Frazier [mailto:millardo@dominetsystems.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 2:34 PM
To: stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802SEC] Closing SEC Meeting for St Louis




Pat, I absolutely agree with you, and I'd like to add my two cents.

It seems like we are being forced into accepting the latest possible
start time to accomodate the WG chairs who want to run their meetings
for as long as possible, and have the most time to prepare.  If this
continues, I expect a return to late night SEC meetings, only this time
it will be on Friday night instead of Thursday.

We have come a long way over the last couple of years, and we have done
a great deal to expand the amount of time available for WG and TF meetings.
All of us remember the days when the opening SEC meeting and the opening
802 plenary took up most of Monday.  Now, that is all over and done with
by Monday noon. We also remember the rush to get everything done Thursday
afternoon, and the dismal state of preparedness for the critical closing
SEC meeting, followed by the giant NO-OP of the Friday closing plenary.

Wow!  We are making MUCH more efficient use of the time now, and Thursday
evenings are basically "free time", where you can hold meetings if you
have to, catch your breath if you need to, or catch up on your paying job,
or maybe even phone home.

So, I suggest that those WGs that really need the extra time should run
their meetings until later in the evening on Thursday, and use Friday
morning
for a wrap up session, and start the closing SEC meeting no later than 1 pm
on Friday, and end it promptly at 5:00 pm.  This would provide a greater
than
one day increase in the time available for WG and TF meetings, when compared
to the old schedule, or an increase of between 25 and 33% depending on how
you used to run your meetings.

The benefit is that fewer people have to hang around for the extra night
Friday night, and I agree that this is a factor for many volunteers who
want to get home to their families. With a 5 pm cut off time, some folks
at least will be able to catch a flight home that evening.  With a 7 pm
or later cutoff, this is virtually impossible for everyone these days.
That means that all of the WG chairs, Vice Chairs, secretaries and
Task Force chairs and technical leaders as well as the IEEE staff members
are stuck in town for another night.

Also, to follow up on another of Pat's comments, I have to observe that
our largest WG, which is very busy with two massive projects, one medium
project, a couple of small projects, plus the usual array of liaisons and 
other business, manages to get all of its work done by 6:00 pm on Thursday,
and has a track record of delivering high quality standards on aggressive
schedules.  It can be done, folks. It's easy to let meetings expand to fill
all available time, but this doesn't necessarily translate into increased
productivity.  Good organization is essential.

Howard

pat_thaler@agilent.com wrote:
> 
> All,
> 
> I suspect that the requirement to stay an extra night (or 2 nights for
some
> working groups) to attend the Friday plenary is decreasing the pool of
> people who would be willing to take Executive Committee offices. Being
there
> on Monday morning already eats into the weekend on the front end and some
> people come out even earlier to allow for Sunday meetings.
> 
> When I first started chairing 802.3, we weren't nearly as efficient as we
> have become partly because we didn't have the tools (no laptops and no
> displays other than overhead transparencies) that expedite things today.
> Sometimes 802.3 didn't finish until 6 PM. An hour left enough time from
the
> end of the meeting to the start of the SEC meeting though it meant I had
to
> hurry.
> 
> In the interest of splitting the pain fairly, I suggest that the SEC
meeting
> start at 1 PM. I expect that chairs with Friday morning plenaries will
find
> that by doing as much preparation as possible before their plenary they
can
> get ready in 1 hour.
> 
> And perhaps at the Monday SEC meeting in March there can be a discussion
of
> whether to continue to schedule the closing SEC for the afternoon or
whether
> to go to Friday morning. I think it would be better to make that kind of a
> decision at a plenary because of its effect on Working Group schedules.
> 
> Pat
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stuart.kerry@philips.com [mailto:stuart.kerry@philips.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 12:36 PM
> To: stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org
> Subject: RE: [802SEC] Closing SEC Meeting for St Louis
> 
> Well said Vic. My sentiments also......
> 
> Sorry Mike, but 802.11 does have a very full agenda, and needs ALL the
> time it can get. Our close will be 12:00 mid-day Friday.
> 
> Stay the extra night, and "I will even buy the drinks....."
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> - Stuart
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hayes, Vic (Vic) [mailto:vichayes@agere.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 23:42
> To: Mike Takefman; stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org
> Subject: RE: [802SEC] Closing SEC Meeting for St Louis
> 
> Mike and colleagues,
> 
> With Working Group meetings planned to run from 8-12 AM, it is
> impossible for me to have the closing plenary before 3 PM. We need to do
> work resulting from the decisions made during those closing plenary
> meetings and simply are not able to be in the SEC earlier.
> 
> Thanks and regards
> 
> ---------------
> Vic Hayes
> Agere Systems Nederland B.V., formerly Lucent Technologies
> Zadelstede 1-10
> 3431 JZ  Nieuwegein, the Netherlands
> Phone: +31 30 609 7528 (Time Zone UTC + 1)
> FAX: +31 30 609 7498
> e-mail: vichayes@agere.com
> http://www.orinocowireless.com/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Takefman [mailto:tak@cisco.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 3:59 AM
> To: stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org
> Subject: [802SEC] Closing SEC Meeting for St Louis
> 
> Colleagues,
> 
> I did a quick search of the November SEC closing minutes
> and I did not find any mention of the schedule for the
> closing SEC meeting for March.
> 
> I will start by suggesting we start early and end early
> (1 to 5pm?) thus allowing me to get out of town on
> a 7:20 pm flight :). Or, I could be very cheeky and suggest
> 8am to 12pm.
> 
> That being said, when do people want to meet.
> 
> mike
> 
> --
> Michael Takefman              tak@cisco.com
> Manager of Engineering,       Cisco Systems
> Chair IEEE 802.17 Stds WG
> 2000 Innovation Dr, Ottawa, Canada, K2K 3E8
> voice: 613-254-3399       fax: 613-254-4867