[EURO-Discuss] action items from last call and ALAC performance indicators

William Drake william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
Tue Apr 21 13:24:43 EDT 2009


Hi Adam,

On Apr 21, 2009, at 3:58 PM, Adam Peake wrote:
>
> I'd like to know what RALO members think about ways to judge ALAC  
> members' performance.
>
> Stepping back a bit, I think we need to begin with a job  
> description, an agreed set of tasks and goals to judge performance  
> against.  At the moment performance is judged on participation <http://www.atlarge.icann.org/alac/performance.htm 
> > using 3 measures: ALAC conference calls, ICANN conferences and ALS  
> accreditation votes. Liaisons are also asked to submit liaison  
> reports which are recorded.
>
> Current indicators are quantitative - they tell you if person turns  
> up, they don't give any indication of any work done (I could have a  
> 100% record of attending meetings, calls and votes, but never  
> comment on a list, sleep during the calls except for when I need to  
> wake to vote, etc.)
>
> How can we introduce more qualitative measures, while remembering  
> ALAC members and liaisons are volunteers?

If social science history is any indication, it might be difficult to  
agree a fixed set of qualitative measures by working abstractly and  
deductively.  But you could probably arrive at some by working  
inductively.  Why not take a set of xyz important decisions (I guess  
this would have to include non-decisions, divided decisions, non- 
inclusive decisions, etc) ALAC has had to make in the past year, look  
at the discussions and process dynamics leading up to them, and see if  
you can identify some patterns, good/not so good practices, etc. that  
could enable you to define measures?  Of course, it'd have to be done  
with some sensitivity, i.e. on a non-personalized basis, but unless  
you look at how the group actually functions or doesn't, defining  
contextually-relevant qualitative measures could be a frustrating  
exercise.

Two cents,

BD






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