w3process
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Director responsibilities in the technical development process
The team performs certain duties on behalf of the Director in the middle of the technical development process. Some of those involve checking that the work from the Working Group was done properly - e.g. normative references and horizontal reviews. We need to document how that works in director-free.
What Process language describes Director duties covering "checking that the work from the Working Group was done properly - e.g. normative references and horizontal reviews"? I couldn't find any from a quick scan.
Sorry, Mike. Our practice is made up of a collection of documents and indeed can be hard to find on a quick scan.
Section 6.2.3 of the process document is where it says that transition requests require Director approval. https://www.w3.org/2020/Process-20200915/#transition-reqs
Normative references are complex, so several years ago the Director approved a separate document which characterizes how normative references are evaluated at transitions. https://www.w3.org/2013/09/normative-references
Section 6.1.2.1 describes how the Director ensures that horizontal review is done appropriately as part of wide review before approving transitions. https://www.w3.org/2013/09/normative-references
Specific to "checking that the work from a WG was done properly - e.g. normative references are properly listed and horizontal reviews have been done" - I would expect the Team is responsible for this. This isn't "approval", per se - just process project management.
It's fine to call it process project management. Question is to find the right "hook" for that in director-free.
Today, the hook is that the Director will not approve transitions without that process project management. In director-free we need to document how transitions get approved and where the process project management comes in.
@jeffjaffe : "6.2.3. Advancement on the Recommendation Track" reads to me as if it is the Working Group's responsibility to do those things. Presumably the Director does need to confirm all that by giving approval to an advancement. In practice the Team plays a useful role in supporting the WG in doing these checks (and serving as the de facto Director), but that's not in the Process as I read it.
Back when I was on the AB I thought we had rough consensus that the various references to the Director in the Process should be revised so:
- W3M handles traditional management functions (announcements, disciplinary actions)
- The Team handles project management, consensus-buliding/dispute mediation, and applying the rules in the process and the authoritative decisions under the direction of W3M.
- Some entity or entities to be defined makes DECISIONS about Strategy, charters, transitions, etc. that the Team and W3M are expected to implement and be accountable for doing successfully.
