Formation of the Process and Tools (PROTO) Team

[The IESG <iesg@xxxxxxxx>]

 The Process and Tools (PROTO) Team has been formed. It is 
 an IESG-driven activity focused on improving the work flow
 (e.g. speed) of approval of documents, and the tools that 
 support this work flow. The PROTO team will advise the IESG on how 
 to improve the scalability, openness and overall effectiveness of 
 the document procedures and tools. 


 Team Members:
 Mark Allman
 Aaron Falk
 Bill Fenner (IESG)
 Barbara Fuller (IETF Secretariat)
 Henrik Lefkowetz
 David Meyer

 Team Leaders:
 Allison Mankin <mankin@psg.com>
 Margaret Wasserman <margaret@thingmagic.com>

 Team members were selected from community volunteers by the team leaders.

 Mailing List:

 PROTO Team: proto-team@ietf.org 
 n
 The IESG has asked the PROTO team as its first task to consider
 what procedures and tools will allow WG Chairs to shepherd
 documents throughout the later stages of the document handling
 process. At present, WG Chairs shepherd the earlier lifecycle of
 documents in the WGs after IESG approval of document milestones. The
 IESG believes that the experiment to allow WG Chairs to shepherd
 documents after the AD has approved the IETF Last Call as well (when
 currently the AD takes over) will have several benefits, including:

           - WGs could have increased visibility and control of
               their documents in the later stages.
           - Documents could make it through the approval process
               faster.

 The speedup could come because of distribution of the shepherding
 effort amongst a larger group of people, alleviating overloading and
 some bottlenecks. The speedup could also come because of natural
 prioritization of the shepherded document in the WG's task set.

 The PROTO team will publish a document describing more detailed plans,
 and will provide experiment reports for the community's interest and
 review on a monthly basis. The goal of the PROTO team is to accomplish
 results from this shepherding experiment by the San Diego IETF meeting.