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BACKGROUND – WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS SPACE? 

Problem Statement:

ICANN leaders need an effective set of tools and a methodology (or mechanism) that will enable them to prioritize the work of ICANN. Understanding the full scope of ICANN’s work, developing a consensus on the scope of the work areas to be prioritized and agreeing on a consensus methodology/matrix for prioritization are all critical elements of this effort.

Actions So Far:

With staff support, ICANN community leaders representing the various Supporting Organizations, Advisory Committees and their components organizations (RALOs, Stakeholder groups and Constituencies) have embarked on this effort in hopes that it might bear fruit.

The first step to developing a workload prioritization mechanism is to develop an inventory of all of the ICANN work streams that are currently underway or anticipated among the staff and across all the various community groups. 

This inventory will inform subsequent discussions about the full scope of ICANN’s “current” workload and help community leaders to assess and evaluate the scope of any prioritization work effort (e.g., does the work focus only on policy priorities or both policy AND implementation matters).

The snapshots provided in this space represent the latest iterations of this effort.  Each “snapshot” is another step in the evolution of the tool.

Potential Future Activities:

If an effective work effort inventory tool can be developed, a necessary second step will be to develop an actual prioritization matrix (or mapping scheme) that helps the SO-AC-SG-C Leaders identify the most important issues or work streams for the ENTIRE community as well as those matters that have more focused or directed community impacts.

There are a lot of moving parts to a prioritization process that need to be considered so that leaders can make educated and informed decisions about priorities. The mapping process should be able to identify not just how “important” a matter may be, but also the likely resource demands or the resource drain that each item will take both in terms of time and intensity.  For example, there may be important efforts that are extremely time-consuming and resource-intensive; and there may be important things that can be addressed with fewer resources.

It has been suggested that prioritization exercises happen at least on an annual (calendar year) basis.