One of the words most often heard during the IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANNAccountability processes has been coordination – coordination amongst communities, coordination amongst members and participants of working groups, coordination amongst community and staff members.

As many who follow these processes know, they can at times be complex, and are interrelated. One group can rely on another for various needs, such as the formal dependency between CWG-Stewardship and CCWG-Accountability, or the necessary inputs groups contribute into each other's processes by way of Public Comment periods.

At an informal breakfast meeting during ICANN53 in Buenos Aires with many of the transition working group chairs and SO/AC leaders, we shared a working draft transition timeline, and discussed how we could better ensure clearer alignment amongst all the agendas, timelines and expectations.

As a result of the discussion that followed, the group decided it would hold monthly facilitation calls with each other, ICANN leadership and NTIA, to discuss where each group stands at that given point in time. The group also decided that these meetings would not to be used to discuss substance.

The group agreed to share publicly the working draft transition timeline [PDF, 1.01 MB], as well as anaudio file [MP3, 8.32 MB] of the first call with the community held last Thursday. As we move steadily towards completion of the first phase of the IANA Stewardship Transition process, it is vital that we all stay aligned, and these monthly calls will help facilitate that.

To listen to the audio of the first call, please see here: http://audio.icann.org/iana-stewardship-draft-transition-timeline-16jul15-en.mp3 [MP3, 8.32 MB]