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2 Comments
Judith Hellerstein
I have read the finance and planning documents and they are an update to the ones that were sent earlier. However, many of our questions and comments on the first draft of the planning documents that we had issued back in August are still applicable. They really have not been addressed.So possibly we can summarize those proposal here with some new info.
We have the long list of 16 objectives but no prioritization of these objectives.
We said back then that the ALAC/At-Large community proposes a listing of priorities and statements on the impact of each project on ICANN org and on each of the unique ACs and SOs. This would be helpful, in the context of a vast number of ICANN org projects. If At-Large were aware of ICANN org priorities, it would help the community reshape our agenda to become more in line with the ICANN org workflow. It would give us an idea of which issues we need to emphasize, should we feel an issue is extremely critical. Without an understanding of the priority of each of ICANN project, it is difficult for the community to respond and advocate effectively.
The ALAC/At-Large community believe if the community is more aware of priority ranking of projects or has collaborated with ICANN org on priority ranking
For example, in At-Large, ICANN IT staff had built an automated email translation services to enable regular communications and interactions within LACRALO, particularly within policy work. This type of service should be expanded to other languages but we cannot do that since money is not allocated for thsi. We encourage ICANN Org to provide the appropriate level of resources to ICANN IT to allow for exploration, testing and support of such resources to ensure that the service that is eventually provided is not only robust and reliable, but also fit for purpose.
It would also be helpful if ALAC/At-Large had a better idea of what specific items were included in non-discretionary funding and the total amount of budget they consume. This would give all constituencies a better idea of the priorities and how much of the budget is spent on these items. The community would also benefit from more information about the prioritization of items in the discretionary funds.
Another point to stress is that there is no breakdown of what is included in Professional Services. From a meeting with the Planning and Budget team in Marrakech we learned that the IT personnel who set up all the meetings and take down and package all the IT equipment that is shipped from meeting to meeting are not employees but consultants paid out of personal services and so are hidden from view. When cutting staff this is not seen in any of the headcounts.
Marita Moll
Hi Judith.
This is a huge (360pgs) document and I am not sure which 16 objectives you are talking about. There are operating initiatives (starting at p15) and functional activities (starting at p.225). This all seems pretty well though out and don't know where we might propose changes. Would your concerns fit into "functional activities – community engagement and services (p.260) or "functional activities – ICANN.org shared services (p. 309). I think, when suggesting changes, one has to be specific..
If your concern is around prioritizing the kind of work that ends up in our corner – policy issues, requests for comments, advice to Board, etc. This is one of the items on the list of issues to be dealt with in the MS evolution process. So it would fit into that part of the discussion..
On the whole, this document looks pretty well thought out. It would take someone with a whole lot more experience than I have in the way the market is evolving to do a dissection of the financial projections – are they realistic? There will be those who want to question the head count (410) – is this too many for an organization that might not be in a major growth stage. It is along these lines that I think we should be placing our energies in commenting on this document.