Role of the Director

Context

Sir Tim spending less time with W3C, will likely step down at some point
Reality and the process document today are not exactly aligned:
- Many things in the Process are mechanical: no decision, but claimed to be done under the authority of the director
- Other things in the Process do involve some decision / judgement call, but have been delegated to the Team
W3C working on becoming a Legal Entity

The Director (formally) makes all decisions, all announcements, appointments (e.g. TAG and IEs), hears Formal Objections, is Chief Architect, etc.
Assumes that the Director is all of: a manager (of the consortium), a politician (relationship to hosts, other bodies), a spokesperson (speaking out), an architect (chairing and appointing to the TAG), …
Sir Tim has unique status as the inventor of the world-wide-web, is irreplaceable
(he also has a unit of speaking-rate named after him, the TimBL).

“Benevolent Dictator” model rare in standards bodies, trade associations…

Despite the strong powers he has, Tim has hardly been “dictatorial” anyway

AB has considered alternatives for when Sir Tim resigns:

“No-change”: Hire another Director
“Director-light”: Hire another Director, with reduced powers/responsibilities, subject to more oversight (e.g. by the Legal Entity board)
“Director-free”: Move to a structure and process which do not have a Director

Many on the AB preferred “Director-free”

Even those that did not, agreed that it was worthwhile to explore and see if anything breaks.

AB currently studying this, and has a draft for discussion (not yet proposed for adoption)

Currently focusing on governing documents

(there are other questions. E.g. who does the Team turn to for advice and direction on tough calls?)

Governing documents:

All except the first get re-written for legal entity anyway

Working through the document
Not found any show-stoppers yet
Not yet had the time to go through some of the harder cases
Nor have done the ‘what if this had been the process’ with any historical actual cases

Cross-referential (e.g. “… the Director’s decision…” where the fact that he decides is defined elsewhere): → Delete redundant mentions of the Director
No decision involved (e.g. “The Director must announce…”): → Change to “The Team”

“Managerial” powers reassigned to the CEO or someone that the CEO delegates to (mostly operational or disciplinary):

Responsibility for web architecture → the TAG

Keep Tim on the TAG for as long as he wants to
Drop the automatic seat for the non-Tim non-existent other Director
Drop the Director-appointed seats (c.f. 2.4.1)… and replace with?
- option a: elected seats
- option b: seats appointed by the elected members
- option c: seats appointed by the chair
Who appoints the Chair(s) of the TAG?
- option 1: the Team
- option 2: the elected members
- option 3: BoD
- bonus question: Chair must be an elected member?

Currently the AC can appeal any Director decision

→ allow an AC appeal for any formal Decision, take the appeal result as the revised Decision

For Group/Chair decision appeals, handle like Formal Objection (see next slides)

Decision boards need a fair, clear, but streamlined process to be credible and vendor neutral resolvers of objections

AB and TAG do not yet have sufficient experience with that

→ AB plans to develop guidelines to be used for formal objections to assure the reality and perception of fairness and due process.

(not yet approved by AB in detail)

the Team triages, assembles the right people, information…
if the team can settle it so that the FO is withdrawn, the matter ends there
otherwise, the Team proposes a possible resolution to an Objection Decision Committee
- Composed of: AB+TAG+CEO
- Decides by 67% supermajority of non recused members; endorse the proposed resolution, or go for further consideration
- recusal: required of those directly involved, available for those who may reasonably be perceived to be directly involved

Questions?