[NCUC-DISCUSS] NomCom

Fri May 8 13:56:18 CEST 2020

Wolfgang,
Can you go into a little more details on what the concerns are about proceeding with virtual interviews? Many if not most firms are now back to a normal hiring pace with fully online hiring and interviewing practises, I dont think that of any community ICANN should be averse to doing the same.

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James Gannon
On 5/8/2020 12:54:31 PM, Raymond Mamattah <mamattah.raymond at gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Wolfgang for the well detailed report. This seems to be a lot of work but obviously. Keep up with the good works.

Regards
Raymond Mamattah

On Fri, May 8, 2020, 9:35 AM Wolfgang Kleinwächter <wolfgang at kleinwaechter.info [mailto:wolfgang at kleinwaechter.info]> wrote:

Hi,

as the NCUC Rep. in the 2020 NomCom, I want to give you an interim report, where we are with the NomCom process in difficult times. As you know, the work of the NomCom follows the principle of confidentially with regard to persons. But there should be as much as transparency with regard to process. 

1. We did have a good start in Montreal, November 2019. We got a general briefing, went through the needed paper work, were listen to the expections of the chairs of the various groups (Board, CNSO, GNSO, ALAC) and what they do expect from candidates, selected by the NomCom in 2020. As you now, the NomCom is totally independent and we do not accept "instructions" from the Board or other ICANN officials. However, it is important for the NomCom and its individual members to understand, what the problems and expectations are in the various groups (Board, ACs and SOs). We discussed also our methodology and the timetable for telcos as well as general principles for the final selection phase, as, inter alia, diversity (gender, geography, skills, age etc.). 

2. The Outreach was rather scuccesful. We got nearly 100 excellent candidates for all the seven positions (2 Board, 1 PTI, 1 CNSO, 1 GNSO, 2 ALAC/EU/NA) from all regions of the world. The majority applied for a board position. Unfortunmately, the number of candidates for the two ALAC position was below ten. Nevertheless, there are excellent experts among the small number of canddiates for the ALAC positions. With other words, no worry. We will get good people for the two ALAC positions. 

3. As for other parts of the ICANN Community, Covid-19 challenged also the NomCom plans and timetables. Our plan was to have a first substantial discussion about all the candidates in Cancun and a second F2F meeting end of April 2020 in Washington, D.C., to produce a "short list". All the meetings were cancelled. In a number of Telcos and after extensive consultations with the Board and ICANN Legal we developed an alternative plan with a number of options, moving the whole work - for the moment - into the virtual space with an endless chain of Zoom-Meetings. 

4. The first step was a virtual polling. We tried to produce "short lists" of candidates for all the bodies (Board, PTI, CNSO, GNSO, ALAC) via virtual discussion and polling and voting online. This was a two stage process. In the first round every NomCom member had to give a basic "red", "yellow" or "green" to all the candidates. The plan was to single out candidates, which do not have the basic qualifications, to serve in one of the offered positions. Candidates, who got a majority of "red", were eliminated from the process, unless one NomCom member intervened and argued in favour to keep the candidate in the process. For the remaining candidates we started a so-called "soft-dive" process. Each NomCom member got three to five applicants for a "soft dive" into the background, the qualifications, strengths and weaknesses of the individual candidates, based on the Application Form and additional sources as websearch etc. In a series of telcos (two peer week and three hours each) we discussed every individual candidate (about 20 - 30 minutes per candidate). At the end of the discussion we first had a polling (which included also the non-voting members of the NomCom). After the polling there was a second round of discussion, followed by a voting of the voting Nom-Com members. We are now nearly at the end of this round. Our aim is to have at the end a short list of about 14 candidates for the board and five candidates for all the other positions.

5. As far as I can see it now, we have really excellent candidates for all positions. This will make future work even more complicated. Formally, the next steps will be a "deep-dive" for the remaining candidates (two Nom-Com members have to report to the whole NomCom about the individual candidate), followed by personal interviews with the candidates who make it to the "shortend short list". The original timetable was, that the 2020 NomCom will make the interviews and its final selection at the meeting during ICANN Kuala Lumpur in June. But as we know, there will be no F2F meetings in KL.

6. At this moment, it is unclear how to proceed further. As all know, who served in a NomCom, in the final phase there is a need for very intense personal and interactive communication. The general political and personal climate within the 2020 NomCom is excellent and we have develop something what can be called a "team spirit", thanks also to the excellent leadership by Jay, Damon and Ole and very engaged individual NomCom members. However, it is difficult to imagine, how we can get to a consensus in a online proceeding without a final F2F meeting. There are discussions between the NomCom leadership team and ICANN Legal, what options we have. According to the bylaws we have to announce the final selection two months before the Annual Meeting (scheduled for October 2020 in Hamburg). We have to announce the selection in the second half of August. There is a need for six weeks for due dilligence between our final selection and the final green light. With other words, we have to make our final decision end of June. How this can be achieved is an open question at the moment.

I will keep you informed as soon as we have more clarity.    

Best wishes and stay safe.

Wolfgang

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