[STDS-802-16] TGm organization
Folks,
I'd like to provide an update on how we'll be organizing TGm, which
will oversee the development of the P802.16m draft.
We had a number of volunteers who offered to serve in a leadership
capacity. I really appreciate these offers. We do need leadership in
all of our work, and leadership will require sacrifice.
As I see it, leadership is going to be particularly critical in the
case of TGm. We are undertaking a technically challenging project.
Furthermore, we have additional challenges because we are aiming for
a result that is acceptable by the ITU-R as an element of IMT-
Advanced. The ITU process, while not fully defined, will be
demanding. We will need to provide not only a standard but also
persuasive documentation to accompany it. It is also going to be
helpful to ITU-R if we deliver interim views during project
development. I think that, to address these problems, we should plan
to plan to develop supporting materials within TGm, as we proceed
with developing our draft standard. This way, the accompanying work
will be valuable to our own decision-making process as well as to ITU-R.
What this means is that TGm will end up with a lot of work on its
hands, and be a tight schedule. In my view, this is going to require
a more structured TG leadership organization than we have typically
used in the past. I want to place more emphasis on sub-TG activities
and overall project management. In the meantime, I want us to follow
along with some ideas learned from other organizations developing
similar standards, particularly those with ITU as a target.
In addition to developing a draft standard, we need to be developing
some additional documents. Two of these, for example, would be
technical requirements and evaluation criteria. In addition, I would
like to see us maintain documentation of the evaluation of our draft
against our own evaluation criteria. I do not see these documents as
static ones to be developed and frozen. For instance, even technical
requirements must be maintained with some flexibility. We may need to
adjust them as time goes by, perhaps because we need to accommodate
changes in the IMT-Advanced requirements. During a session, we may
need to consider comments against these supporting documents as well
as comments against the draft standard.
To keep this project on track, we will need a broad and engaged
leadership team. I want to go beyond the usual Chair/Vice Chair/
Secretary/Editor positions. I would like to see a team manage
individual activities while working together to set the direction and
planning of the whole project. I would like to see the leadership
actively engaged, between meetings, in moving the project forward.
The leadership team will, of course, exist to enact procedure, not to
make technical decisions.
At this time, I'd like to introduce the first few members of the
leadership team. First of all, I'm happy to say that Brian Kiernan
has agreed to stay on as TGm Chair. After his great service as chair
of TGa and TGe, there is no one better suited for this position.
Brian and I have discussed the many qualified members volunteering to
help out. We have decided to ask Carl Eklund to serve as Vice Chair
and Avi Freedman to serve as Secretary. We have spoken to them and
explained our ideas for a more organized project. They each recognize
the obligation and agree to pitch in. Mark Cudak has been serving
temporarily as editor of the Technical Requirements document. Mark
has agreed to stay on in a continuing capacity to manage the ongoing
evolution of this document. Each of these volunteers has agreed to
spend time working on the overall project management. We will, for
instance, be scheduling conference calls and other discussions among
the team to get it involved in identifying problems and solutions. I
plan to participate also.
We expect this leadership team to grow as we identify additional
needs. We have not yet identified a Chief Technical Editor for the
802.16m draft, and we hope to have some additional associate editors
of that document. In addition, we will be looking for editors of some
other supporting documents. The leadership team will be working to
identify needs and volunteers.
Leadership is a service role. The leadership team will be working to
serve Task Group m. If you have ideas, or if you want to volunteer
your time, talent, and energy, please let us know. If you find that
we are not optimally enabling technical progress, let us know as well.
Regards,
Roger
Roger B. Marks <r.b.marks@ieee.org>
Chair, IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access <http://
WirelessMAN.org>