Additional Background Information
With a TSC size of 15, it is sometimes difficult to reach quorum which hinders the ability for the TSC to conduct its duties. Therefore it has been suggested that OPNFV adopts a practice which has shown to be effective in other TSCs: the reduction of the total count of members required for quorum based on past history of attendance, or in other words participation in TSC meetings is required in order to maintain quorum status
The guidelines is as follows:
- Each TSC member is counted towards the total required to achieve quorum.
- If a TSC member or their appointed proxy is not present for two successive meetings, their seat shall no longer count towards the total required to achieve quorum at the next TSC meeting.
- Voting rights are not affected by this policy. A member who was not counted towards quorum may join the meeting and participate without any conditions attached.
- Attendance to a meeting reinstates that member's position as counting towards quorum.
- As quorum should always be > 50%, if the total count is an even number, quorum will be rounded up by one. Example if the total is 12 members, quorum shall be 7.
- Recording of attendance and quorum requirements is the responsibility of the TSC Vice Chair or other approved members as needed.
Example Scenario
The current number of TSC members is 15, meaning quorum is 8.
Week 1:
- Members A, B are not present.
- Quorum remains at 8/15.
Week 2
- Members A, B are still not present.
- Quorum remains at 8/15 for Week 2. Quorum for Week 3 is reduced to 7/13, regardless of Week 3 attendance.
Week 3
- Members A, B are still not present, meaning they have missed the past 2 meetings, so this policy is now in effect.
- Quorum is reduced to 7/13.
Week 4
- Member B is present, so their position is reinstated regarding quorum
- Quorum goes back to 8/14 on week 5.
13 Comments
Georg Kunz
I support this. One remark: implementing this policy requires detailed tracking of attendance and a review of the current totals and quorums as part of every TSC meeting. Does that need to be stated here or is that obvious?
Just one thought about practicability: I somehow feel that IRC is a bit cumbersome for keeping track of attendance because we have to go back to 2 past meeting minutes. Shall we maintain a global table in Confluence for keeping track of attendance? Is there are better tool? Or is this not a problem at all?
Al Morton
I too support the intent of this policy, and like Georg Kunz , observe that managing the "moving target" Quorum threshold calculations, especially when the calculation changes if a TSC member joins late, could take-up more TSC meeting time than we want.
Fortunately, I see a possible fix for this "Dynamic Quorum Threshold" problem. Using Mark's example:
Week 2
. . .
Week 4
So, the last thing we do on the TSC meeting wiki is list TSC members absent on a line underneath the just-completed agenda, and use these lines to compute the quorum threshold for the following week, plus add it to the agenda so that there is no question as we begin. I think that helps with practicality, but the process requires work and I'm concerned about the benefit (especially as we move ahead with a more attendance-conscious TSC, and a clear Proxy Policy)!
sunku ranganath
For this proposal of quorum to be successful we surely need a person to track and regularly indicate the quorum or lack of.
Can the voting text be updated with the info of who would be taking notes and tracking every week?
Most likely we would end up spending good amount of time discussing the right person to track. It would be good to continue voting once the person/persons responsible for voting have been determined.
Would it be on volunteer basis or would there be a dedicated person or would it be the PM? Would like us to be as clear & simple as possible.
Mark Beierl
Quorum, or lack thereof, is always noted in the minutes. I think adding the responsibility to the role of vice chair makes sense for the voting text.
Also, once we decide if we as a TSC want to proceed with this, then we can formalize the details of the procedure for tracking. Like, let's see if this is a desired direction, then spend the effort to finalize the procedure with a #agree.
Mark Beierl
Agreed that we need to revisit our overall minute taking. We as a TSC did also approve the use of recording technology, but have yet to action it.
To the more practical point: Confluence does have a Meeting Minutes template that I used to use for StorPerf (see StorPerf Meeting Notes) and that template allows for recording of attendees, as well as agenda and minutes all in one. Perhaps we should move from the "single page for the entire year" model to a page per meeting and use the meeting template instead?
I think that might just be a #agree, or maybe it is easier to format it here as an "offline vote" so I can write up what it would look like and folks will have a chance to see how it can be used.
Mark Beierl
And I would suggest that the duties for tracking, if implemented, would fall to the vice chair
sunku ranganath
This might have been discussed possibly, which I might have missed - What is the flip side of not establishing the quorum requirements?
Has there been a major negative side effect in the past that we proceeded with a meeting when a quorum was reached?
Asking only to understand the full picture.
Mark Beierl
To quote the charter:
There have been times when quorum was not reached. As an example two weeks ago during the LFN Dev & Test Conference in Prague we were not able to make decisions about moving forward with the TSC chair.
sunku ranganath
Thanks Mark.
Frank Brockners
How do we deal with typical vacation periods (especially "European-style" vacations where a significant portion of the TSC could disappear for 4 weeks.
Would we schedule "hard" decisions during that time, so that we could have only 5/10 voters to achieve quorum? Not sure....
Mark Beierl
That should be covered by the Anti Trust Policy. Secondly, there are proxies which can be used for extended absences. I don't think anyone is planning a coup while others are on vacation.
Cedric Ollivier
Sorry Mark to fully disagree. Proxy doesn't work so well for the common Holidays and it would also ask for the whole vote list in advance (3-4 weeks).
Cedric Ollivier
Yes I second Frank's points. I consider that OPNFV management hasn't taken into account the European holidays (see this vote during Winter holidays or the OPNFV version released 1rst of May).
Without diving into the TSC eligible criteria and the current contribution stats, only a few people could quickly decide for the community. We are moving away from the meritocratic model.
I would rather encourage inactive TSC members (in the Community and in the TSC meetings) to free their seats.