ICANN59 Johannesburg

There is currently a wide variety of understandings about:
a) what ICANN's priorities are
b) who is responsible for establishing the priorities
Some sense of priorities is available from discussions with the ICANN Board, ICANN Staff, and from the Strategic and Operating Planning framework.
But they are all asserting different priorities, and as a result different audiences get different messages. The whole ICANN system (Board, staff, community) would benefit from clear priorities. There would be less risk of volunteer burnout, less confusion about what needs to be done, and less pressure on the ICANN organisation / ICANN staff to meet many and ever-growing needs, if there was an agreed understanding for how priorities are set.

Session goals and expected outcomes
Goal: to secure agreement from across the ICANN system about how to establish priorities for the organisation in future.
Expected outcomes:
o participants hear the different perspectives from Board, staff, community leaders about what happens today and what should happen
o community dialogue converges around an agreed approach, or exposes differences of opinion about how priorities should be set
o the community, staff and Board can then take account of this dialogue and continue it, or implement the consensus, whichever is applicable
. o Potentially an agreement to a single set of priorities that can be documented, including where the priority came from and when it was agreed.
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Staff Leader: Bart Boswinkel
Staff Facilitator: Bart Boswinkel