Given the compressed timelines, along with the assumption that the subset of projects that will participate in each iteration will be smaller that the usual "big bang" in June, I'm going to change how we determine dates for things like CQ, and IP Log deadlines, and timing of release reviews.
Here's what I propose:
The CQ submission deadline for third-party dependencies will be at the end of Week 1 of the 13 week release cycle. The IP Team will, naturally, do their best to accommodate exceptions.
Project teams that are contributing new content (i.e. a major, minor, or service release) should create a release record before the end of week 3. This is, effectively, the opt-in deadline for any particular cycle. We have some related bugs open regarding how we declare and track participation; addressing these needs to be part of a larger discussion of what we're tracking and why. Note that the IP Team has started using the dates on release records as part of their planning/prioritization; specifying release dates early really helps with this.
We'll time the Release Reviews (for major and minor releases; reviews are not required for service releases) to use the slot that's closest to the actual release date. Reviews are run on the first and third Wednesdays of the month (which is the same as the GA date in the 2018-09 iteration). IP Logs will be due two week ahead of this.
I will periodically run a scan of the aggregate repository to ensure that all of the third party content there has been properly vetted by the IP Team and raise a flag as early as possible when I detect something. This should, hopefully, avoid surprises at release time.
Voice your concerns soon, please.