As part of the ongoing wave of strategy posts, Iāve opted to release a series of short posts with concrete recommendations I believe we should make to the workstreams in the GitcoinDAO. I see these proposals as refactorings - changes made to a system that keeps the public API (the essential intents / the DAOās contract with the outside world) of a system the same.
The Next GPC: Gitcoin Grants Stack and Gitcoin Passport
Tension:
GPC was set up as a functional silo: product, engineering, and design contributors in one workstream tasked to build all the DAOās new products and maintain the legacy products. Our budgets and outcomes often drive goals across the DAO (evidenced in recent requests that GPC produces a budget that other workstreams respond to). But, it is this interdependence with other workstreams that makes determining GPC effectiveness difficult and, in turn, makes it difficult to hold the workstream accountable.
Recommendation:
End the GPC, and split it into two independent budgeted workstreams. In addition to splitting the GPC, I would advocate that we make these end to end accountable as much as possible, bringing dedicated contributors into the workstream that were previously part of our cross-stream pod experiment.
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Gitcoin Grants Stack (estimated budget 300k / mo) WS Leads Nate and Ā½ Kevin
- Combine the Product, Design, and Engineering teams from Round Manager (Grant Protocol) and Grant Hub (Project Protocol).
- Continue to build the Grants Stack products, and the (newly named) Allo Protocol
- Include dedicated part-time or full-time Marketing, DevRel, and Support contributors
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Gitcoin Passport (estimated budget 150k / mo) WS Leads Kyle and Ā½ Kevin
- Encapsulate the Passport Pod into a single budgeted workstream
- Keep the Product, Design, and Engineering team from Passport the same
- Include dedicated part-time or full-time Marketing, DevRel, Support, and Data Science contributors
Considerations:
- Maintaining high standards, best practices, and a common culture for the Product, Design, and Engineering disciplines that are now split between workstreams.
I would hope to see communities of practice grow up around each of our disciplines, spanning workstreams, and to continue a culture of inter-team rotation. - Maintaining high standards, context, and community for the non-GPC Marketing, DevRel, Data Scientists, and Support team members that will be joining these workstreams.
Similarly to the point above, I hope to see internal communities forming organically around disciplines, and that these communities foster the environment for the development and dissemination of best practices. - Partial allocations to workstreams - Workstreams may not require a full-time team member for a given specialization.
I believe it is the workstreamās choice to find the right resource to fill these roles and should have the option to work with existing DAO contributors (sourcing with WS/CSDO help) or to look outside the DAO. - Further refactorings. The Grants Stack and the Gitcoin Protocol (name TBD) may have diverging metrics/goals and be better served as two independent teams.
This is being discussed, and I could see a recommendation for further defining these teams as workstreams coming forward during 2023 as our protocol integration footprint grows. - Payroll and Operational complexity have been a source of pushback in the past from DAOOps to the creation of new workstreams.
I would first acknowledge that I hold the opinion that the value of independent, thin, and outcome-oriented workstreams will be a net benefit over any operational efficiency that monolithic workstreams claim in the current DAO structure.
Tactically, I believe that these new workstreams can solve this through part-time allocations of GPCās existing operational roles.
Conclusion:
We have a lot of moving pieces in the GPC, and our responsibilities and focus are to ship the Stack/Protocol/Passport projects for the alpha rounds and prepare for launch at ETHDenver. Given that, I would recommend we do move forward with splitting our workstream, implementing budgeting and payroll changes to establish two workstreams. But, we do not make any changes to the way contributors organize and work until after ETHDenver.
As a steward and a workstream lead, I believe this is safe enough to try, and propose we move forward with splitting the GPC in the next budget cycle for S17.