S17 Proposal DAO Ops Budget Request - Integrated

[krrisis]

Thanks so much to all for the lively discussion under our proposal - while reading these I was nodding yes so many times. There is indeed a lot to solve with regard to DAO governance. The fact that so many Stewards are actively engaging under this post shows how much they care about our mission, and in all sincerity I can only say that this warms my heart, because we do too. This engagement also shows we are making progress: you are asking the hard questions, this is what DAO governance is all about.

Operating a DAO is tough, as DAOs are a new beast and we need to find answers to some of these questions collectively - this is not something just Gitcoin is struggling with, all DAOs are. As @owocki mentioned yesterday, ‘solving’ governance is probably as hard as sybil resistance. I’d even argue it’s much harder: it’s a key reason for why web3 is here, and it’s definitely why I am here.

DAO Ops’ Impact

So, with this intro let’s dive in further. Starting at the top with @griff’s comment as Jodi already responded to most of what is above.

@griff

I don’t think this DAO is operating at a high enough level, and a lot of it is because of legacy structural decisions that did not pan out.

@griff

There was an opportunity to reorganize the DAO to make it more efficient this last season and for some reason this process failed, tho it was in progress. I consider that a huge failure for this work stream to prioritize its core function over other opportunities.

I agree mostly with the above sentiment, and there’s a few things that come to mind.

First one I do want to highlight and I hope this does not come across as defensive: I disagree that we failed at reorganizing. I think we have made immense progress under very challenging circumstances, as our DAO has radically evolved over the past year, and so have we - all while being a driver of many of these changes throughout the DAO, as you can see above in our Milestone Report and previous ones, see at the top of the S16 and S15 requests. We have been at the service of the DAO, rolled with the punches, fired and hired, and we did this while constantly reducing our budget (as Jodi points out here) and taking on more responsibilities, with a smaller team than we started out with. This is of course not sustainable in the long run, and this is starting to show.

On legacy structural decisions, agree - the workstreams setup and the key governance elements were set up before DAO Ops even existed. Now we have CSDO and an internal decision making process, but even getting to an official purpose for CSDO and getting this ratified internally took a few seasons. Same on our Purpose and Essential Intents and many other key decisions. We also lost some valuable time along the way by having to rehire and restructure countless times in many areas, but hey, that comes with the territory.

On the past season: I agree we failed at passing a new budgeting process, and we should have prioritized this even more, as you point out Griff, and as Lunacat says here:

@Lunacat

But the fact that this quarterly budget process is still a thing is a massive failing of DAOops more broadly.

True. A lot of work was done here though, as you can revisit here, which included a solution to what you point out here @chaselb:

@chaselb

think it would be best for us to separate priority decisions (what we think we should focus on), from monetary decisions (how much we should spend on the work we’re doing)

So this is to be continued in the upcoming season. A very important note on this: it was a CSDO-level decision to stick with the current budgeting process one more round, as we are about to reorganize in S18, which will automatically resolve some of these tensions as it will increase granularity and the ease to say yes/no (more on this further down). This joint decision is one of the key reasons for our ‘failure’, but not the only one. We ourselves also recognized pieces were missing in this complex puzzle. On that note, this is a crucial call out. In comparison to other workstreams, DAO Ops is very often the catherder, but not per se the final decision maker when it comes to achieving its own(ed) outcomes.

On the level of Steward governance processes (very much interlinked), I share @DisruptionJoe’s sentiment that with Shawn we have some hardcore talent onboard to improve these and we already have, this is a major win only which started to materialize over the past season (so much coming up!).

All of this is however no excuse, we have to do better.

As mentioned, we need more focus, as @J9leger and @DisruptionJoe pointed out as well - we are doing too many things, which results in unsatisfactory solutions, or lack of time to properly execute projects within a season. We are currently picking up speed to move in the direction of thinner workstreams, as hinted at by @kyle in this post.

For S18 we are considering splitting up in two workstreams, one focusing solely on Governance, another one on Operations, which includes people operations, tooling and treasury management. This will most likely also come with some leadership changes, as we totally recognize our own shortcomings in managing these key DAO processes. None of this is set in stone, but already sharing our current thinking for transparency’s sake. We will heavily involve the Steward Council in our thought process (for changes to our and other workstreams). It is a work in progress and cannot happen overnight - we need our upcoming season for this - a lot will be discussed in person during our in-person Denver retreat, which is by the way also covered with this budget. And a lot has already been happening here - again, with deep strategic involvement of DAO Ops along the way, as Evan points out:

@epowell101

The DAO is splitting one of the 5 workstreams into 2 and transitioning another - FDD - out of existence. And of course, Moonshot was recently integrated into GPC. So by the end of this season, 3/6 of the workstreams from last Fall will have been reorganized - and at least DAO Ops (and I believe MMM as well) are each indicating they are preparing for an upcoming slimming down, the shifting of team members into product-focused workstreams, and so on. In short - the reorg is happening, with FDD acting as somewhat as a canary in the coal mine this season.

On the voting process

I can only nod here and agree - all of the below is fair and it’s massively inefficient:

@griff

The voting experience is basically,

1. Workstream leads spend countless hours putting together a budget and a plan.

2. Lots of people talk about it on the forum, many complain about the cost, many hours are wasted by all involved.

3. Workstream leads incorporate the feedback if they want and repropose.

4. More time wasted on the forum with everyone’s opinions.

5. Proposal goes up on snapshot… its yes/no and no one knows what would happen if the vote ends up as a “No”

6. Every major workstream passes it’s proposal and the process repeats 2 months later.

@chaselb

Like @griff is saying, there is no granularity. We either take everything as it is (with some edits as a result of forum discussion), or we vote no and bar the workstream from the entirety of its funding.

First point is what I mentioned above: we will be, and are rapidly evolving into thinner workstreams, which will make it easier to give more granular feedback, as you will have less to grok at one time. Next to this we are continuing to revisit and optimize all governance processes, both internally (CSDO) as well as on a Steward level and are heavily investing in Steward engagement (getting more of your expertise helps us - the Steward Council is just one step here). Reworking the budgeting process and ratifying this is a key outcome, as you can read above. I am very happy that CSDO decided not to pass the linked budget proposal, as it was doomed to fail. But I know we would be held accountable for this today, and this is okay, and fair.

I know none of these answers are ‘enough’, but we can only point out that we have increased our budget for governance, and it is our number one focus for this upcoming season. The upcoming structural changes to the DAO and increased focus on governance in and by itself will hopefully help to satisfy some of the questions here.

On what will happen if you vote no

@griff

Is it… I think there are reserves… And maybe some would get absorbed into other work streams…

Because we are making key decisions in Denver you will get news very soon on our reorg. So just not getting any budget right now would be highly disruptive. Our reserves will not be able to cover 3 months. One month is already used to cover one month of salaries, because we have a legacy delay in payouts cross-dao of one month (and yes, we know this needs fixing). So we have one month left, which can probably cover part of the monthly salaries, the expenses of our retreat. Things like Steward compensation, professional development and many other things will be paused.

On this:

@griff

I wish we had more options than battle it out in the forum and then yes/no.

As mentioned, thinner workstreams and an adapted budget flow will make yes/no’s less heavy and disruptive. We need those no’s, we need Stewards who are critical! And we need to discuss with Stewards on how to get there. This is why we have the Steward council, and more initiatives are coming.

Related to this:

@chaselb

Ideally, we would like the workstreams to have some idea well in advance if they are “on track” or not, as opposed to receiving that feedback all at once every quarter.

We now have (1) monthly steward calls where we update you on progress - and continue to ask for feedback on how we can make these more interactive, how we can make adjustments as you see fit, we have (2) a biweekly Steward Council plus ad-hoc check-ins with Stewards, and we welcome all feedback in between, we also have (3) monthly CSDO Digests in this forum and (4) we have our monthly DAO Digest, which we are - yet again - revamping in this upcoming season. All of these are meant to involve and engage you. It is however, as @ale.k also points out above important to keep this balance between defending our budgets and actually getting the work done. But we are listening.

So tl;dr - right now a no vote would mean that

1. a -either we rework the budget and cut some minor initiatives the top voters deem unnecessary and we repropose.
   b - we put up our budget on snapshot per initiative and pass what can get passed, rework the no’s.

2. we cut major initiatives and many things come to a screeching halt in the midst of a reorg, and we spend a few weeks to explain what the impact will be of these cuts, leading to increased inefficiency. We then re-propose and pass this budget.

3. or we decide to entirely stop DAO Ops - which means emergency mode for the entire DAO, for some of the reasons outlined by @ale.k and @epowell101 above, so I won’t repeat those (this response is getting very long ).

So we do hope our budget will be passed, ideally with no changes or minor ones - if you can let us know what to drop for this season. To be honest, this is not for the psychological safety of our contributors - although we do care, however as Stewards this is not your role - but because we have a lot lined up. Even if it’s not always visible, we are making massive progress, operational change on a decentralized level is hard. We’ve got work to do and thank you for the reminder.

Once again, all the criticism is valid, and welcomed. Both @Jodi and myself will happily jump on a call with any of you - @griff you have an unopened dm waiting for you, and a call scheduled with @J9leger later today.