As Season 0 (pre-Season) of the AN DAO comes to an end the ESD would like to provide a brief retrospective of the past 4 months from our perspective. We’ll try to keep it short in the hope at least some will read beyond this introduction.
What went well
As of 22 March, we have approved 6 funding requests by community members totalling ~200k USD equivalent. Over 40 community members have received compensation for their contributions to the Aragon Network. Progress of each initiative can be tracked in respective forum threads linked below.
We supported the community through a number of strategic and technology challenges. The work of the ESD would not have been possible without the proactive, operational support of @mheuer and @AlexClay from Aragon Association. We also recognise that a number of core and community members have gone above and beyond to help support the ESD and build critical traction and momentum for AN DAO.
Despite technical difficulties, we are happy to see contributors taking the initiative to resolve bottlenecks and urge for change. It is exciting to see community lead initiatives surfacing growth opportunities for our network.
What can we improve
Transparency: Establishing shared understanding is a prerequisite for coordination success, it requires transparency which is essential for contributors to be able to work together to propel the network forward. ESD should be an exemplary contributor to transparency across communication channels.
In our initial proposal, we aspired to provide monthly reporting and we did not deliver due to a lack of accountability and limited resources. Transparency remains a challenge and with the support of DAOps we will look to develop the following solutions during Season One (S1)
- Practical Notion space that enables contributors to understand how and why ESD decisions are made, including ESD meeting agenda and minutes.
- Budget transparency showing funds 1) committed by the Main DAO to ESD, 2) committed by the ESD to approved proposals and 3) the remaining uncommitted funds.
- Monthly ESD office hours where network participants can discuss questions and concerns
- Public governance Discord channel for the community to communicate with ESD members
Accountability: Transparency also requires accountability, which we recognise was missing season 0. While we have undertaken thoughtful deliberate action during Season 0, for greater accountability the ESD will
- set key performance indicators for S1 so that the community can better understand and hold us accountable.
- Provide concise reporting of KPI’s fortnightly in Discord
- Seek qualitative community feedback via office hours and pol.is survey (pending approval of funding for this).
Recommendation: Recognising that information overload does not equate to transparency we encourage all stakeholders to aid transparency by providing concise, accessible and relevant insights, in addition to data. We believe every funded proposal should aim to provide transparency into their work via Notion to ensure other participants can support or challenge their work.
Funding Allocation Process: We recognise the need not be afraid to say “no” because there will always be good ideas that are not the right fit. Equally, good ideas might have the wrong team to deliver for the Aragon Network. To aid transparency for the ESD funding the ESD:
- Present the ESD Statement: S1 Funding - Strategic Allocation, Requests & Reporting Process
- Update, enforce and provide additional avenues to access the ESD funding request template
Strategic Alignment: While steps have been taken to improve transparency - between the Aragon Association (AA) & Aragon Labs (AL) and the wider network - our contributor audience remains largely unaware of the strategies that the AA is pursuing as well as it’s objectives across key pillars - Tech, Product, Growth. The ESD will look to
- Continue to collaborate with the AA & AL to proactively forward requests for proposals across key network initiatives.
- Be more demanding with respect to transparency towards the other stakeholders in the Aragon Network.
We believe both the ESD and the community should be more vocal in demanding transparency. We also recognise that we are in a position to help communicate concerns to the AA & AL and we welcome community feedback on these matters via Discord
Contributor Compensation: Perhaps our greatest challenge during S1 was the timely release of contributor reward funding. It was only through the support of @AlexClay and @mheuer that any payments were made.
Our experience in S0 has highlighted the need for a simplified payment process. There is a technical error that is blocking USDC payments from Govern and for this reason, two multi sigs were used for payments in the last month of Season 0.
We also recognise that the monthly reporting in the forum should be a retrospective instrument and that our lack of accessible guidance here led to unnecessary administrative burden.
To be clear, for the assessment of deliverables (as mandated by the charter) the ESD seeks only a summary of activity related to deliverables with all further detail provided via Notion. The ESD will
- clarify the reporting process to mitigate reporting burden and
- propose and/or support changes to the way funding is released to ensure contributors are paid by the 15th of the following month.
Season 0 Approved Proposals
- Technical Support Guild Budget Proposal - December, 2021 and Q1, 2022
- Request for Funding: AN DAO Gitbook 1.0
- BD Learning Experiment - Laying the foundation for the future BD Guild
- Proposal For Community & Contributor Onboarding Research and Development
- Core DAO Operations - Funding proposal
- Request for Funding: The Umbrella Proposal ☂️
