Request for funds Season 1: Learning & Experimentation Squad Proposal

@lee0007 @fartunov @daniel-ospina - Please see the revised proposal

Summary

We are requesting from the ESD a total funding of $ 44,000 for Season 1.

We are proposing the creation of the Learning and Experimentation squad with a focus on improving and sharing the knowledge of AN DAO’s operating culture, around the use of advice processes, context sharing/switching, knowledge transfer rituals and peer-to-peer learning. For Season 1, we are proposing the following 3 objectives:

  • Learning frameworks for experimenting the emergent community needs - 20 hrs
  • Develop new learning content & processes: mentorship program - 20 hrs
  • Maintain and evolve the Aragon Handbook - 10 hrs per week

Rationale

We are in a crucial growth phase of the AN DAO: to advance the cause of coordination, the community needs to feel the confidence to connect, collaborate and create, regardless of the hectic evolution of web3. Amongst others, the current challenges we can signal are: reduce anxiety in the proposal process and mechanism, clear access to working groups or squads to co-create, enhance governance coordination between different teams ( AA, ESD, AN DAO).

We believe DAO is not about competition but cooperation. The latter needs spaces and clear learning principles that match the experimental context in which the DAO community and network can thrive, from the bottom up, to shape a resilient organisational learning.

Part of the solution to successfully grow our community will be to ensure that our Operating Culture is clear and easily accessed. It is about how we go about business, how we interact with each other inside a squad, how squads interact with each other and their guild as well as other organisms within the DAO, such as the ESD and DAO Steward. Finally, we also need to consider how we capture the individual learnings and transform them into collective lessons for the entire DAO.

Objectives

The scope of the objectives will develop under the following areas:

  1. Learning frameworks for experimenting the emergent community needs - 20 hrs
  2. Develop new learning content & processes: mentorship program - 20 hrs
  3. Maintain and evolve the Aragon Handbook - 10 hrs per week

1. Learning frameworks for experimenting the emergent community needs

Time commitment: 20hrs per week
Accountability: Renzo, Fabs
Close collaboration: Ben, Michael, Renee.

Objective

Engage the community with the problem space to acquire a shared language and understanding. Reveal unforeseen issues and establish a learning environment for continuous improvements. We want to uncover learning frameworks to navigate towards a progressive decentralisation. We want to set up a transparent space to facilitate stakeholders (SubDAOs,guilds,contributors and ambassadors) alignment to overcome the challenges the whole AN DAO network is facing. E.g. what governance is and its value.

Alignment

The successful fulfilment of this objective will bring a new level of awareness, creating a valuable glue to hold the community together. We will align with the Umbrella initiative to explore how to embed the cultural impact of communication, emotional management, and governance research.

Deliverables & KPI

Month 1 - A Learning Framework for Proposal process
The objective of this period is to Connect with the Community at a deep level. We have identified ‘Proposal Process’ as the starting point. It means gathering feedback from the people who went through the Season 0 proposal journey to highlight the positive aspects and suggest how it could be made better and remove friction.

Deliverable: Depth Interviews with key individuals and groups about their experiences and a Report.

Month 2 - Investigation into Progressive Decentralisation
AN DAO Governance model: as of today this space is uncertain and significant exploration is necessary. In order to explore this topic, we need first to identify the key stakeholders and develop their ‘Entities-Role-Portrays’* and inner motivations. This will then help design supporting learning services to unlock value flows in the AN DAO by pinpointing key inter-relationships at the heart of AN DAO operation efficiency.

*‘Entity-Role-Portrait’: to investigate the motivations and challenges of key stake-holders in the execution of their responsibilities and duties.

Deliverable: a report on the ‘Entity-Role-Portraits’ as a guide to developing a robust set of Mission, Values and Vision of the AN DAO and its community.

Month 3 - Experiment in Peer-to-Peer Learning
Showcase the operating culture in the first implementations of a self-sustaining with a Decentralised Unconference: We will steward an event in which we can evolve the peer to peer learning process of how to transform individual learning into collective learning. The content will focus on the learnings from the Proposal process, AN DAO Governance, as well as the learning from the DAO Steward, AA, People Guild, Ops Guild, Finance and Tech.

Deliverable: a AN DAO Season Event, the Decentralised Unconference.

Month 4 Deliverable: Reports on all learnings of the Season’s activities

2. Develop New Learning content: Mentorship program

Time commitment: 20hrs per week
Overall Mentorship lead: Shawn, Aaron

Supported by: Renzo and Fabs

Depending on Approval of the Community Experience Proposal

Objective

For Season 1, working in collaboration with Community Experience, we will develop the Mentorship program. The role of Community Experience is to lead this objective, to kick off the process and potentially recruit mentors, while Learning and Experiments will be a resource, identifying and creating any content that will be needed for the program to succeed. This is to strengthen the operating culture around the use of advice process, knowledge transfer rituals which are all very valuable community learning.

Alignment

AN DAO cannot exist and fulfill any purpose without a thriving, informed and effective community. The Mentoring program will ensure that new contributors and members to the DAO have the support to feel welcome and to contribute to the best of their talents.

Deliverables & KPI

Month 1 - Experiential learning discussion:
With the Community & Experience, we will create a practice of initiation of learning and collect feedback. A small group of learners are to connect based on their level of knowledge. We want to offer a space for participants for their path towards self-agency.
Deliverable: Fortnightly Community call with mentees starting in June

Month 2 - Workshops as training sessions
Investigate mentees’ needs to identify topics and connect with the Mentors. We want to build confidence in learners and enable them to become self-directed. Collaborate weekly with Community Experience and the Umbrella initiative to create a series of Season 1 workshops for the community.
Deliverable: Monthly (Two workshops in total)

Month 3 - Setting up the mentors
Recruiting mentors and empowering them to develop relationships with mentees. Introducing a framework for mentors to deliver their impact with the community of learners.
Deliverable: Start of the Mentor Education Material Repository.

Month 4 - Mentorship plan ready for testing
Launch the MVP of the program while supporting the mentors more closely and finalize the information needs. Also, develop the final central location where mentors can find information and deliver against their objectives.
Deliverable: Publishing of the Mentor Education Material Repository

Please find here a detailed plan of action for the Mentoring project as a whole (Mentorship Planning - Google Docs).

3. Maintain and evolve the Aragon Handbook

Time commitment: 10 hrs per week
Accountability: Communication Squad

Objective

In the web3 world everything moves at a very fast pace which can make things quickly obsolete. In order to avoid this we should maintain learning resources we have built up to date so that they continue to provide value to the community and help all contributors to reach a desired level of agency in the DAO.

  • Create a collaboration with the Growth Squad to hand over the content of an improved Handbook and setup the ongoing maintenance of this content.

Alignment

Connecting with the Growth Squad is fundamental for the future of the Handbook. This document is foundational to AN DAO, it ensures a consistently good level of knowledge for all contributors from the start, aiding in their contribution being more valuable and in delivering their best work to achieve the objectives of the AN DAO. The Handbook is needed as AN DAO is attracting an enthusiastic, yet generally inexperienced type of contributor right now.

Deliverables

Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4
Handbook Maintenance v.1.1 - editorial review of content
- Capture and report all locations Handbook should be accessed Assess document and update content to complete v1.1 Assess & Report S1 update requirements Completing Handbook V2
And report

Team information

Core contributors

Renzo - Learning Squad Steward

Commitment: 30 hrs per week

Launched the DAO Academy working group and delivered the Handbook Aragon in Season 0. As a strategic researcher, facilitator and designer the focus is on the adoption of Web3 impact for organizations, communities and individuals. My trajectory is to keep learning and expanding to empower the community in the AN DAO as well as in the wider ecosystem.
www.changetheriver.org

Fabs - core contributor

Commitment: 15 hours per week

Fabs’ experience and skillset with research will aid the squad with both qualitative elements as well as quantitative elements. Qualitatively Fabs will add analysis, interviews and reporting. Quantitatively, Fabs will help to develop measurements to the experiments’ success as well as finding ways to quantify the performance. https://linkedin.com/in/fabsmartins

Additional contributors

We have designed our process to welcome new contributors who will expand the team’s diversity and enhance our team deliverables.This will be done with bounties for tasks.

Foreseeable limitations and risks

The following possible limitations and risks have been identified:

  • Limitation of internal resources to accomplish the deliverables on time.
  • Difficulty in displaying the impact of learning metrics for individuals and the organisation.
  • Lack of participation to the workshops and events due to a potential clogged Aragon calendar

Funding Information:

For static compensation, the ESD will make direct transfers to wallets of Core Members:

  • $ 4,000/month split 70:30 (USDC:ANT) -

Renzo D5#3503 - 0x489aDd7680605f6Fc4806595CD75E65D7F1675Eb

  • $ 2,000/month split 70:30 (USDC:ANT)

Fabs#8423 - 0xbF0f24fD34bC76CD6d8Eb37cc99d4477ed3a98FB

70% Stable / 30% ANT Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Completion Bonus Total
Renzo 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 2,000 18,000
Fabs 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 10,000
Other contributors 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 12,000
Tools 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 4,000
Total 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 44,000

Please see here appendix for more info: Notion page

8 Likes

Hey @Sixto5

I love that you have this vision to foster a culture of learning and experimentation. We are all learning here and at times it feels to me like one big experiment, which is part of what I love about web3. There’s a lot to unpack here so I’ll start from the top

I am FOR a culture of learning. But what exactly are you proposing we should be learning about? In my experience we all have different interests, different ways of learning and operate at different levels of the learning journey.

RESEARCH: I expect you want to apply research to identify learning topics, amongst others subjects…

Can you expand a bit please on why you believe research is needed? Rather than say simply focusing our learning around the DAO technology/products and use cases we are here to support. Please advise

  • What type of research?
  • Qualitative & quantitative?
  • How long do you intend the research to take (hours) in order to identify S1 learning opportunities
  • How would you prioritise learning opportunities?
  • When do you expect the learning within the community to begin?

ESD have already requested information

So ahead of funding strategy and deeper exploration I’m looking for specific tactics, timeframe and budget to refine the Gitbook. While you delivered successfully on the previous proposal for Gitbook v.1.0 the current handbook requires imo a professional editorial review. I would recommend a 4-8 hr bounty for someone to review and edits to make the language more clear and simple. It may be that I am underestimating the work required

I would recommend your focus be to refine and share/embed the current handbook before developing any new content, let’s get v2.0 delivered

I simply do not understand the purpose or value of this objective. What is this information intended to inform? We operate in such a fast changing environment that before you even finish mapping workflow and skillsets I imagine will have changed/advanced. Rather than doing everything, is there maybe one working group or common skillset you could focus on to explain how that will deliver value?

Develop collective learning processes and mechanisms Capture learnings and synthesise them through processes and mechanisms are a crucial part of the experiments to test and implement in the AN DAO. Squads and working groups will benefit from setting a collective knowledge coordination approach.

Confused again. Can you provide some specific processes or mechanisms that you want to test S1 and wrap some timelines and deliverables around them?

DELIVERABLES & KPI’s

Ok this I understand and the problem I see is there’s no clear delineation of responsibility nor milestones for the deliverables outlined. So as they stand here’s my position at todays date

-----A-----
NO: Implementing mentor program = @Shawncubbedge proposal therefore can not be a funded deliverable for this team, nor the review
DOUBTFUL: Running & reporting of S1 Survey = better suited to data & insights. If it is a shared undertaking you need to clarify the split across teams for budget and time
YES to delivering updated handbook v2.0, maintenance strategy should take at most 1 hour

-----B------
NO

-----C-----
POSSIBLE: Requires clarification of deliverables. Survey and activity reports are insufficient deliverables considering you are talking about activities. What activities & wen?

-----D-----
NO: Not a deliverable of this proposal it expected you’re working towards a S2 proposal but we are funding proposed deliverables, not proposed proposals

2 Likes

This is important, and I highly recommend orientating this proposal to serve this purpose cc @harry

Thanks @lee0007 for the important and detailed feedback.

The proposal need a revamp with clearer deliverables. We will try our best to share a new proposal next week.

ESD General Meeting Monday 18 April UTC 1900: We are keen to see this team continue to deliver impact for AN DAO in learning, research and analysis. This proposal currently lacks the impact and SMART deliverables that we require to agree to funding. At this point the proposal requires significant work to the extent that a final funding decision will rollover to 2 May 2021.

cc @daniel-ospina @fartunov

1 Like

To clarify this point. They will not be implementing the mentor program. However, Community Experience will be collaborating with L&E to identify and create any content that will be needed for the program.

1 Like

Thank you for the detailed proposal.

I find it very challenging to follow through what’s the impact of the initiative.

“Design topics by responsiveness to build confidence in learners and enable them to become self-directed. Collaborate with Community Experience and the Umbrella initiative to create workshops for the community.”

Sounds like running in-house personal development for some community members. While it’s a noble pursuit, it seems like learning can have a substantially more impactful role within the network across product and service initiatives that have been shared with the community (cc @Harry)

Develop and maintain learning resources and content

Can you elaborate on this. I understand that @lion917 is doing quite a lot on the knowledge management in the AN DAO. This sounds either overlapping or incremental to these efforts.

Please note the two above are just some examples of ambiguity, not the sole specific questions

Please adhere to the 750 word limit on funding requests

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@fartunov can we clarify please where the reference to 750-word limit is please. Would you like to have it added to ESD Statement: S1 Funding Strategy - Allocation, Process & Reporting

1 Like

Thank you @fartunov for your input and for expanding the dialogue.

@lee0007 Renee feedback could help to display better SMART deliverables. With yours, we keep learning the strategic direction of the ESD.

In the last three weeks of work for this proposal, we experienced a discrepancy between community building goals and strategic (GTM) goals. As an example, an available documentation of the six use cases of the Aragon app would help a lot. Also, it is the first time we read about a 750 word limit on funding requests.

We consulted documentation such as ‘host the party’, yet, we did not capture a strong input and evidence on how the maturity of the Aragon App could connect the learning approach of this proposal.

Regarding Lion, with his precious work of the redesign the Discord channel and the bounties board, he delivers value in distributing and using some knowledge. If this is knowledge management, we look and aim for building and enabling knowledge, creating space for peer-to-peer learning. Please see the above Arc model.

Right now we are in the process of gauging our capabilities and priorities, for a potential three months time, to focus on community building, GTM goals, or both if possible, by answering this question I am sharing here openly:

How might the deliverable of research and practical knowledge of vertical use cases lead to a community evolution and awareness, peer-to-peer learning with the opportunity to join AN DAO and become an active learner , contributor and maybe a DAO creator?

The process of rebuilding the proposal framework without fluid access to insights has been an important teaching. So if communication is coordination, we believe this process will support the entrepreneurial impact of proposals in the future in any case.

You could establish an environment for peer-to-peer learningthrough an approach informed by the three principles of the ARC model

Agency :initiate and accelerate self-direction through workshops and community events
Responsiveness: adapt and diagnose the learning environment through applied research and tooling
Connectivity : expand the network of learning by connecting community members and “intermediate builders” to facilitate the exploration of DAO use cases

Use case research will help inform both “intermediate builders” and the community about the Aragon App which is the technology we are here to build.

My question to you @Sixto5

What Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant and Timebound ways might use case research develop practical knowledge that leads to product evolution and awareness, peer-to-peer learning with the opportunity to join AN DAO and become an active product supporter and possibly DAO creators?

It’s part of the template , but will add in process as well :wink:

ESD General Meeting 2 May 2022 UTC 1900: We did not find consensus on the impact of the proposed deliverables in terms of network growth proportionate to the proposed investment of time and funding. Our position on deliverables are as follows

  1. Maintain and evolve the Aragon Handbook (10 hrs p/wk): We would strongly encourage the DAOOps team @anukriti10 @lion917 to fund a S1 bounty or coordinape circle to continue work on maintaining the handbook applying the well defined process proposed above

  2. Mentorship program: Majority consensus is that we will not fund the development of the mentorship program S1. The community team has been asked to pivot to focus on DAO Experts program.

  3. Learning frameworks for experimenting the emergent community needs: There are some strong focus areas identified

  • Proposal Process Report
  • Stakeholder Identifications
  • Unconference

In our experience, these deliverables fall well short of requiring 240 hours and $17,000 of deliverables but they are absolutely of value to the DAO and would like to see them funded in collaboration with other teams

cc @fartunov @daniel-ospina