Introduction
Following a need for more product and engineering autonomy coming out of the near-liquidation of the FLI products, the PWG introduces Pods: cross-WG execution units with ownership over product lines.
Beginning with the Automated Indices Pod [prev: Leverage Indices Pod] covering all our leverage index products, the format led to the creation of the Composite Indices Pod [prev: Simple Indices Pod]as well to cover all of our simple indexes like DPI, MVI, BED, etc.
Initially managed by PWG, leaders emerged from these pods who were able to lead the pods independently.
- Automated Indices Pod: @afromac
- Composite Indices Pod: @DocHabanero
In order to increase the output of the PWG, we are handing off more autonomy and responsibilities to these Pods. While doing that, we want to make the communication channels clear for other community members for how to work with the PWG, and the product Pods.
Areas of responsibilities
Moving into the future, the scope of the Pods is going to expand to include:
- Sourcing methodologists
- Onboarding products from ideation to launch
- Product maintenance [liquidity, parameters]
- Stakeholder communication within and outside the coop
- Growth and content strategies
Core PWG contributors will be providing feedback and support to the Pod Leads, but will focus on broader questions like:
- Conducting hand-offs
- Defining key roles and responsibilities [methodologists]
- Fee negotiation standards
- Internal methodologist strategies
- Budgeting
- The formation of new pods as needed
- Leveling up the Coop’s product skills
- Roadmap synthesis with engineering WG
- Relationship with technology partners like Set Labs
Delegating execution and product line strategy to Pods gives them more autonomy to iterate and deliver, increasing the overall product output of the PWG, and giving PWG leaders the opportunity to focus on higher-level step function increases.
Do note that the Pods are made up of members from a wide swath of working groups. They are able to tackle a wider swath of responsibilities because they have members from BD, Growth, Engineering, Analytics, etc. representing each WG’s strength and strategic priority.
Working with the PWG - what it means for the community
Cormac and Miles will serve as the source of truth for any information over the product lines that they serve, including:
- Information on the product onboarding process
- State of the roadmap
- Initial review of new product ideas and methodologist
- Status of existing conversations
Currently, the Automated Indices Pod is responsible for:
- ETH2x-FLI
- BTC2x-FLI
- In pipeline: iETH and FLI suite expansion
And the Composite Indices Pod is responsible for:
- DPI
- MVI
- DATA
- In pipeline: YHI, PAY, LDD, iROBOT, JPG
Any new products that would like to be introduced into the product onboarding process needs to go through them. Any questions or suggestions around existing products need to go to the relevant Pod first.
The Pod leads may assign DRI’s within their pod to work on certain aspects of the product onboarding process and will make any decision-making clear and transparent to the rest of the community.
Any broader topics with implications across product lines can be handled by @Cavalier_Eth with assistance from Punia when necessary.
Concluding thoughts
We are incredibly excited to start implementing these structural changes! We’re at the bleeding edge as to how DAOs manage product and engineering complexities and we think this new structure will be a massive increase in the capabilities of our organization.
Some of the tools we are using to achieve this:
- Unified Product notion board with Product Status tracker
- PWG Leaders weekly meeting
- Standup with PWG members and Pod Leads
Please give us feedback on how we can improve more going forward, we know there is more that we should be doing, and we want to get better.
