continued here due to the word cap in a single forum post…
6.4 Innovation Lab
6.4.1 What is the Innovation Lab?
The “Innovation Lab” is a dedicated group responsible for supporting and funding micro initiatives and new ideas which fall outside our WG structure. It will also seek grant funding for Index Coop initiatives from across the space.
6.4.2 Core Responsibilities
Core responsibility will include…
- Support the growth, development and funding of new initiatives or ideas which don’t strictly fall within the remit of an existing WG, or cannot be covered within their budget.
- Support the leaders of new initiatives to connect and collaborate with community members within the Coop.
- Provide guidance and support to help new initiatives clearly demonstrate impact and prepare further funding proposals.
- Preparing proposal for grant funding from large grant entities including Gitcoin and Uniswap Grants.
Examples of possible historic [future] initiatives which could have been supported through the Innovation Hub:
- sCoop
- Women in Index
- [Owl Level NFT project]
The figure below shows how micro initiatives that fall beyond an existing WG can be funded independently and if proven successful moved to within an existing WG/Nest. The Innovation Labs accommodates ideas that are not already funded by a WG in effort to support experimentation. Working Groups are still encouraged to explore and experiment independently.
An example would be an initiative that originates from an external source and appears via the governance forum that Index Coop wants to explore but has insufficient budget at the WG level to fund the initiative.
Innovation Hub will request funding from the Operations Account like any other WG, and be accountable and challenged to deliver impact by the “Accountability” vertical within the Finance Nest. Thus, a direct incentive is created for the Innovation Hub to use Index Coops funds responsibly to deliver impact. It is important to reinforce that new product ideas will be coordinated by the Product team, not this group.
Finally, the “Innovation Lab” will also allocate rewards to activity tagged as “Innovation Lab” in the contributor rewards sheet - thus, the Innovation Lab being a clear owner for allocating rewards to activity which falls outside the clearly defined WG framework.
6.4.3 Members
The Innovation Lab is not an idea generating team, it is intended to address initiatives that emerge outside of existing WG structure. The Innovation Lab will likely be a small team of folks that have context around spend, business development and growth. Heavy community involvement will be required to provide feedback on new ideas and support them to grow.
We will be looking to stand up a team to work with Pepperoni Joe to formalize the Innovation Lab concept, and take it through IIP with a funding request.
6.4.4 Funding & Next steps
The Innovation Lab is not expected to draw on significant funding and thus initiatives will be funded directly from the Operations Account and those members who support the Innovation Lab will be reimbursed via the normal contributor rewards process. If this Future of Finance receives broad community support, we will look to identify a team who will look to further flesh out the specific responsibilities, process and members of the Innovation Lab. We will then share this as a proposal with the community.
6.5 Determining Monthly Contributor Compensation
Monthly Contributor Compensation - One area of financial responsibility for which we are not recommending change is the role of WGL’s in determining contributor compensation. Broadly, WGL’s as the DRIs for assigning reward value and creating/deploying their own budgets continues to make sense.
However, we acknowledge that more can be done to support WGL in determining the level of rewards for contributors tasks. With this in mind, further guidance will be developed to help ensure WGLs feel more comfortable in determining contributor compensation.
7. Benefits of our Future of Finance
After performing several Finance related 2.0 workshops, we have listened to the community and now present a restructured vision for Index Coops Finance and Administrative capabilities…
The Finance Nest consolidates activity from across TWG, POC WG and the Finance Coop. This streamlines existing operations by consolidating the remit spread over three teams into a single large team. The community can expect more accountability, more visibility and more efficient financial stewardship from the Finance Nest. In time more community ownership of the community’s funds will emerge, as the intent is clear and only the implementation is still to be worked through.
Moreover, the establishment of an Innovation Hub clearly addresses a current issue we face with new initiatives outside of the formal WG not fitting into our current model. By funding this though and Innovation Hub, not the Finance Nest itself, accountability for responsible use of community funds can be assured.
The key decision making aspect that resided within the Funding Council is now being rolled into future INDEX 2.0 workshops as a topic to explore. The emergence of Community Stewards (Wise Old Owls) has been floated but without further dialogue it remains to be seen which direction the community wishes to progress this topic.
The iteration of the TWG into the Finance Nest proposal is the result of INDEX 2.0. The accountability aspect has been levelled up with the introduction of OKRs as a metrics for tracking performance. If Finance Nest is to ensure prudent financial spending across the coop, then it only makes sense for this team to lead by example and have a crack at Owlphaneering a way forward.
8. Open questions for future discussion beyond FoF
8.1 Leadership & Governance (Index 2.0 theme)
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Wise Old Owls - “What does a ‘community stewards’ look like in the coop?” There was wide discussion on this topic in the FoF workshops. Using terms like “stewards” and “servant leaders,” we talked about the need for such a group that might shape and provide context on high-complexity challenges, quarterly priorities, budgets, and more. Ultimately, we decided that the “Future of Finance” is not the best place from which to make any hard proposals on this topic, and so we recommend this continues to be explored as part of the Governance and Leadership topic within Index 2.0.
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Role of the IIP Process - “What specific items need to be processed through IIP vs. other decision making aparati?” there was wide discussion around this at the FoF workshops but no broad consensus - I feel like we could have a separate workshop on the IIP process and, more broadly, how decisions get made in the Coop
- What specifically needs to be validated by the IIP process? Goals, “leadership team” selection, spend, approval of partnerships, approving treasury diversification, strategic asset allocation, approval of on-chain liquidity spend?
8.2 Compensation and Community Allocation (Index 2.0 theme)
- Improved compensation structure - we recognize that there are additional challenges about the current compensation structure that need addressing and resolving. We believe this should and will continue to be addressed via the “Compensation & Community Allocation” Index 2.0 topic.
- Community allocation - it is important to note the “Community Treasury” is not for the community. We use it to pay legal fees, we pay liquidity mining, we pay expenses, we pay gas. As Part of “Compensation & Community Allocation” we will explore carving out a separate multisig to fund our contributor community long term.
8.3 Risk & Legal
- Risk & Legal - How does the Coop account for risk and legal needs? We took stock of what is missing from our conversations by looking at typical corporate treasury functions (for example, TFA Geeks, Deloitte, PWC). We did not come to any hardened opinions here other than to say that such focus does not exist in the Coop today.
9. Request for questions & feedback
- What do you think of the vision and actions proposed here?
- Please share your thoughts and questions.
- Pending questions and feedback, we expect to schedule a community call as a next step
- Yes
- No
- Abstein
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