Index Gov 2.0 - Introduction to Delegated Governance

Governance
1

This post is a brief introduction to governance, delegation, and some concepts currently being worked on with regard to our org structure.

Introduction

Over the past few weeks in some of the weekly calls, you may have heard me mention that I have recently been working on some “org” or “delegation” initiatives. A broader more fitting term is actually governance. This brief post is a formal notification to the community that this is being worked on under the name [it’s in the title but drum roll anyway please :drum::drum::drum:] Index Gov 2.0

What is it?

Index Gov 2.0 will mark a new chapter in how we organize and govern ourselves as a DAO. Broadly speaking it will seek to increase operational efficiency by further delegating decision making, spending, and control throughout the DAO. At the same time, it will retain accountability, security, and stability.

The original inspiration (and name :shushing_face:) came from @verto0912 ‘s Yearn Governance 2.0 post. It is worth pointing out that Yearn is a very, very different protocol and organization. Nevertheless, it provided inspiration and prompted some of the ideas that will be posted to the forum over the next few weeks and months for discussion.

Governance is a very broad topic and a thread that runs through many initiatives and forum posts both old and new. Posts such as Treasury Committee funding and FAQs, and, Improving the Working Group structure are recent examples of clarification and continual refinement of our processes as Index Coop evolves.

Why?

  • Reduce the high operational burden on TC / Sets
  • Increase scalability
  • Increase WG + DAO autonomy, agility, and ownership
  • Decentralise!

When?

Rough Timeline:

  • Early June:
    • Formally notify the community of Index Gov 2.0
    • TC Roadmap
  • Late June:
    • Forum Post: TC roadmap
    • Forum Post: Index Gov 2.0 - Delegated governance. PT1
  • Early July:
    • Process community feedback from PT1
  • Mid July:
    • Forum Post: Index Gov 2.0 - Delegated governance. PT2
  • Mid - Late July:
    • Process community feedback
    • Forum Post: Index Gov 2.0 - Wrap-up / debrief

Who?

@Mrmadila, @DarkForestCapital, @puniaviision, @dylan, and @anon10525910 are working on the initial high-level details to submit to the community. Over time all community members are encouraged and welcome to contribute.

8 Likes
2

Thinking about and detailing delegated governance is obviously a very meaningful step for our community to take as it scales.

A twitter thread from this morning touched on some of these topics (h/t @fallow8): https://twitter.com/benschecter/status/1405373735344001025?s=20

In line with some of the issues raised in that thread, I think there are two big ideas that need to be addressed in tandem with any discussion on delegated governance (and I’m sure some/all of this may already be part of your roadmap, but I thought I’d add my thoughts here):

1. Hierarchy

I think “hierarchy” is probably one of the more offensive words for anyone working in a DAO, but I think it’s actually quite necessary for an effective organization. The extent of the hierarchy, and what hierarchy actually means in our organization, is how DAOs can continue to distinguish themselves from traditional entities, though.

I think this is what you have planned to address through this Index Gov 2.0 initiative (esp. given @DarkForestCapital’s follow on post to this one on the FC). This certainly doesn’t mean we need a CEO, but I think we need to begin to formalize a system where we have rules in place so that, e.g., if we have a document being shared externally, CDWG + Growth have reviewed/signed off, or if funds are being transferred > $X, TC/FC has signed off, etc.

In short, in many cases, certain functions are going to need to play an oversight role to other functions, and not everything can or should go to a community vote.

2. Transparency & Reporting

I think this is the piece that hasn’t been solved yet for DAOs. We’re scaling rapidly and organizing ourselves quite well with the development of working groups and delegated governance. However, I think we need better means of transparently reporting to our community the work each delegated group is doing. Anything on-chain is easy - we can track changes on dune or wallet/multi-sig addresses, but for anything else, we are left largely just with our Monday context-setting meetings and quarterly posts by WG leads as to progress for the past 3 months.

It seems like in a DAO, there should be a better way - especially as we continue to grow, otherwise our Monday meeting will only grow longer and longer. Maybe something like this will be solved by tools like Boardroom as they continue to develop, and many functions within IC have their own workarounds (e.g., AWG has a project board, CDWG has something similar, engineering has a pipeline, meta-gov has a pipeline, etc.), but it seems like this is something we can and should level up in tandem with our focus on delegated governance. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

Just wanted to share these thoughts - looking forward to seeing all that’s to come with Index Gov 2.0.

4 Likes
3

A brief update to notify the community on the status of this initiative.

With the priorities we face in constant flux this initiative raised mid-June was de-prioritized shortly after as the engineering constraints took center stage. With the recent org, delegation/autonomy debate back on the agenda this conversation has now evolved into the “Autonomy Kick Off-Group” thread here.

3 Likes