Opportunity: The #analytics group in Index Coop is gaining traction. We see an opportunity to create one of the strongest analytical communities in all of DeFi.
Blocker: We are lacking the ability to coordinate amongst ourselves and with the Coop as a whole and tool-up to do the work.
Request: Please provide feedback! How can we best organize the AWG? How the AWG can best function to support all other working groups across the Coop? What should the relationship between AWG and the Treasury look like (for rewarding analytics contributions)?
Tentative proposal: Model after the GWG. Create a pipeline to receive requests, structure for discussion, reward successful output with small bounties, etc.
The Index Coop is a product-focused DAO that prides itself on building the right products for the right users. We manage the research, launch, growth, and maintenance of products that aim to be fundamental to the DeFi ecosystem. To this point, the Coop has put forth a consistent effort for decisions to be driven by analytical insight. There is already evidence that both decision analytics and product analytics are essential for the Coop, as well as for the broader community to understand the mission and progress of the Coop. These needs are only going to grow as the Coop supports more products.
We propose formalizing an Analytics Working Group (AWG) within the Index Coop. In order to create the most data-driven DAO in existence, we need the proper coordination to drive our analytical efforts across the Coop.
While we have managed to get by with a few analysts trying to pick up requests from across the Coop, it is getting difficult to manage, prioritize, and deliver on all of the requests. Also, almost every week we have a new community member ask if they can contribute to Analytics at the Coop - it is getting more difficult to manage all of the potential contributions in an efficient and scalable way. Simply, we believe the AWG will provide the foundation to support the whole Coop, as well as maximizing our contributors potential.
Proposed AWG Functions
Facilitate asynchronous communications regarding Analytics projects across the Coop
Don’t want to add another meeting that people have to attend, but will create a continuous doc for communication
Manage request intake and prioritization process
Manage a transparent project board to show progress on analytics tasks across contributors
Manage access to blockchain analytics tools (Dune, Nansen, etc)
Manage resource requests to the Coop
Work with partners whose projects have passed by DG2 to build dashboards
Manage code collaboration processes for the Coop Analytics repo
Write clean documentation and manage processes for onboarding new analyst to the Coop
Provide continuous transparent record of contributions for reward
Cross-functional collaboration to solve the most pressing problems facing the Index Coop
Our goal is to build the most efficient, powerful analytics group that a DAO has ever seen. The Index Coop needs this support to achieve aggressive plans to launch new indexes, increase AUM, and increase index product adopters.
Request for Feedback
Please leave comments with any feedback regarding how we can best organize the AWG, or how the AWG can best function to support all other working groups across the Coop.
I mentioned something similar to design, but it probably makes sense to make some sort of patronage arrangement with the Engineering, Org, and Growth teams and prioritize requests.
Have a team with a budget that fields intake requests from other groups and then prioritizes the work.
It seems like you are tracking that way with this proposal.
Great work JD, as always, excited to see this come to life.
This is awesome - you guys have been cranking and would be stoked to support this.
However, I’m not in favor of spinning up another temporary working group - I think we should figure out semi-permanent structures for functional areas (growth, eng, analytics, community) and just fund those
Hope to have something more tangible proposed here in the next week
This is awesome, looking forward to see this live!
The functions you proposed are well thought-out and it immediately made me think of a backlog. Hence, to get the ball rolling on how to organize this, I’d propose to use a Scrum approach (or parts of it).
This would require someone to take the role of a product owner. On a high level, this person would do the following:
Manage the backlog (intake requests, prioritize, refine)
Allocate resources (allocate requests to analysts, arrange availability of analysts)
Accepting / declining new requests
Coordinate with other streams (Org, Growth, IC, etc.)
Manage the repository with existing queries and graphs
Lead AWG internal meeting (if needed)
In summary, this person functions as a proxy between the analysts and the rest of the coop (except maybe for recurring “customers” of the AWG, like the treasury team that need the same data on a regular basis). I suppose this approach is most time efficient for the analysts, and the rest of the coop has one go-to person helping them to create requests and making sure they get the results they need.
This does not mean that the product owner is the leader of the AWG. There doesn’t need to be an official leader, or it can be someone else! Rewarding can be done in a similar fashion as today, by pointing out contributions in a weekly/monthly stand-up. Whereas the product owner will probably have the best overview of who did what.
Just my 2 cents on Org. Keen to hear feedback and other options.
Hey JD, I know you’re thinking about how to structure the AWG already so I’ll just talk about this from a funding/treasury committee perspective.
The GWG model comes to an end at the end of Feb, I think we should try and get a holistic approach to funding each of the areas (product/analytics/growth etc)
In terms of the individual contributor level, with the advent of OKRs and the above effort to fund each area the same way, it should make it clearer who can be rewarded and how much
Funding Analytics in a similar way to other groups is the right way to do it in order to give you guys the autonomy and freedom required to do your job, and delegate funds to part-time contributors
In terms of reporting what you’ve accomplished (and this applies more generally across the Coop) we should designate someone to feed into the treasury committee for those monthly rewards to ensure we’ve captured everything
I hope this helps while you are gathering your thoughts for the AWG overall.
Great idea/proposal. Looking forward to seeing the coop decide on the structure of work groups etc. I really like the idea of “pipelines”, points of contact mentioned by @Lavi and a documented project board to reduce fragmentation, duplication, silo’s etc. I think this alone goes a long way to support the cross functional collaboration mentioned.
A process for welcoming new analyst’s is also nice touch!
Hi Cmock13! Welcome to the Coop! Great question. There is undoubtedly demand for both. I would image some division of each between contributors… @jdcook?
Thank you! I bit the bullet and bought a small amount of Index during the pullback, so I am excited to be here.
In the traditional finance world, there are many people who work to publish and create strategies to reduce risk and improve Sharpe Ratios on stock positions. With the volatility of crypto assets, I can imagine that there will be a market for more high quality quant strategies like CGI that improve equity and bond portfolios. Large financial firms often advertise funds like this as “sleep better” alternative and can charge a nice management fee for the services.
As we continue to create products that investors outside of DeFi will want, the COOP should be able to research and grow these strategies internally.
Sounds like you already get the idea of what Index is largely about. There are certainly a lot of exciting and creative ideas here for future products. We already have some partners such as Defi Pulse and Coinshares who contribute to product strategies. Plenty of scope for both active and passive products as we go.
Hey @cmock13 - ya the AWG will work across all problems the Coop might face, whether that be market, user, product, methodology, etc. The goal will be to create processes to insure we have a group of distributed contributors working on the highest priority questions at any given time.
Thank you, I’m excited to be part of the group. I haven’t joined the discord yet, honestly I can’t find the link.
If there are more than one main purposes for the AWG, I suggest that it is structure where there are “Leads” for each major function. The leads will act as PMs and maintain knowledge of ongoing projects in their area. As needs arise, these leads can pool from the resources available to fulfill work.
I can see this feeding into growth (via content) in a big way. Having data easily available made