Defining off-seasons

đź’¬ General
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TL;DR – We’ve got the end of Season 0 coming up in about a week. It makes no sense to rush into a period labeled Season 1 with a number of important organizational questions still unanswered and no governance token yet. Suggestion: let’s let Season 0 expire and enter our first “off-season” to wrap up some loose ends and get ready to start Season 1 on the right foot.

Kicking this thread off in the General category; I’m just getting some thoughts down, looking for feedback and discussion, and then looking to turn this into a more formal proposal. At this stage, I’m not sure if the contents of this post will need to go through the typical governance channels, e.g., all the way to a snapshot vote, or if just the Season 1 definition will.

As for the current state of things, we’ve got a lot of questions to answer before I believe it makes sense to kick off a Season 1. The governance token timeline is dependent on getting the Early Contributor rewards ratified and the last of the legal questions answered – which we’ll leave to the experts. However, the rest of the organizational questions are within our means to agree on as for how to thoughtfully approach Season 1.

My interpretation of the minimum requirements prior to starting Season 1:

  • Early Contributor rewards ratified
  • Deployment of the governance token and claim site
  • Agreement on a starting point for rewards (see: proposals one and two)
  • Election of two new guild leaders: MBD and Community (see: proposal)

Other nice-to-haves prior to Season 1 are:

  • Projects and guilds each having well-defined goals/objectives for Season 1
  • Projects and guilds each having discovered their next iteration of leadership positions
  • Improvements to the onboarding process
  • <your idea here>

Apart from our immediate needs, it seems wise to pause between every season to take stock of how things went last season, take a breather, and then to set up the next season for success. This off-season concept and term seem to be becoming a standard for DAOs.

In general, off-seasons may include:

  • Retrospectives: performed on the level of the DAO, each Guild, and/or individual projects
  • Elections: may include positions within the Guilds, Operations Team, multisig signers
  • Leadership transitions: ensure smooth ownership transition of tooling, procedures, etc.
  • Prep for next season: e.g., voting on or preparing for the next season’s theme or priorities
  • Reevaluate reward systems: gauge sentiment on whether rewards were appropriate for effort last season and make tweaks if necessary
  • Rest: deliberately accomplish nothing, e.g., for a week

It’s hard to refute that these initiatives are important, but these types of organizational health items are the first to get rushed, overlooked, or dismissed when a deadline is looming. Giving them separate, dedicated time permits full attention to continue on season objectives while in that season, but also crucially builds healthy habits into the DAO, e.g., giving members a regular break from Discord, properly engaging in the process for regularly rotating leadership.

As for how long an off-season should be, there is a lot of possible hours packed into the items listed above. Eventually those processes would be streamlined, but we can expect them to take longer in the beginning to sort out. Still, I think one month is the minimum I could imagine giving to an off-season. My hunch is that two months is a good starting point for this particular off-season, and I could see valid arguments for going longer. In the end, it may be wisest not to set a Season 1 start date until we’re confident that we’re ready for it.

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I think that having the DAO default to being “offseason” whenever we finish a Season would make sense. Just to remove the sense that we are actively working on Things and Stuff and that it’s a period for reflection / determining what the next intentional move is by the DAO as a whole.
That’s not to say that all things should stop in their tracks - guilds and people should certainly be able to keep moving on things that they feel are important (just not Season goals as there will be no active Season and therefore goals at that time).

Moving out of a preseason/offseason to a Season should require determining, documenting, and voting on/ratifying the goals for that Season (so that off/pre-season is a default state, and in-season is an active state which requires effort to be in). I like the list that you provide above for things to check off before starting Season 1, and we should probably set up a Season kickoff framework/checklist to make sure we’re setting up a new Season for success prior to launch each time we do so.

Guild Leaders should provide a Guild retrospective for the sake of documentation. That (later in the offseason) should be rolled up into a State of the DAO (or the like) from the Core Team to try to document how the previous Season went, where the DAO stands, and where the DAO is going (ideally by this point the concepts of the next Season are understood, if not fully in place). This will help build the narrative of the DAO and its story/history. Ideally that will reinforce the narrative that is presented by the DAO as to what it stands for and does (in the sense that our actions will prove that we stand for what we say we stand for).

The next Season could then be started by DAO vote where members will have had the opportunity to digest the previous season retrospectives, the State of the DAO, and the objectives of the next Season as was done for Season 0.

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I support this! In general, it would be nice not to have to push off-seasons through governance. However, the one issue I could imagine is how we will reward work that needs to be completed during it (outside of our normal budgeting & rewards process defined in seasons). But I think this can be solved through a grants committee or ad-hoc budgeting.

I do not think this needs to go through governance as a date for Season 1 has not been established.

In the end, it may be wisest not to set a Season 1 start date until we’re confident that we’re ready for it.

I also agree with this!

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Agree with offseason. Also with the idea that we do not need to put this through governance. I assumed the contributor allocations we voted on would keep certain members working full-time? This suggests offseason train monitoring would not be a problem.

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Namely this P-9: Short-term Treasury Allocation to Retain Core Staff - #10 by doswell.eth

Maybe something like, again, if this were a specific initiative. Still like nomination and rotation of representatives, though.

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I agree with this, and @gjsyme said it perfectly:

From a personal health perspective, I need this as well. I’ve tried my best to stay involved the last few weeks, but I’ve burned myself out a bit and need time to step away and reflect and rest. So in effect, I’ve already begun doing this in practice on a personal level.

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Thanks all for the feedback. Draft up for a more formal proposal here: [DRAFT] Developer DAO Off-Season 0.