This thread is meant to help us avoid human coordination failure.
The title quote has been thrown around in the DAO space. Let’s dive in to some of the issues we need to avoid.
Failure of Focus
Many DAOs fail with a lack of focus and clear understanding by all participants of what the DAO is looking to accomplish.
To Solve - Develop a clear understand of our goals and ensure all members are working to accomplish those goals. We are working to do this now.
Misunderstanding of DAO Type
DAOs fall into a number of categories as defined here: DAO Landscape — Mirror. It is important that leaders and participants understand the type of DAO we are. This should influence a number of decisions such as how incentives work, what functions the DAO has internally, etc. For example, a service DAO should be very focused on delivering the services identified with internal DAO functions helping to deliver those services. A Media DAO should look different than a Service DAO.
To Solve - Clearly identify what type of DAO we are wanting to function as. Ensure all leadership teams take this into our Season 0 objectives. E.g., if we are a Service DAO we should answer all Season 0 questions as such.
Wide but Not Deep, or How to Drown
DAO resources spread out into many areas reducing the impact we can make. This is especially bad if there is a lack of focus (#1), but note that you can spread thin at the project level even with a clear overall objective. This happens when leadership and DAO members are afraid to say No. A relevant startup saying is, “Startups do not starve, they drown.” By saying yes to everything, resources thin and nothing is accomplished.
To Solve - Utilize our season structure to be willing to say No or Not Right Now to project ideas. Setup an icebox/backlog of project ideas we can review before each season.
Poor Incentive Structure
Rewards and recognization does not incentivize the accomplishment of our goals & objectives. This can happen when there is a lack of focus or understanding of our DAO Type. It can also happen when poor systems are put in place at the beginning of a DAO and the system cannot be easily flexed to incentivize the correct actions.
To Solve - Move slowly when determining DAO incentives and token mechanics that will not be easily changed. Ensure focus and goals are set. Ensure the reward mechanism is incentivizing those items being accomplished.
Nice post,
But what would be the difference between Education as a service and a media DAO? I agree with the other points, but to me it seems limiting to choose a dao type. Maybe the objectives/projects could be directly derived from our mission and ideals.
It’s a good question. Checkout how Cooper defines a media DAO in that post linked. That is different than a DAO who’s goal is to educate. But it is not as clean to define ourselves as an education as a service DAO by his definitions around Services DAOs.
I was just writing a note on the mission, values and goals thread to say that I feel we’re need a few tangible outcomes for the DAO to focus on, this is what I was alluding to with the mention of flagship projects in Season 0 proposal.
I’m not 100% sure we need to commit to be a type of DAO but I feel strongly we need to agree some specific outcomes we’re going to produce and rally to the community around them. My gut feeling is we focus on education/learning and maybe jobs first as this is very achievable and we can do that (build a knowledge-base, learning paths, events, job board etc.) whilst we work out other areas we want to focus on like having a Service DAO arm.
I think is also important. Largely this could be address with FOCUS but I do think it’s important we’re explicit about the projects the DAO is behind. I like the idea of having backlog of projects too, plus we can always support community members projects if they are not ultimately “DAO Projects”
Also agree this is v important. Am working on a proposal at the moment re how we structure the DAO and the roles within it, if we can come to a consensus on this as a community it would give us a good foundation for figuring out this problem.
When you have a large group of people working at something, it’s normal for 10% of the people to do 90% of the work.
This is not a small problem. The vast majority of people in a DAO will do the bare minimum that’s required. They will stay quiet and uninvolved until monetary matters come into question. At that point they will suddenly have strong opinions.
It’s important that the incentive structure rewards those who put in the 90% of the work appropriately.
As for the rest of the issues, strong leadership is needed. Great democracies need great leaders.
I respect the ideals of what a DAO represents. But human nature is a roadblock.
is also important. Largely this could be address with FOCUS but I do think it’s important we’re explicit about the projects the DAO is behind. I like the idea of having backlog of projects too, plus we can always support community members projects if they are not ultimately “DAO Projects”