Request for Comment - Implement Leadership Council

EdgeCaser

They are two different concepts. In best interests of time maybe start with a "default" set and have mechanisms to vote others in. I assume decisions of impact will always be made by community comment and vote.

@tex that is a fair point re: nomination processes. I had not thought we would go through such a nomination process before deciding to ratify the current proposed members - rather as a follow-up step should it happen that it doesn't go through.

It is a sticky situation, no doubt. I recognize we need to move fast, and I need to balance my sense of urgency with my preference toward crispness in electoral questions from a procedural and historical POV.

tex I agree on urgency, and possibility of the process becoming a problem instead of a solution. But also would love to see clear specification of how Council will operate and report as asked by others above.

Once those agreed, could we phrase this proposal as Interim Council with 6+6 months mandate?
- In first 6 months Council would commit to develop and implement [DAO-WIDE 4] Decentralize Operations based on agreed approach
- If above implemented Interim Council mandate is extended for additional 6 months, if failed Strategos and Council members give their mandates for a vote to the wider community, by this time we should have Emergency Council ready to step in if needed.
- would suggest 3-month mark where Strategos and Council members will vote for continuation or removal of individual Council members.
- also it would be good to have a nominated mediator outside Strategos/Council that could handle disputes

I support this proposal. Three brief reasons why:

1. One of the Council's Core OKRs is a path to further decentralization. IMO that is a common theme in the majority of the feedback to this RFC. And it is a primary barometer with which we should hold the council accountable. We should demand & the council should provide periodic updates on the Deliverables & OKRs. I think that's a sign of a healthy DAO.
2. This proposal focuses on accountability. As a DAO I believe there are some process improvements that can be made, but I do not see those as complex issues (in many cases those process improvements can be made from the bottom up & do not require a council's mandate). I think the complex issues the DAO faces today are around alignment. We have to find the right balance between decentralized decision-making & innovation / execution speed. The council can help improve our execution speed while maintaining accountability to the community.
3. As tex said This proposal represents a stepping stone to a more decentralized way of selecting DAO leadership and a unified way of aligning direction across teams.

TBH I'm fired up for the next 12 months.

LFG!!

Dropkickdarren Tend to agree on this point, and @tex has obviously also commented in this vein.

My take on this is that there is now a dichotomy between what is right and what is expedient. Olympus is a DAO, the creation of the Council, being a big shift in structural leadership, needs a vote.. The people on this council, by the same token, should be voted on. This is not a discussion point as the democratic nature of the DAO demands it. That said, situationally I feel that we likely need to move forward based on this proposal and the suggested Council members, ideally with some additional thoughts:

If we can't change the Proposal, we can certainly add to it - why not add community representation beyond the Council suggested here and allow voting on that - a hybrid model of that nature might be a good compromise - an odd number obviously makes sense in ensuring the tie-break, so you'd be adding two Community representatives assuming @Zeus stays in the suggested tie-break role.

As discussed above in other comments, the whole proposal skews operationally. While I can entirely understand why this is given the past few months and the problems this seeks to resolve, the need to move beyond a heavily operational skew is reflected by commentary around switching and changing between projects halfway through and being led by the next shiny thing - strong strategy and clear alignment between strategy (where we are going) and Operations (How we get there) should mean less likelihood of chopping and changing. The Community seats on the Council discussed above should help with that - if there is no clear view of why the DAO is doing something and no obvious alignment between a project and the stated strategic aim of becoming a Reserve currency, those roles should be there to call it out.

As an adjunct to the last point, Marketing / Brand needs more commitment from the DAO and the leadership team than what is shown here. If there is one thing that the DAO consistently does poorly it is this. Consistent discussion in the community on this point shows that there are issues there and while obviously there has been some acknowledgement of this I also don't see that it should be left under the purview of only one Council member (I make no suggestion that Apollo won't do a great job of it, just that this is an area where there is obvious weakness and it needs more than passing mention).

My point around marketing and communications (and previous discussions around crisis communications in the DAO work channel many moons ago) is also focused on the fact that this move is very likely to blow up no matter how it is put to the community. The discussion here has been pretty healthy and I think most people in this discussion, no matter how much they'd like this to be two votes, can see it will likely go to one purely based on the urgent need to see a new leadership structure and responsibilities put in place. The discussion around this in the community will be a lot less forgiving and the comms plan around this one is going to be really important. I want to be really clear that this is not a Discord post and a tweet - outward comms on this one should include:

• Re-affirmation of Olympus strategic goals
• Current situation - clear view of strengths and wins, weaknesses and issues and background situation (to the extent that it doesn't create more issues than it solves!)
• Reasoning for the Council and the strategy behind this, including clear views on time-limits, methodology for changing members etc
• Council Member background, history with the DAO, Accountability and responsibilities
• Reporting methods, timeframes, update platforms etc

Worth noting that my own views on the people suggested for the Council are really positive and I do think moving to this model is positive - how it is done in context is of utmost importance and my earlier comments were based on that - if expediency is key and we move forward in the currently suggested way then engaging the community (and the DAO itself) around the positive outcomes of the change will be the key to its success.

Dropkickdarren Hmm, interesting,

Maybe Council are delegated with upper responsibilities:

1. Managing treasury and wallets
2. Ethics, culture and process
3. Strategic direction

A steering committee with defined powers.

Then leave the Strategos to lead the pillars within Core to use their industry experience.
To develop the strategies with council advisory and ship it.

Stratego -> Experienced in specific industry to lead people, product, ethics, process as defined by council principles.

The DAO just went through a re-org and a set of OKRs were agreed upon.

This RFC highlights the execution obstacles while the proposed solutions reflect a practical approach given time constraints to meet the OKRs. DKD's background provided invaluable insights on how these came about.

My takeaway is that the need to fix is urgent and I would vote yes.

Reasons:

1. A one year tenure is short and there is a safeguard with an evaluation in 6 months' time
2. There is clear responsibility and accountability tied to each member that is aligned to the agreed OKRs
3. All the proposed members have proven to be able to execute

Balancing and incorporating the forum's feedback thus far, I propose to incorporate the following when moving to OIP:

Add two more Council members (as a tactical approach):

• Marketing & Communication - raised by many, common theme as the weakest link thus far
• Community Representative - for rank and file voice to be heard and be counted (h/t @davoice321)

Parallelly, start working on a framework for the Council members. Lots of good points have already been raised. This will take time and should not be a blocker for this proposal to go ahead to address the immediate pains/ obstacles.

We should be vigilant in:

1. how to avoid/ minimize the process from becoming a popularity contest, jockeying for power...
2. balance between democracy vs. ensuring the right people are place in the right role
3. how that democracy is achieved - community-wide vote, by number of token holders, trust in a select group of people to decide

I know the DAO has enough talent and Ohmies who care enough to ensure these and to make it happen. Happy Anniversary!

tex agreed on the healthy discussion, so I pushed the poll end date to Friday for now. The goal is to get this proposal through Snapshot by EOM, so may be best to move RFC to OIP on Saturday, proposal section live through the weekend, then run Snapshot 3/28-3/31. Thoughts?

Sounds good I agree on the urgency aspect as well.

Hello @tex, thank you for detailing this RFC and it was a joy to read. A quick shoutout to @Dropkickdarren for plugging this RFC in various channels to recruit more comments.

After reading the RFC, here are my comments:

1. Council vs Stratego vote: While it's clear that the council will decide the 'what' and Strategos will carry out the 'how,' I want to know if there are any systems in place where the two parties end in a deadlock: Council says yes, Stratego says no. I think such a procedure should be included in the proposal, just like Zeus's role has been indicated as a tie-breaker in council decisions.
2. 6-month check: It felt off to me that the judgement of the success of a team comprised of council members is being delegated to council members and strategos. I believe that DAO contributors at large (175-200 of them as per the Data Studio) should be the adjudicators.
3. Election process: While I understand that one of the aims of the working group is to:

tex Specify a process by which future Council members can be selected directly by the DAO community.

I would feel better if this responsibility was delegated to one council member at least, in explicit fashion. If this fails to happen, I would not like to see a deferral of responsibility.

Other suggestions to improve contributor experience

From a contributor's perspective, here are some of the end-results I would love to see. I hope this helps the council decide upon the 'what' and the strategos in preemptively figuring out the 'how':

1. Timely comp rollout: Nothing like knowing that comp has arrived within the first 1-3 days of the month
2. Cross-chain comp rollout: gOHM has gone cross-chain and I see little reason to not strive towards comp going cross-chain as well.
3. Inclusion in exploration: It's something I have seen happen in various departments. It's announced that an idea is being explored but then the communication doesn't go beyond that for the contributor. The contributor is informed about the final decision and is expected to help in its implementation. I would say that if the council and strategos start to explore a topic, it should be mandatory for the strategy to keep their team in the loop and represent their voice if the working group wishes to be heard over a particular matter.
4. Crashable meetings: I think that besides meetings and channels where secrecy is mandatory, channels shouldn't be as gated as they are currently in the DAO. Our departments feel very isolated and I would love to see contributors sometimes hopping into meetings. I am happy to say that our contributors are wise enough to not chime in unnecessarily when something doesn't concern them or they don't know enough about it, but simply being able to read other people's messages and hear their thought process really makes one feel like they're a part of something larger than their department.

I might add more points here if I recall something. Thank you for your patience!

Let me start by saying that I support the temporary need for a Council out of necessity. At times, Olympus feels like we're trying to steer the Titanic when we need to be a speedboat. More importantly, we need to be a speedboat that agrees on where we're going and how we're getting there. The disconnect between Core, Strategos, and the DAO that @tex mentioned hinders us from doing this in many ways.

I'm also generally supportive of the new members of the Council but agree with @nach211 that we absolutely need Marketing/Communications representation. We build some amazing products at a blistering pace, but our ability to promote, educate, and inform the Community on why these products are important, how to use them, and what they mean for Olympus at-large is lacking.

**Other feedback:
**
1. I do not think this OIP should be split into two separate OIPs. I personally don't think it's going to change the outcome (both a Council being established and the people on it), and the benefits we get by quickly streamlining coordination via a Council outweighs the risk we get something slightly wrong in this OIP. As @indigo said, this isn't set in stone. We'll continue to iterate, and more importantly, we're working towards on chain governance where a Council won't be needed.

2. Any good business focuses on people, product, and process. This OIP almost entirely focuses on process.

I think the Council should also be responsible for delivering a product roadmap (at least at a confidential / high-level manner as to not leak alfa) based on these OKRs. If that's Olympus12 still, then great. Declare as such. But if revisions or new strategies need to be introduced based on these OKRs, then we should define them, plan around them, execute on them, and be accountable for them.

I also think the council should be responsible for delivering a people plan. We have some REALLY talented people contributing to the DAO who would have no problem finding other opportunities. I'd like to see these people be incentivized to contribute long term a) to retain them (and their institutional knowledge for continuity), and b) so they are attached to the upside in the value they create. I know @twoeggs @hOHMwardbound @Stefano and many others worked hard on a comp plan, but it ultimately didn't get implemented. I'd like to see this topic brought back up as part of the Council's responsibility. The 'people' plan should also include soft benefits (e.g. time off, etc.). Ultimately, the goal imo is to make Olympus a no-brainer for why someone would want to contribute, and stay a contributor, to the DAO.

3. I agree that a rolling renewal of Council Members is a good idea. I think we need to give this group 6 months to get oriented, devise a plan, and execute. I'm confident this highly talented group of individuals are capable of doing so in that timeframe, but if they can't then we either need to rethink the Council's validity (as a concept in general) or whether we have the right people on the Council. After 6 months, a rolling schedule makes sense.

@tex As promised here is a first draft of the Articles https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xQFOMYGXazJMcu2pEkaReDyb8gIRr2q1IJHg_tDnmjU/edit?usp=sharing

tex Tex et all. I think there is a healthy discussion on this forum. This is an important step forward, where I still don't find the reason to rush it. I would not send this to snapshot till we have have passed a formal revision from legal. I do think there is a sense of urgency, but we started a process back in Nov and Dec in terms of
- Defining vision / mission -> Olympus 12.
- Road map/Projects -> Projects and priorities.
- OKRs, Goals, Resource Planning. -> Okrs.
- DAO structure , happening now.

So from Sep to Oct I do see a big progress that the DAO as a group has been able to achieve, and rushing this important step might me counterproductive for all the work done by everybody these past 4 months.

In this phase that we are starting, I see the need to stick to the plan, in terms of OKRs. Redefine where needed the resource allocations, team size and adjust goals where needed.

It is within this spirit that my recommendation is not to rush things. Thoughts?

lipman These are all very valid points. Thank you. Specially on the talented people involved in the DAO.
With respect to the Olympus12, that's the source from where the Projects and OKRs are created from.
We did define when working on Olympus 12, that quarterly revisions for those definitions might be needed to reinforce or change if needed with a mandatory Olympus 2023 to be published December 15, 2022.

So from my perspective, we have a strategic plan, we have road map and we have OKRs for Q1 and some for Q2 and DAO Wide OKRs. Planning process is almost done, now we need execute, measure results, adjust, repeat.

All in all, I think the DAO is doing a fantastic work co-creating this framework. From Strategos coming with the council idea, to Mark proposing a rule document, to tex posting this RFC.

Whats next I believe is incorporating all these comments, + legal framework to keep moving forward.

I'm unsure if we know who we are as a community. We build fast, we move even faster but who are we doing it for? It's not clear if it's a priority of the council to answer this question? or if we have the personnel to do so?

tex This unified leadership team is both accountable and has the authority to make strategic decisions on behalf of the DAO in service of the community.

If they don't know who we are as users, members, ohmies then it's not clear how much of a "service" these decisions will be for the community. How can we ensure the success of the council if my assumption is correct?

The fact that there will now be a "we" and a "they" is also telling. Will there a be void between the two?