Pre-Proposal for a Strategy Framework for Arbitrum DAO

Governance
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How should we do Strategy in Arbitrum DAO?

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Context

Arbitrum has significant resources; however, the space counts with many strong players (alt-L1s and L2s, Solana, etc). Without both short-term wins AND ambitious medium to long-term bets, Arbitrum risks becoming irrelevant. More urgently, workgroups, proposers, and delegates need shared context to work together (e.g., at a recent KPI working group call, participants tried to create a rubric for the incentive program. However, we realized that without objectives and a north star, it was difficult to create it).

This document proposes a “strategy ontology” - a framework serving as an agreed format to define the strategy for the Arbitrum DAO.

“All frameworks are wrong but some are useful”. Our hope is that having the ontology agreed upon will streamline a subsequent discussion on the content of the strategy.

The Ask:

Please review the framework below and let us know if

  1. Is it clear and understandable?
  2. Would you support Arbitrum DAO using it or what would you change?

TLDR:

This framework, called SKIs Framework, showcases a comprehensive mapping of essential functions of a system (as applied to ArbitrumDAO) for viability. All functions identified in the framework are essential; however, they’re not equally urgent. The areas marked in green are recommended as priorities to agree on and fund.

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Implementation

Using the framework would mean using this ontology to run a collective process:

  1. Map inputs into the strategy (Market Sensing)
  2. Define a 2-3 Year Goal & accompanying metrics (Goal’s KPIs & Health Metrics)
  3. Define a set of Strategic Pillars
  4. Allocate funding for the Pillars

Theory: How to do Strategy in DAOs

Top-down strategy, although refined as a discipline, has been extensively criticized as executives removed from the front lines fail to appreciate opportunities and challenges.

Equally, DAOs, where a broad community decides on local matters, risk failing to appreciate local complexities and miss opportunities. On the opposite end, if all decisions are made locally without common agreements, synergies and strategies suffer. After all, strategic thinking is as much choosing what to do as about choosing what not to do.

Strategy as a lighthouse

Strategy is only effective when implemented, and this requires combining large decisions (large-scale funding allocation) and small ones (onboarding documentation, content curation in meetups, etc.). Naturally, no single actor can effectively control all such decisions (not even in centralized organizations), which requires strategic considerations (trade-offs and priorities) to be widely understood. And for creating such understanding, reading a document is not enough, as words are quickly forgotten. It’s only when actors engage in critical reflection on the strategic trade-offs and priorities and when they reflect on how those impact their own situations and choices that a strategic process becomes meaningful and memorable.

The tools and processes to facilitate this collective participation and reflection, although having significantly advanced over the last decade, are still a work in progress. As such, certain trade-offs are needed (as well as investment in advancing tooling and processes for collective deliberation).

An approach to mitigate the tension outlined above is a metaphor we call “strategy as a lighthouse”: we don’t tell people what to do, but we show where the shore and the rocks are.

In this model, strategic planning can be done by a workgroup that proposes recommendations. This model is akin to a think tank for nation-state strategy. Wherever possible, the lighthouse model should be enhanced with tools and processes for larger groups to provide input and feedback.

In this document, we are aiming to strike a balance between this consideration and the time constraints to advance a strategy. As such, the proposed approach starts with an imperfect but faster version and then aims to evolve over time towards increasingly robust and collective processes.

Horizons

For our strategy, we distinguish between four horizons of activity, all equally important:

  1. Operations and Improvement: doing and refining what we’re already doing.
  2. Innovation: creating new products or capabilities.
  3. Transformation: disrupting ourselves and transforming the fundamentals of our business model.
  4. Foundational Research: exploring new horizons and possibilities.

The horizons progress from more measurable and predictable to harder to measure and unpredictable. Equally, the risk-reward ration varies across horizons, from lower risk but lower potential reward to high risk and higher potential reward.

System Viability

Ultimately, any strategy framework seeks to address the viability of the system. As such, the strategy framework is anchored within a larger framework of organizational viability. Borrowing from Cybernetics, we thus embed our strategy framework as one component of 6 essential functions for system viability (i.e. Six Key Interactions):

  1. Identity: Who are we, and what needs do we exist to serve? Outputs alignment and belonging.
  2. Future: How will we evolve to meet those needs, given how our environment is evolving? Outputs foresight.
  3. Change: How do we transform to move from here to that future? Outputs strategy and strategic initiatives.
  4. Coordination: How do we coordinate and harmonise our work? Outputs mechanisms to reduce conflicts and use resources effectively.
  5. Operations: What are we doing every day to deliver our value to our stakeholders? Outputs maintenance and operation of the Infrastructure.
  6. Support: How do we make it possible for every participant to give their best sustainably and evolve our mindsets? Outputs top performing teams.

All these six layers are interdependent and equally essential for viability over the medium to long term; however, they’re not equally urgent to implement.

Proposed Framework Details

The framework is divided into a series of artifacts. Each artifact fulfills a specific function, enabling us to break down the discussion into manageable chunks.

Identity Layer Artefacts

Guiding Question

Definition: What’s the big question (i.e. challenge) that we seek to answer as an organization?

Time horizon: decade(s)

Example: How can we fuel financial sovereignty? + list of stakeholders and their needs

Values

Definition: When we pick between multiple options, which principles shall inform our choice?

Time horizon: 3-10 years

Example: Ethereum-aligned, Sustainable, Secure, Socially inclusive, Technically inclusive, User Focused, Neutral and Open.

Mission

Definition: What role will we take in answering said question?

Time horizon: 5-10 years

Example: Spearhead the evolution of decentralized technologies and governance.

MetaGovernance

Definition: Process to change the governance system of the DAO

Time horizon: 1-5 years

Example: Proposal process to change DAO governance smart contracts, constitution, etc.

Future Layer Artefacts

Market Sensing

Definition: sensing and mapping of

  • market forces ( growing or shrinking segments; stakeholder switching costs; changing jobs, pains, and gains; etc).
  • Key Trends (technology innovations; regulatory constraints; sociocultural trends; etc).
  • Industry forces (competitors; rising value chain actors; new or fading technology providers; etc).
  • MacroEconomic forces (global market conditions; access to resources; high or low commodities prices; etc).

Time Horizon: primarily 1-5 years (short-term single definitions and medium and long-term scenario mapping)

Examples: competitive landscape, trend reports, etc.

Business Model(s)

Definition: How do we create, deliver, and capture value?

Time horizon: 2- 3 years

Example: https://images.app.goo.gl/Dqwh7cHx1MtYDSRp6

R&D Bets

Key areas of high uncertainty for foundational research and transformation (because sometimes the best way to predict the future is to invent it).

Time horizon: 2 - 8 years (Transformation & Foundational Research)

Examples: fundamental research in cryptography, quantum computing, etc.

Change Layer Artefacts

2-3 year Goal

Definition: What do we aim to have accomplished in 2-3 years from now?

Time horizon: 2- 3 years

Example: Becoming the defacto place (infrastructure + community) for people to build on and interact with Web3.

Strategic Pillars

Definition: short and medium-term big bets for the success of the network.

Time Horizon: 1-2 years (Improvement & Innovation time horizon).

Examples: Robust Tech stack, World Class DevReel, Leading on Key Verticals (Gaming, Collab Tech, DeFi), Operational Excellence, etc.

Audit (connected to Change Layer but ideally separate group)

2-3 Year Goals & Ecosystem Health KPIs

Definition: Which indicators will we use to measure progress toward our Mission/Vision and 2-3 year Goal, and which to measure network health?

Time horizon: 2- 3 years

Examples: Sequencer Fees, TVL, Dev Activity, Community Health (sense of community, engagement, social network analysis), GDP, etc.

Operations Layer Artefacts

This layer should include the different operational Units, recurring activities (ops activities like reviewing and voting on proposals, reviewing grants performance, etc), and assets that are governed.

Coordination Layer Artefacts

Communication, Knowledge Management, & Scheduling systems

Definition: systems and tools to enable effective interaction between participants in the network.

Time horizon: 6 - 24 months.

Examples: Forums, AI Q&A bots, scheduling and video call tools, etc.

Conflict Resolution system

Definition: systems and tools for conflict resolution between participants in the network.

Time horizon: 6 - 24 months.

Examples: Agreed conflict resolution processes (mediation, arbitration), conflict detection bots, etc.

Support Layer Artefacts

Wellbeing & Performance systems

Definition: systems, tools, and platforms to enable personal and professional development, well-being and inclusivity, and peak performance of network participants.

Time horizon: 6 - 24 months.

Examples: Personal development programs, education programs, suicide hotline, etc.

Implementing the Framework

The suggestion is to launch a minimum viable process to:

  1. Launch a Future Workgroup (analysts, visionaries, and researchers) to facilitate the mapping of inputs into the strategy (Market Sensing, non-binding).
  2. Launch a Strategy Workgroup to facilitate a set of workshops to define a 2-3 Year Goal, accompanying metrics (Goal’s KPIs & Health Metrics), and a set of Strategic Pillars.
  3. Ratify via vote.
  4. Allocate funding pools to advance the strategy.

The Pillars and funding can then be reviewed periodically based on progress across all layers.

Each funding pool can then be allocated across programs that will use said funding. Importantly, programs don’t need to match the Strategic Pillars 1-1; each program should be assessed based on its holistic merit across Pillars (more on the proposed assessment mechanic here).

As a final consideration, an additional pool(s) of funding should be left open for community proposals outside of the 2-3 Year Goal and Strategic Pillars to enable bottom-up strategy.

The suggested balance is 50% allocated to strategic pillars and 50% for bottom-up strategy, this balance is meant to recognize the ability of DAO participants to sense and adapt, navigating a complex environment. In this sense, the allocation to both the Goal’s Strategic Pillars (top-down) and outside the Pillars (bottom-up) represents a trade-off in favor of medium and long-term resilience even over short-term efficiency (in alignment with the Value of Sustainability).

Next Steps

After reviewing the framework, please let us know whether you’d support using it in Arbitrum.

Suggestions, edits, comments, additional references, clarifying questions, etc. are also most welcomed.

If this initiative gathers support, we’ll aim to form a group to advance it by shaping implementation proposal(s) and engaging with the delegates and community to construct it.

References

Six Key Interactions -

4 horizons -

Guiding Question -

Reinventing your Organization through a Market-Driven Lens -

The Key Concepts in Platform Design -

Even Over Statements -

Business Model Environment -

Contributors to this document

  • Daniel Ospina (& RnDAO contributors)
  • Alex Lumley
  • Dan Peng
  • Brian McRae
  • and some good inputs from @KlausBrave and others
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When we talk about the idea of “plurality” there is a good analogy in zoning laws.

Here is the article that taught me the differences.

Here is an exert:

“The Japanese system is inclusionary, as contrasted to the exclusionary system common here in the US. The typical zoning form in America is called euclidian zoning, which specifies the allowed uses and dimensions for a zone. Japan zones limit the “maximum nuisance” in a zone, and allow for any development below that threshold (e.g. a factory can’t be built in a residential neighborhood but housing can be built in a light industrial zone). You can think of this as whitelist vs blacklist approaches. The result in the Japanese case is a lot more mixed use development, while in the US land use is a lot more segregated.”

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We had a discussion and brainstorming around hopes and fears on this topic during today’s KPIs workgroup call.
The RnDAO team, with support from Alex, Dan, and other participants, will prepare a summary of the discussion to be shared here in the next couple of days.
Anyone who couldn’t attend, if you’d like to share your hopes/fears/ideas/resources related to this discussion, please share here or join the Strategy channel in this telegram group and share there
https://t.me/c/2121412271/556

next steps

As mentioned during the call, for now, we’re exploring whether this initiative (defining a strategic framework and using the framework to define strategic priorities) should go ahead. We’re sensing the answer is yes so far but it’s still early and we want to hear from more delegates and other stakeholders.

We’ll be discussing next steps in the telegram group and once we get a clear next step, we’ll share here.

Some initial ideas (feedback on these and other ideas welcomed):

  • creating a repo for resources on how to do strategy
  • reaching out to other stakeholders to let them know this is brewing
  • planning a next workshop
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A completely new Arbitrum (ARB) holder and blockchain user here. Affiliated with reddit community 2-3M subscribers/5K active users /r/ethtrader, but a former Maker Delegate, etc. Prime reason I am here was to try to find a 20-50K grant to support the community $DONUT infrastructure move from Gnosis Chain to Arbitrum.

So I have been wading through all kinds of grant stuff just to figure out where to post a simple community grant for above community. In the Telegram group I saw the above posted and decided to read this post which inspired me to make an account and sign in.

What I have to say here is based on now years of experience with MakerDAO and many other DAOs as well as my own 40+ years as a former consultant team lead, and operations specialist passing through hundreds of companies. I can’t say I have done everything, but sometimes it feels that way.

Rather than comment on the above in specific ways I am going to make a couple general statements regarding business 'process

First…

Almost all business processes have to be cyclic. Which means whatever is decided now on ANY of the subjects in the post, there needs to be a process related to reviewing the associated KPI metrics, AND a method to incorporate feed back mechanisms allowing long term strategy, frameworks, pillars, even the KPIs themselves to be looked at and changed according to feedback from those subjected to them (managers, directors, delegates, developers, users, etc.)

Key point is, to be adaptable a system must constantly put forward a ‘vision’ for itself, define metrics for success (KPIs), operate the system, collect data, review, then adjust. This cyclic process needs to have reasonably practical and achievable cycle times. Far too often I see companies, DAOs get mired down and self destruct simply because they could not adapt quickly enough to changing environments or adapting too slowly or not at all. I also see very lofty frameworks that take huge amounts of time being put forward, which ultimately don’t meet the immediate community needs.

Great to have a 3-10 year focus but if you don’t spend time getting through the next 3 weeks to 3 months - irrelevant.

KISS, and focus on low hanging fruit to get you to next steps can help focus personal and community priorities. Not clear to me what Arbitrum envisions, also not clear to me what community envisions in this respect.

There is a fine line between being reasonably adaptable using above, and overthinking or over cycling. In the above Strategy document I see nothing regarding how this process ‘cycles’ allowing for introspection, and change leading to project/people/structure adaptability and how even the cycle time itself on some things might need to be very fast now, but slow later…

The second point.

While we all want to have our fingers in the governance process. I have seen the results far too often of what happens when too many cooks are in the kitchen, or when too many strong views are in the house. I want to urge some caution regarding community inclusion. Here again it may be necessary to have a lot of cooks initially, but maybe less better cooks are required to satisfy getting a community meal in a reasonable time.

We can all talk about visions for the future, but in the end we are focusing on what we need to do today, or tomorrow because maybe next month, or year, is so far out we can’t even begin to take a stab at what we should be building or talking about for next year. Unlike money that can just slather around to get something done, people time is limited and so we really need to look at what time horizons people/communities are looking at around here and maybe put some more care into what we can accomplish this week, or this month, than what we might envision 3-10 years from now.

I could go on, but the above I think captures two key things I have seen DAOs, companies futz or fluff on.

I will say that my first immersion in Arbitrum Telegram just trying to find what I feel is a smallish grant for /r/ethtrader far more daunting that I would have expected. It is great to see a lively and dynamic community, and I have had great help from some individuals to steer me, but just trying to connect as an appointed representative of the community I represent to the Arbitrum community in a personal way leading to a positive tangible result for the community I represent, time consuming and very difficult so far practically. Everyone very kind, respectful, and pretty focused but just no-one to act formally as Arbitrum liason to me Rman (Eth-Man/MakerMan) to Arbitrum community.

I am going to make one suggestion given so much going on. Please consider putting together a D2A (DAO to Arbitrum) group of professionals. The specific goal is basically to have DAOs looking to do things on Arbitrum, have a single or dual point contact for information, and assistance to achieving their tangible goals. I mean I would be fine if I presented my community case to someone knowledgeable and they said “nah we don’t have any grants for you”. This would have saved me many hours of time. Or better someone who could say “your community is exactly what we are looking for, this is our vision of how you can help us, and if that fits your community vision, here is what we have to help you”. I am suggesting dedicating resources to building a B2B or D2A business team with key goal to act as point people to bring DAOs, projects, businesses to Arbitrum. Here you can filter projects by size (people, $$ TVL, token market cap, developers, tech, what they want, etc.). This centralizes Arbitrum in a way that may help everyone looking to do things, vs. hunting around for grants or other information, and also provide a well balanced place for Arbitrum to share a vision of how it sees itself, but also learn about how other projects, communities see themselves within Arbitrum blockchain and community that is personal, building real community relationships.

/r/ethtrader is coming to Arbitrum, grants or no grants. Individually both our communities will just work towards our own singular visions. But if Arbitrum can work intimately with other communities this becomes more of what are ‘we’ doing together vs. what ‘everyone else is doing themselves’.

Too many times I see more ‘I’ than ‘we’ in DAO and even if no project in crypto gets there. I keep working on a completely alternative vision that may ‘give us a chance’.

I will give one example. How exactly does Arbitrum see itself in the whole ecosystem. One ring to rule them all (which I have seen people comment that they want Arbitrum to dominate the crypto environment - aka win), or one blockchain supporting the entire ecosystem? This also extends to how crypto sees itself with respect to Traditional Finance (which in most cases I read people believe crypto will replace or supplant Traditional Finance). I think we need to get away from competing to win, to how we can cooperate so we all win.

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Notes on Arbitrum Strategy Discussion 1 (non official) - Thursday 1st Feb 2024

Full recording: AplOttr's Meeting Notes

Summary

The discussion centered on a strategic initiative aimed at defining strategic priorities, and thus informing the creation of KPIs. This initiative seeks to build a solid strategic foundation, facilitate the grant selection process, and enhance collaboration across projects. The initiative is in its early stages, focusing on gathering feedback on whether it should go ahead and input on the approach to do strategy in a DAO.

Strategic Initiative Overview

  • Origin and Evolution: The initiative began with Alex and Dan and has gradually attracted more participants. Currently, Daniel Ospina (RnDAO) is leading facilitation (informal appointment).
  • Current Stage: Very early stages, with efforts concentrated on assessing the viability of a strategy-making process in the Arbitrum DAO and discussing the approach we can take.

Goals and Objective of the initiative

  • Building Foundations: Establishing a solid strategic foundation is key to defining concrete goals and incentives and can also reduce delegate fatigue by providing criteria that can be referenced, thus streamlining discussions.
  • Complete Work in Progress: There’s an acknowledgment of existing ideas (e.g. PluralityLabs sensing exercise) and discussions across various groups. The initiative aims to consolidate these efforts and create a strategy that can be ratified by the DAO to foster greater alignment and collaboration.
  • Synergy and Focus: By identifying and concentrating on specific strategic areas, the initiative intends to create synergies between different projects and sharpen the DAO’s focus both in internal resource allocation and comms and positioning.
  • Careful stakeholder consideration: the initiative proposes to include a careful assessment of stakeholders (building on top of PluralityLab’s work) and ensure the different stakeholders are well represented in the strategy-making process.
  • Feedback Loops: The strategy encourages ongoing evaluation and adaptation, using insights from KPI assessments to refine and evolve strategic objectives.
  • Community Engagement: Effective channels for questions and discussions are emphasized to ensure the community’s involvement and input into the strategic process (ensuring critical reflection of implications to prevent a backlash at the implementation phase).

Conclusion

  • The initiative is positioned as a foundational effort to align the DAO around a shared strategy, optimize resource allocation, and enhance collaboration within the ecosystem.
  • By focusing on strategic planning with a comprehensive set of stakeholders and the effective use of KPIs, the initiative aims to streamline operations, clarify objectives, and maximize the impact of the DAO’s activities.

Next Steps:

  • We aim to prepare, gather feedback on, and agree on a process for strategy-making for the DAO. Enabling us to leverage EthDenver as a key occasion to advance this process.
  • More concrete next steps to be defined (see how to get involved).

How to get involved:

Miro Insights

The notes below are the collection of insights from 20+ participants in the KPI workgroup call. They are in no way binding but serve as initial points for discussion.

Link: Miro | Online Whiteboard for Visual Collaboration

Hopes

How would strategy help you personally? (points after voting)
TL;DR: mostly Efficiency and Effectiveness

  1. My governance team would know what they’d need to focus on for our Arbitrum Contributions for that particular timeframe.(6)
  2. Confidence to bet my time, skills, effort towards a strategy I agree looks promising & my skillset is fit to contribute to. (5)
  3. Allows us to move faster, we don’t have to realign on strategy and higher level thinking every time we have a decision. (4)
  4. We wouldnt end up doing work that others have already done. (3)
  5. it would help me justify my votes as a delegate, I sometimes need a reference point that I could use instead of my best judgement (3)
  6. Feel I would have to work less - the DAO wouldn’t be as exhausted because we have agreement. (3)
  7. Shit gets done more efficiently. Instead of focusing on Quantity of proposals, we can focus on less, harmonise, and get stuff done quicker [Increase in quality is expected as well due to more harmonised and focused participation on a particular set of tasks for ex.] (2)
  8. Not just a list of strategies but prioritized so that stakeholders have clarity on what the DAO should focus on (2)
  9. Will give us much needed ‘north stars’ to ladder up into. Especially for KPIs / OKRs / whatever we land on. Streamline conversation. (2)
  10. The ability to easy-track fund things optimistically (2)
  11. Easier to align with other delegates and stakeholders (2)
  12. I personally think we might need a plurality of strategies (2)
  13. More effective proposals in line with what we actually need could be worked on with this as we’d have a direction to strive towards.(1)

Fears

What Concerns do you have?

  1. We can’t get agreement on the strategy (5)
  2. The DAO wont fund work like this and encourage contributors like us to keep building.(5)
  3. The DAO stops funding anything outside the strategic pillars and this kills outside-in innovation (makes the DAO too rigid) (4)
  4. ratifying for the DAO as a whole vs ratifying for a subgovernance structure (4)
  5. The term “Strategy” doesn’t resonate with our community (gives too corporate association) (3)
  6. Strategy becomes focused in the hands of the powerful few builders (3)
  7. that most of the key players in the DAO will not be aware of its existence - like in Optimism most people have no idea of what Optimistic Vision is and what’s the background of RPGF (3)
  8. That we don’t have a representative sample of delegates in the meeting. (2)
  9. What if the strategy doesn’t work? (2)
  10. removing autonomy before it starts working (1)
  11. The PL strategic framework was not ratified by the DAO (1)
  12. This initiative could be viewed as a blocker to other work that may or may not fit within the goals of the DAO (1)
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Just got a chance to read the proposal as presented here. Thank you to you and everyone who has put in time and effort to bring forth this proposal. ‘Cat-herding’ a decentralized group is always going to be a tricky task.

As a general idea, I think the idea of setting a framework for the DAO is a good one. DAOs are interesting because they sort of just appear into the world and the expectation is for it to self-govern itself into a long-term and sustainable entity. It is pretty interesting to see social and market forces result in any form of governance at all. ARB is now coming up on 1 year of existence and I think it’s a good time to reflect on where the DAO has been and where it will end up being. So having this conversation about frameworks seems to be a logical step in the DAO’s evolution. I’m glad to see the discussion being had.

Specific to the proposal, I’ll address the two questions asked:

  1. Is it clear and understandable?

With the caveat I understand the initial discussions are bound to be very broad in scope until the project has had time to narrow it’s scope, there is a lot going on here. To the point I’m guess I’m not sure what the community expected input is here. I apologize if this is maybe my own shortcomings in understanding, but the original post seems to want to start a discussion on setting up a framework. However, the discussion on the framework and implementation seems all over the place.

Maybe as a starting point - The implementation points to defining a set of strategic pillars, yet the graphic and theory section discuss ‘Layer Artefacts’. Which seem to function in a way that I would expect pillars to be defined. Is there maybe more detail on what you would define a “Pillar” as, especially as to how it would be differentiated from the artefact layers?

  1. Would you support Arbitrum DAO using it or what would you change?

I’d like to see what the final product looks like after revisions and community discussion, but I see no reason not to continue the work on this.

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Thanks a lot for your comments.

I understand the framework looks very broad. The idea is that we focus on defining just a few urgent components of it, but then we have a framework that is compatible with a much broader and longer scope of work, so we’re not having to redo everything soon after.

To ease the confusion, some of the strategic pillars could be:

  • specific verticals to focus on in building Swarms (see here our work on this topic so far)
  • key capabilities: e.g. great developer support
  • key technologies to develop
  • or new business models like e.g. licensing the tech stack

So the distinction is between, on one side, essential organizational functions that must be animated to ensure viability but could be just hygiene factors, and on the other side, the areas to double down on.
Note that one of the pillars could be doubling down on a specific Layer. If, e.g., having a strong, cohesive identity was key, then that would be a pillar to double down on (e.g., ideologically driven groups like organized religions emphasize this) or a pillar could also be focusing on the Coordiantion layer as it’s deemed that the key for success in the case of Arbitrum will be coordination between units/projects.

Does that make sense?

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Appreciate the breakdown. It for sure makes some more sense and I’ll keep my eyes out as this grows. I think with that it will become a lot clearer to me, as admittedly I am the type of person who does a lot better understanding when there is a tangible thing to read / view / touch / ect.

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This is a very interesting initiative. My own research last Fall about a potential decentralized risk management framework led me to inventory general DAO-related research to develop a risk taxonomy, and I had noted that DAOs have strategy and management gaps. Coming from a traditional organizations background (aka lawyer), and then studying recommended good practices for risk management and governance of large public companies, I must say that DAOs face some of the same complex and costly issues, as well as many others - as an example, DAO participants need to invest a lot of time to track emergence and also face personal liability risks if they take “too much” leadership. Perhaps the most useful from my perspective was the research of how cooperatives deal with things, as well as systems thinking approaches, and I would recommend those be explored in priority (I am of course continuing my own research and will share as available). Decentralization can only be maintained by good design and constant iteration (aka “open systems design”), as well as training DAO members for certain key roles. Therefore, areas such as risk, designing key units and roles, tracking emergence, and training are essential from my perspective.

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Diving deeper into the methodology to propose to define Strategic Pillars, I wrote this post to share the research we’ve been doing at RnDAO on this topic and why we currently find Citizen Assemblies to be the best-suited approach for our purpose here. Would love to know your thoughts!

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During EthDenver, we had about 20 conversations with delegates, builders, and other stakeholders.
Our sentiment is that this initiative, although highly valuable, is not the lowest-hanging fruit for the DAO. As such, we’re considering pausing it.

We have developed and refined a method for how the strategic process could work. And this work has been published as part of the GovHack and remains a resource we can leverage when the DAO is ready to move forward with it.

In the meantime, we’ll continue growing Arbitrum through the RnDAO Co.Lab program as we have been doing over the last few months. Also seeing a need to mature an Arbitrum Ventures initative and will be engaging with others to advance this: What do we want for Arbitrum Venture Funds?

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