Summary
Formalize the roles, responsibilities and delegated decision authority of DAO contributors to improve our ability to execute on KlimaDAO’s product and platform strategy.
In the sections below, we outline:
- Context for the proposal, including a brief explanation of the challenges facing the DAO, and the key strategic initiatives we are currently pursuing;
- An articulation of the roles, responsibilities and delegated decision authority for key individuals within the DAO, including Core Team, Functional Stewards, the Policy Team, and Internal Contributors;
- A proposal to establish a working group dedicated to building out a decentralization roadmap for the DAO.
Context
The broader organization of individuals involved in contributing to KlimaDAO’s development (the “DAO”) started on October 13, 2021. At this time, community members looking to get involved were invited to join the Contributor Discord server and to find ways of adding value. This self-guided approach led to a large number of contributors joining the DAO in a very short timeframe, and eventually, a functionally-oriented structure organically emerged with individuals assuming different roles and responsibilities across the team.
In the months that followed, the DAO began experiencing growing pains as a result of its informal ways of working, particularly in regards to how work gets done, and how decisions get made within the context of a fully-remote and distributed team. These issues were primarily driven by the difficulty in coordinating a large number of contributors without the processes and systems in place to support them, and the lack of an internally agreed upon framework for how the DAO should make decisions and act to balance the competing needs of quality, transparency, risk, decentralization and speed.
Over the same time-period, however, the market opportunity and strategic goals for KlimaDAO have become increasingly clear. The goal for KlimaDAO is to create an asset-based reserve currency to accelerate the growth of ReFi and to provide transparent and frictionless access to the carbon market; the goal of the Klima Infinity Product is to improve accessibility and create value for various ecosystem participants through SaaS-style distribution and world-class product experiences.
Like any early-stage venture, the ability for KlimaDAO to move fast and execute with a high-degree of excellence is paramount. However, there is often a tradeoff between making a decision quickly versus making a decision that the majority of people agree to. As an early stage Web3 venture, KlimaDAO needs to balance this tradeoff as it finds its way to product-market fit.
Note, a brief description of our Product and Platform strategy can be found here.
Roles, responsibilities and delegated decision rights
In this section, we outline the responsibilities and delegated decision authority of key roles within the DAO, namely the Core Team, Functional Stewards, the Policy Team and Internal Contributors. The roles outlined below establish and formalize the existing practices within the DAO that have been in place since launch.
Core Team
- Responsible for executing on KlimaDAO’s strategic vision, and interfacing with external participants (e.g. governments, standards bodies, etc.) to develop and expand the ReFi ecosystem.
- Delegated decision authority includes recruitment and removal of contributors and functional stewards, approving operational budgets, approving operating model changes, approving compensation structures, and setting legal strategy.
- NOTE: at the time of writing, some Core members also happen to be Functional Stewards. A listing of each Core member’s role will be published soon.
Functional Stewards
- Responsible for interfacing with the Core Team to translate strategic vision into actionable projects and work streams; and working with internal and external contributors to execute projects and work streams against proposed budgets, timelines and quality expectations.
- Delegated decision authority includes defining roles and responsibilities of contributors within their functional team, proposing new internal and external contributors (i.e. recruitment), and proposing operational budgets for their team, as well as cross-functional projects they own.
Policy Team
- Responsible for economic modeling and formulating monetary policy for the KlimaDAO Platform.
- Delegated decision authority includes putting forward KIPs related to treasury monetary policy (e.g. enabling bonds for new assets, allocating treasury funds, adjusting policy parameters such as reward rate), determining minor reward rate adjustments if realized rewards vary significantly from KIP-specified targets, vetting new carbon assets for inclusion in the retirement aggregator, and adjusting bond capacities.
- NOTE: some of these powers have been formally delegated to the Policy team in previous KIPs.
In delegating decision rights to members of the DAO, we recognize the importance of transparency in maintaining trust. As such, we will continue to provide updates and report on progress, and where appropriate, indicators for performance will be made available to drive accountability and continuous improvement of the DAO. Beyond this, the DAO will explore additional ways to improve transparency
Decentralization roadmap
While this proposal optimizes the DAO for our short-medium term needs, we also propose that an internal working group be established, tasked with developing a recommended decentralization strategy and roadmap over the medium and long-term. The deliverable of this working group will be a report and set of recommendations, but subsequent KIPs will still be required to implement any proposed changes as and when required. The scope of this project will be defined within a working group composed of members of the Core Team, Functional Stewards, Policy Team, Internal Contributors, as well as select members of the community with demonstrated expertise in decentralized governance. The working group participants and objectives will be established in Q2 2022 within the DAO Contributor Server.
Proposal
Formalize the roles, responsibilities and delegated decision authority of DAO contributors to improve our ability to execute on KlimaDAO’s product and platform strategy. Create a working group to research and develop a decentralization strategy appropriate for KlimaDAO.