Office Specification
This document is to serve as a general purpose definition for offices and is not a program.
Drafted by: Icedcool, jameswmontgomery.eth
OP Date: November 1, 2021
Summary
In the constant movement of the DAO, single-person roles can be constraining, centralized, and suffer from problems like lack of coverage (ex. life circumstances: vacation, sick, burnout, etc).
An office is a solution to this that allows for multiple people to share the responsibility of a role.
For example, a Guild Organizer office might have two seats and a budget of 130k BANK per season. Both members would determine how to split responsibilities & the allocated budget and would be in constant communication with regard to who is creating agendas, running meetings, and representing in community calls. The guild would ultimately elect two members into office and terms would follow typical roles.
Background
As Dev Guild members can attest by now, Icedcool and jameswmontgomery.eth have generally shared the position of Guild Organizer practically since genesis. The work must be done - regardless of availability - so sharing the responsibility as a team and handing off as needed was a really effective strategy for keeping things going.
Recently, the guild has been discussing the Talent Coordinator role as well. Initially drafted as a role, it became apparent that the position could be too centralized and also require a wide availability. Splitting the role into a two (or maybe even three) seated office appears to be another great strategy for sharing the responsibility and decentralizing “power”.
As a DAO, we have technically had the power to simply elect two members to a role, but the title of “office” neatly wraps the concept and allows it to have a singular budget as well.
Specification
Definitions
Office - An office consists of two or more seats and follows the same rules set by the Program Proposal Framework.
Seat - Similar to a role, seats in an office are a defined space for members to fill in order to handle responsibility. Unlike roles, seats do not have predefined hours and generally share the workload equitably with their team.
Elections criteria - An office must be a ratified program before elections can commence. The vote should be ranked choice or select-many and only guild members can participate.
Election timeline - An election must have a duration of at least 1 week.
Responsibilities
Though responsibilities should be outlined in the initial program, how those tasks are shared on a day-to-day level should be left to the members of the office to determine.
Funding
The program must have a set budget for the season.
Either monthly or seasonally, the office will submit its final direction for the split of its funds. The Guild Treasury Committee will direct funds to each member address as a percent of the budgeted allowance. If the office requires a multisig, the funds can be directed and allocated to this address instead.
Questions
Should a “lead” seat be specified in general, left to individual programs, or even prevented?
Should offices have a minimum of 3 seats to force tie-breaking?
How should offices escalate issues? Ombudsmen?
What happens if no one wants to run? Or only part of the office.