PM Best Practices Database
Best practices of project management in BanklessDAO
How to read this table?
This table is intended to be a collection of project management best practices of Bankless DAO. Best practices are aggregated by Project Management topics (first column). You will find that each Project Management topic appears in multiple rows, this reflects that more than one best practice (column three) has been recorded. For some best practices, the PLM working group has identified a challenge in Bankless DAO projects and developed best practices as a derivative for this challenge. In other cases, a best practice was observed in a project and hence added without a challenge.
Project Managers looking to learn from the best practices should find a Project Management topic that they want to learn about and read either through all the rows that outline the respective challenges and best practices. For best practices that were discussed in depth in the PLM working group, you can find more detailed information, if you see the below icon next to a Project Management topic.
How do we collect best practices?
As a PLM working group, we observe best practices or challenges from projects. We can have two different situations:
- We observe a challenge or someone from a project brings a challenge to our attention and seeks help.
We will then create a new row in the below table, fill the challenge and leave the best practice blank for the moment. Ideally, we will also notify the PLM working group channel of the new entry. The PLM working group coordinator will create a thread in the channel to start discussing the challenge async. In the coming weekly meeting, we will review the discussion in the group and agree on best practices. These will then either be documented in the respective column in the table (if small recommendation), additional information can be added to the pop-out page like in the below example.
- We observe a best practice in a project
In this case, we document this as a new row in the table and discuss in the weekly whether the group agrees that this is a best practice.
Web3/Decentralized PM’ing
PLM General Observations Document
Default view
Database (1)
Project Management topic
Source (project/general)
Best practice
Challenge
Added by
Define clear KPIs and measurable benchmarks for that KPIs to measure and align work towards success
Objectively communicating challenges and roadblocks within the project team.
See page body for best practices
Projects perceived internal delivery standards vs. speed of delivery
Acknowledge outstanding accomplishments by individuals and the entire team - formally/informally
Use the monthly remuneration flow in use in writers guild/academy/translators guild. It posts a public Notion table of accounting work done, and provides an easy way to integrate with multi-sig tools like GnosisSafe and CSVAirDrop.
Must use a balanced combination of bounties and salaries to retain and motivate talent
Paying exclusively in bounties provides no guarantee of long term commitment (workflow)
Creating a discord tag for a project OUTSIDE of the role-select will allow you to reach ACTUAL contributors and not just those interested in the projects themselves
Dates need to be associated with bounties otherwise a person can grab them and not predictably complete
Work is not consistently getting done
Role buddy system. Shared burdens and strengths as well as huge learning opportunity. "Decentralization at the level of the role"
This is few peoples full time job so that can inevitably interfere with commitments
See page body for best practice
How to deal with salaried roles that are underperformed?
There should be DAO-wide expectations on core coordinators. I suggest a framework of responsibilities with associated authorities
Core coordinator helps easing coordination friction. Try to find coordinator as early as possible
Basic governance template + cultural alignment. Idea of role "Apprentice" (role that can be tagged to bounty out work of the main role holder)
Governance for projects - Allowing people to move up and down in the team
See page body for best practices
Tight time frame for Season preparation (budget, KPIs, Milestones)