V2 Index Council [contributor vote update]

Authors: @Pepperoni_Joe, @Matthew_Graham, @Metfanmike

Summary

The Index Council was appointed on November 29th 2022, with the first term formally ending on the 28th of Feb.

This post summarizes the achievements of the Index Council to date and outlines a proposal for the next iteration of the Index Council.

What has the Index Council achieved?

Over the three months of its existence, the Index Council has delivered the following.

• Vision & Strategy
  • Laid out a vision for the community to rally around.
    • “We build decentralized financial products that unlock prosperity for everyone.”
  • Outlined a high-level strategy and primary objectives 4 for Index Coop to support the Nest creation process.
• Hiring
  • Coordinated the Priority Hiring process 14, successfully transitioning 28 contributors onto new fixed yearly salaries and equity packages
• Season 1 budget and proposal
  • Provided feedback on Season 1 Nest Proposals
  • Worked with Finance Nest to refine Nests budgets and develop a holistic financial plan for Index Coop
  • Approved move from 20-day to 5-day moving average for contributor rewards payments
  • Approved a budget rollover whilst Season 1 Nest proposal were created
  • Supported the comprehensive restructure of Growth Nest
• 3rd parties
  • Opened up consistent lines of communication with Set Protocol
  • Agreed a revised economic proposal 1 with DATA methodologists.
• Emergency spend
  • Approved emergency for Liquidity Pod for FLI products and also for the GMI launch
• Delegated:
  • Tokenomics → Finance Nest
  • Liquidity → Liquidity Pod

Season 1 - Leadership Model

During the Leadership Forum on Wednesday, 23 Feb (slides 5, video 1) we explored the need for some group within Index Coop to:

• Set overarching strategic direction
• Allocate resources and capital to best support strategy
• Ensure Nests are accountable for delivering on strategy
• Delegate decisions which lack a clear owner to win teams

We discussed three different models for how this could be achieved. These slides 5 summarize the pros and cons of each approach.

After discussion, it seemed that the general community sentiment was strongly in favor of continuing with a V2 of the Index Council in comparison to other alternative decision-making frameworks.

However, we also recognized the need for any future iteration of the Council to:

• Improve transparency and communication
• More clearly define the remit and decision making power of the Index Council
• Be better at delegating decision making responsibility to high context “win teams”

This proposal seeks to move the conversation forward on this important topic.

Index Council V2

For the next iterations, the Index Council will be laser-focused on:

• Determining Index Coop strategy - especially relating to product and strategic partnerships
• Supporting Resource allocation to deliver on our strategy.
• Delegation decisions that lack a clear owner and empower “win teams” to solve problems

Thus, the next iteration of the Index Council could almost be seen as a “Resource Allocation and Strategy Pod” (RASP). It is worth highlighting that whilst the Index Council may be the ultimate “approver” of some decisions, in most instances another group will be “recommending” and/or drive activity on a particular topic.

This framework for how Index Coop will handle decisions in Season 1 can be seen as follows:

In this framework, the Index Council will have the following delegated decision making authority.

The Index Council will also stand up the following groups with delegated responsibility to engage and drive progress across the following areas

Council term length

We propose updated details on the Council as follows:

• Index Council member are elected for a 6 month term
• An Index Council election will take place ever 3 months to fill vacant positions on the council arising due to:
  • Council members coming to the end of their 6 month term, OR
  • Council members who have left the organization
• Council members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms (so 12 months)

This means we will seek the following election cycles Council Members

Syncing the cycles of Index Council with our Seasons, we see new Council members will be appointed either 1-month after the start, or 1-month before the end of each season. This enables any new Council member to be involved in the entire lifecycle of a Season and play a critical role in shaping Index Coops Seasonal strategy.

Compensation

To provide clarity on Council compensation, all members elected to the Council will move to Band 6 14 as per our priority hiring guidelines. If a Council member’s compensation is higher than the Band 6 level, no additional compensation will be provided.

Providing additional compensation for Council service is intended to incentivize running for Council and actively contributing.

Council members will return to their previous compensation Band when they no longer serve on the Council.

Council Processes

In V1 of the Council, we reflected on the need to improve the transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of Council processes. We are also striving to delegate more actively to contributors and increase decentralization.

Towards the aims of transparency and efficiency, we are introducing Council meeting agenda, minutes and roles. Additionally, we are introducing a Council agenda queue to give more visibility on pending agenda topics, as well as a channel for contributors to propose and prioritize agenda topics.

Ahead of every meeting the Council Secretary (described below) will complete and circulate the meeting agenda according to this template. 5 The agenda is intended to focus the discussion on topics within the Council’s remit and to focus on decision-making. The agenda will be distributed on the contributor Discord.

Additionally, the Council will distribute meeting minutes according to this template 3. The purpose of the minutes is to provide transparency as well as a record of decisions. There may be occasions where the Council needs to discuss sensitive topics in which case some content may be appropriately redacted. The minutes will be distributed to contributors in the contributor’s Discord.

Finally, we are introducing the Council Agenda Queue 1 which gives full transparency on pending agenda topics, as well as a mechanism for contributors to propose and prioritize agenda topics. The agenda queue is a new platform that provides a way for contributors to raise potential agenda topics as well as to upvote topics they consider important. The Council Secretary will be responsible for managing the agenda queue and working with the Council Steward (described below) to get prioritized topics onto the agenda. It is important to note that the agenda queue has a means to label topics out of the Council’s scope as well as to delegate decisions back to contributors. Both mechanisms are intended to focus the council on topics squarely within its remit and to actively promote contributor empowerment and decentralization.

Council roles

In order to better facilitate the Council meetings, one of the Council members will serve in a Council Steward role. The Council Steward will be responsible for:

• Finalizing the agenda in advance of Council meetings
• Ensuring the agenda and minutes are approved by the Council
• Preparing for and facilitating the Leadership Forum

The Council Steward is determined by the Index Council. We anticipate a single person playing the role for approximately 3 months, but we leave this up to the discretion of the Index Council.

Furthermore, to support increased transparency and accountability, one member of the Council will serve as a Council Secretary who will be responsible for:

• Taking the meeting minutes and distributing them via the contributor’s Discord Server.
• Managing the agenda queue.

We hope these new roles and processes improve the transparency and efficiency of the Council. Additionally, we hope these changes will increase delegation to contributors and decentralization. As always, we are eager for your feedback and questions.

V2 Council method of election

We have seen success using rank-order voting in similar election processes such as the Funding Council, Autonomy Group and the Index Council 1.

For Index Council Election #2 we will use ranking order voting via choicevote.

Details

• Bronze, Silver and Gold Owls are all eligible to participate.
• Silver Owls will get 2x vote weighting and Gold Owls will get a 4x vote weighting
• There will be three slots available for the Council in Election #2. There are no requirements on which Nest prospective Council members can be appointed from .
• Pepperoni Joe, Matthew Graham, Lemonade and MetFanMike will remain in position until May 30th.
• Voting will be conducted via choicevote. Voting will open on March 14th.

Details on the Owl Levels of contributors for Season 1 can be seen below. This provides the following relative vote by voting group:

This means the selection of Index Council nominee will be heavily influenced by the perspectives of our highest context and impact Gold Owl contributors.

The breakdown of voting weight for Nest can also be seen below:

This table indicates a broad distribution of voting power across Index Coops 5 Nests. With the largest Nest of Growth and Product having a significant share of the overall voting weight.

Nominations

Nominations will be flagged via a governance forum post. Candidates must self nominate to be considered for the Index Council.

Candidates are expected to write a short summary (max 300 words) which may cover topics including

• What they think Index Coop’s strategy should be
• What is their stance on resource allocation
  • i.e. level of overall spend, any Nest, Pods or initiatives which should receive more or less funding
• What their stance is on delegation of decision making,
  • I.e. what activity would they like to see the Council focus on, what activity would they like to see delegated
• Why they think they would make a good Index Council nominee

Next steps

Please see supporting comments for further details on the next steps around the Index Council.