We believe that a challenge as big as making DeFi more secure requires an outstanding community.
By creating clear, understandable structure to our organization, we empower more people to feel welcome to get involved and play their part in building the best community-driven organization we can.
Open organizations are not 'flat', as much as we might say they are, or even though we might like them to be.
As explored in detail by Jo Freeman, the absence of a defined structure leads organizations to end up with hidden hierarchy and unwritten rules of 'how things really get done', which can be ultimately disempowering and not very conducive to organizational clarity and effectiveness.
If everyone has a seat at the table, decisions end up being made at a table not everyone can see. That's not malicious or deceitful, it's human nature and it's actually wise. Because of our innate understanding that new ideas need protection and candid feedback is best given with a thoughtful approach, people seek environments they trust where they can share ideas vulnerably and seek candid feedback without the need to feel defensive, fear they'll look stupid, or risk conflict.
In the absence of formal channels and approaches for this in any organization, people will use informal channels, so failing to account for this reality actually exacerbates the tendency for open organizations to have hidden hierarchy.
Based on this, it is our intent to spell out very clearly how things work and increasingly work to hold ourselves accountable to work within our process.
Unlike many other DAOs, C4 offers a service on a fixed timeline, so we need an approach that helps us reliably execute on schedule.
As the organization evolves, we will take more and more of an 'open swarm' approach to our urgent tasks, but in the near-term we rely on a group of paid staff who keep things moving forward every day so the rest of the community can contribute where and how they see best.
The goal of this phase is to so thoroughly and completely document and systematize our processes that we are able to consistently execute an increasingly complex process with reliability and low stress.
Information and decisions flow at different speeds, with each requiring different context, granularity, and presentation.
The tools we use and the ways we use them tend to set the pace and flow of the river of activity. While people often want to have one tool to rule them all, a mixture of tools is essential for capturing information, reducing cognitive load and creating emotional safety while blending urgent vs. emergent, 1ft vs. 30,000ft, process vs. strategy, task vs possibility.