Hello Scroll DAO!
Now that the first CCC has wrapped up, it’s time to take a step back and evaluate how things went. We’re putting the finishing touches on the CCC#1 Handbook, which will be linked here as soon as it’s finalized. This marks the start of an ongoing effort to refine and enhance the Co-Creation process.
This post pulls from the handbook to break down the most relevant takeaways about what worked, where we can do better, and what comes next. With these insights, let’s start a conversation about CCC#2 and how we can make it stronger together.
Assessment of Outcomes
The Co-Creation Cycle was originally designed to deliver at least five fully developed proposals for a community vote by the end of the process, with success measured against the following criteria (as outlined here):
- Proposal Excitement: At least one proposal in each focus area generated enthusiasm among the DAO at large, delegates, and the Foundation team, demonstrated through social ratification or treasury allocation.
- Proposal Fit: Addressing key considerations within each of the key focus areas
- Growth: Ideally proposing strategies for a grant program, “program of programs,” or tooling and data infrastructure.
- Community: Ideally ideas for community programs or a “community of communities” strategy.
- GovIt: Ideally the production of key governance questions to address or experiments to improve processes.
- Participation: Number of attendees at relevant calls to assess involvement.
- Engagement: Level of engagement, primarily through the calls and forum activity but also across other participation channels.
While these metrics are still relevant, it became evident through the process that adjustments were needed to accommodate for the opportunity the cycle presented. Through this lens, we considered the measures above:
- Strategic Deliberation: Though influencing the trajectory of other proposals, this emergent direction generated significant excitement and demonstrated excellent proposal fit, aligning closely with the DAO’s long-term goals. This will be integrated into CCC#2.
- User Research Proposal: Sent to a vote in January, it too has generated significant excitement and exhibits excellent proposal fit.
- Participation and Engagement Levels: Participation in calls and engagement in Telegram channels were consistently strong throughout the cycle. However, forum engagement varied: while discussions about call recaps were limited (despite being frequently reviewed), the forum saw high activity around the first proposal and conversations about delegate percentages. This highlights a disparity in engagement depending on the topic and platform.
- Feedback: The feedback survey received overwhelmingly positive responses, reflecting general satisfaction with the process.
With this in mind, we consider the initial Co-Creation Cycle a success while recognizing key opportunities for refinement to enhance future iterations.
Key Takeaways for Improving Future Cycles
Based on the insights outlined above, we identified several key takeaways. While these findings are specific to Scroll DAO’s ecosystem, they may offer valuable considerations for other ecosystems as well.
Early Strategic Alignment
- Context: Being the first cycle, there were a lot of unknowns, which contributed to some challenges in moving proposals forward. The delay in introducing Labs’ strategic goals extended the period of uncertainty. Having an earlier alignment session with Labs during the context-setting phase could have helped us clarify objectives.
- Takeaway: In future cycles, the Foundation will have more clarity and will provide context around strategy during the initial context-setting phase.
Recognizing Realistic Goals
- Context: Given all of the unknowns, it was not straightforward to accurately predict realistic desired outcomes. Initially, we thought it would be feasible to generate multiple proposals - to go from an initial idea to refining it to voting on it within 6 weeks. At the same time, this existed in tension with the desire to have proposals be co-designed by multiple parties (as opposed to having a single group draft a proposal and likely execute the work).
- Takeaway: It is much more feasible to focus on generating ideas, figuring out who wants to work on refining it, and getting an initial sketch of requirements for the ideas. That process, combined with some clear role definitions, can help ideas get co-designed into proposals quicker.
Early Proposal Formation
- Context: One general challenge for DAOs is how to get initial proposals that are aligned with the existing activities across stakeholders. In the first iteration of the CCC, the thought was to generate multiple proposals. Especially if keeping to principles of co-design, there is an open question on who stewards the co-design process.
- Takeaways:
- It seems likely that for DAOs adhering to progressive decentralization, the Foundation needs to play an active role in not just facilitating interactions but also actively partaking in the proposal development.
- This should be taken over by relevant committees or working groups in the future, potentially including a deliberation committee that helps with strategy definition and refinement as well as project managing (if not running) the deliberative exercise themselves.
Scheduling Considerations
- Context: DevCon and the holidays created breaks that lost momentum and required a time to recap the outcomes from the idea generation phase. Additionally, poorly timed sessions (e.g., night calls) saw minimal engagement, as they were neither late enough for Asian time zones nor early enough for others in the ecosystem.
- Takeaways:
- Consider factors that might impact delegate engagement.
- Avoid scheduling cycles to overlap with conferences or holidays, or plan for the conference to coincide with a natural break or pause in the cycle.
- Find someone in a timezone who can more effectively accommodate the needs of later time zones, and until then night calls should be minimized.
Balancing Depth and Efficiency
- Context: The cycle structure should be optimized for efficiency and engagement. A longer cycle with more clarity or a shorter cycle with less fatigue might work better for participants.
- Takeaways:
- Examine if there are too many calls per week, with consideration that at least two calls across different time zones are needed.
- Explore shorter cycles (e.g., 4 weeks) for the standard CCC process to strike the right balance between thoroughness and efficiency, reserving longer cycles for rare, in-depth discussions when required.
- Experiment with structuring the idea generation around one focus area per session, rather than cycling through all categories in 1 workshop to see if it has a positive or negative impact on fatigue and depth.
Shaping CCC#2
While the cycle took some unexpected turns, it successfully brought the community together and advanced some great proposals. Looking ahead to CCC#2, we’d love to hear your thoughts! What do you think worked well? Where can we improve?
Your input will help shape the next cycle and make it even stronger. 