Author : @thinkDecade
Date Published : 05-09-2022
This post was first published on the Bankless Africa governance forum(Commonwealth) on 31-08-2022.
As this is crucial to the future of Bankless Africa, Am dropping it here for bDAO-wide discussion and thoughts. I also think the framework can use some work and probably some tough questions too(but this is not wildfireDAO, so be gentle, lmao:joy:
).
Summary
Developing a framework for organizing Bankless Africa that facilitates innovation and experimentation while providing a clear pathway on how ideas,initiatives, projects, etc within the community evolve.
evolution of groups/ideas & potential structure of Bankless Africa
Background
Bankless Africa is currently organized into workgroups. The development of the workgroup model was to accommodate the growing number of people entering the community and finding a means of placing talents and interests. While workgroups have worked so far, it presumes an already established team. Workgroups also work well for highly specialized members banding together as a team to bootstrap an idea. The workgroups that were formed initially had members taking points to steward them.
As we continue to grow, new members need a clear path on how to self-start initiatives, bootstrap ideas, organize teams, and execute. Furthermore, Bankless Africa as a community needs a shape, a taxonomy of sorts. The framework below is an attempt to address these.
Specification
in light & dark mode😂
Adaptive Hybrid framework for organizing Bankless Africa.
Before we get into the weeds, let me get this off my back.
Bonding
Getting members to form a team to pursue an idea, goal, etc. the bonding stage is internal and mostly within the community.
Bringing
This is where a team has formed with clear roles and responsibilities. At this point, the idea has been morphed into a service/product/milestone/prototype, etc that has been shipped at least once. During the bridging stage, the team looks to onboard new talents, more resources, and external partnerships to further its objectives.
Now let’s explore:rocket:
INTEREST GROUPS
Interest groups are used to bootstrap ideas. During this stage, folks interested in a specific idea can bond together to incubate the idea.
Use the traditional agile model to set up an interest group.
Forming
- Idea formation
- Initial team formation.
- Drafting of proposal
- Drafting of interest group charter.
Storming
- Solidifying proposal & interest group charter
- Initial team outline
- Identifying potential roadblocks & conflicts & dealing with them
Forming & storming activities generally overlap.
Norming
- The proposal is posted on bAfrica governance platform
- Feedback is gathered from bAfrica forum and proposal/idea is re-evaluated.
- Polls opened if necessary
- Team formation by roles, etc is also clarified.
- Tasks/activities are outlined with possible timelines.
Performing
- Team members execute tasks/activities.
- Milestones are tracked
- Course correct in real-time
- Begin identifying patterns
- Include feedback system for evaluation on a weekly basis possibly.
Adjourning
- Check to see if milestones have been achieved.
- Perform retrospective to evaluate idea & initial execution.
- Determine if it’s viable to continue, pause, or end it.
Interest Group should at least ship the idea once to determine viability.
POD
The equivalent of a pod currently in bAfrica is a workgroup. But the workgroup is too web2ish, so I propose we update the name to Pod.
Pods are well-formed, highly executing teams that have moved from the interest group stage. Meaning they have shipped the idea. And have gone through more than one iteration.
Pods have also hit some prominent KPIs or key milestones. Essentially pods are more established in terms of teams, and resources and are executed on a daily basis.
Pods have set up a system that ships service/product cyclically(daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc)
Guild, Project, Node
Am not spending time here, more on this in a later post probably. But here’s the rough idea👇🏾\
A Pod can potentially evolve into either a guild, project, Node, etc. some potential pathways emerging in bAfrica in the future.
Operations pod(workgroup) evolving into a guild
Some sort of marketing guild
Some sort of education guild
Some sort of developer guild or tech guild.
A writers guild etc, etc, etc,
So most of these talent bases/pools we have now might evolve into bigger talent hubs and groups. But they have got to have a clear pathway towards evolution.
Also, country nodes are part of the Bankless Africa roadmap . Country nodes will essentially be bigger groups of the “Node” category.
Hopefully, you get the picture. 
Additional Remarks
Bankless Africa in its current form will operate mostly in the 2 categories of “Interest Groups” & “Pods”.
We will need a massive treasury and well-talented, active core contributors to be able to evolve into the third category. Might take some time to get there.
Pods that are able to secure a reasonable amount of funding might be able to evolve individually and recruit talents for their activities.
Some possible stuff that might need addressing
- Can highly specialized teams start from a different stage? Like starting as a pod instead of an “Interest Group”? What will inform such a situation?
- How can funding boost the evolution process of groups?
- Can members within a group serve as an indicator for the group to evolve?
- Can groups within groups serve as an indicator for that group to evolve?
- What’s the process of formally ratifying a group evolving from an “Interest Group” to a “Pod”? - a good governance question. (new governance framework needs to look at this)
Next steps
- Open poll on this proposal for voting
- Implement new changes in the community if it passes
- Implement structure in bAfrica new discord.
- Effect necessary changes if any.
- Adapt & Adopt “Interest Group charter”
- Re-organize Bankless Africa Notions.
- Follow-up post > “The Minimum Viable Modus Operandi Model”
Comments/thougts are highly welcome. also head over to Commonwealth if you want to vote on this proposal.
Thank you.
#RELENTLESS 