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Goals, objectives and metrics for the bounty program (reboot)
The 201805 Bounty Progress report (issue #759), had no statement of the objectives and evaluation criteria for the bounty program, which was noted as a deficiency during the board meeting Friday, June 15, 2018.
The purpose of this issue is to establish Goals, Objectives and Metrics for the bounty system.
In response to feedback after RCon3, we are "rebooting" the trust metric and label guides, effective Sep 19. To get certified to vote / guide an area:
- make the relevant sociocratic connections
- get mandate / sponsorship
- establish budget criteria, and
- make projections
Note earlier draft initiated by @allancto :
Benefit to RChain
A culture of return on investment in the bounty system.
Clarity for the CONTIBUTING.md, our bounty-contract.
Budget and Objective
Estimated Budget of Task: $1200 Estimated Timeline Required to Complete the Task: 6 months How will we measure completion? endorsement of metrics by RChain president, executive committee, Task Approval Committee, and/or RChain Board of Directors
cc @deannald @patrick727 @kennyrowe @lapin7 @leithaus
Legal
Task Submitter shall not submit Tasks that will involve RHOC being transacted in any manner that (i) jeopardizes RHOC’s status as a software access token or other relevant and applicable description of the RHOC as an “asset”—not a security— or (2) violates, in any manner, applicable U.S. Securities laws.
Spoke with @kitblake just now, and he suggested we (him and me) maybe could help with this.
@lapin7 I just re-read your comment; which "we" needs to create metrics? Did Greg take the ball on that part too?
The first I heard of metrics for the bounty system was in the May 9 weekly update after board meeting. I'm still standing by for records of that board meeting too; I don't see them in https://github.com/rchain/board/tree/master/2018 .
@dckc Yes getting the minutes correct and approved, is a cumbersome thing.
I guess it's up to the Task Approval Committee (@dckc @PatrickM727 @deannald) now to create metrics, evaluation criteria, objectives, KPI's for the bounty system. I don't know if @leithaus comes up with objectives and criteria.
Until now the objective was:
Do whatever you can to get RChain on the rails, according to your own insights.
Apparently this objective needs to be managed. The good thing is that the trust metric solves some of the problems with concern to:
- abuse of setting Budgets and Rewards
- setting priorities
- time and result management
I guess it's up to the Task Approval Committee ... now to create metrics
No, I don't see anything about metrics in the description of the Task Approval Committee. Perhaps you're asking that we take this on? I'll consider it, but without records of the board meeting, we're missing a lot of essential context. Putting something together for the 201806 pay period seems impractical.
I don't know if @leithaus comes up with objectives and criteria.
What do you mean by that? You just wrote "Greg @leithaus will formulate the objectives and evaluation criteria of the bounty program" two days ago.
I agree with @dckc - I don't see anything about the Task Approval Committee taking on this body of work (creating metrics, etc.) nor direction on this from the Executive Committee minutes from this week.
I meant to say: @leithaus said that he would formulate objectives and criteria, but I’m not sure that he will actually do it.
@kennyrowe can we have a rough summary of what the board discussion was on Jun15 (complete minutes would be great, but summary relative to bounty will do)? @lapin7 @deannald @pmoorman @patrick727 @dckc @kitblake are you all available at 9am PDT monday june 25 to discuss objectives and metrics? @leithaus (and others) you are invited certainly as well if it fits your schedule. @lapin7 will you set up the zoom?
Here's the document in progress. Contribute early!- we can follow @dckc 's maxim that if the work is done prior to the meeting we can dispense with the meeting. 👍 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jXm6Ks9OAe-0mgVOT2QtfaVkHndnOodj3uE5FJJXBNA/edit?usp=sharing
@allancto I would prefer to get some clarity and direction on who will be working on objectives, criteria and metrics before we start working on them with the group you mention above.
I'm not available during business hours Monday. Not until Friday.
Also, as noted above, the board minutes are essential context. I don't see how to proceed effectively without them.
@lapin7 I just re-read your Jun 19 comment:
The 201804 and 201805 Bounty Progress Report was received, but the objectives and evaluation criteria were missing.
In what way were they missing? Why did anyone expect them in that report? That's the first mention of objectives and evaluation criteria in issue #678.
@deannald based on your comment above I changed the title of this issue to "Interim Report". @dckc , @lapin7 I have also edited the task description to include discussion from the comments above.
@allancto I ran into this issue in another context and was a little surprised to see the "interim report:" prefix in the summary. I remember now... and that would make sense, if github would let us change the author to you (a feature I'm used to from Trac). But I'm the author, so I tweaked it to something in between. Input to the TAC is not my goal. My goal is to get the whole job done, whatever it is.
@ian-bloom - any luck in following up with @leithaus on this issue on Friday?
@deannald Ian doesn't read his Github mail. He told me to use normal mail or Discord.
@dckc Particularly for this issue, it would be useful to have the minutes of the Board meeting. "...establish Goals Objectives and Metrics for the bounty system" is a huge scope.
recall from our July 4 meeting (#823):
@allan - ... Will write objectives and metrics based on the stated purpose, though I don’t think we’re meeting them. @dckc: if you write objectives that we’re clearly not meeting, that will advance the discussion.
What news, @allancto ?
@allancto I see you made substantial progress in objectives and metrics sections in the report as of July 20. IOU a review.
@allancto - Me too (owe you a review). I'm out the next 2 days, so probably some time Thursday...
@dckc @deannald i'm available all day today (Thursday), if you need me let me know what time works best. Thanks! -allancto
I am closing this issue subject to the measure of completion listed in the issue statement (endorsement of metrics by RChain president, executive committee, Task Approval Committee, and/or RChain Board of Directors).
Budget requested: 3600 Valuation model: Value should be assessed by TAC and Directors (reflecting value to our Cooperative). %contribution: 82% @allancto 6% @pmoorman 6% @lapin7 3% @jimscarver 3% @dckc
@dckc thanks. I can't tell from your response whether the TAC will be endorsing it or not. I'll be happy to work to get it endorsed by our board or president if that's your request, but in that case I'd like to mark the issue as ONGOING and get the part that's already completed voted. I've been working on it for the last 6 weeks.
Thanks! -@allancto
The goal here is to come up with something the TAC endorses. Whether we endorse the current draft isn't clear; I haven't finished my review.
It's reasonable to request a reward for a small part of the budget for getting past a blank page, but what looks like the last 20% of the document is often 80% of the work, so most of the budget should be reserved for when the whole job is done.
I changed the estimated duration from two weeks to six months based on the amount of time it's taking to get feedback from the parties involved.
Given the current examination of the bounty system, this doc, with its sections on metrics and historical achievements, has turned out to be quite timely. Initially I thought it was an 'extra' but it gathers and provides a lot data to work with.
Note that the title includes "Interim Report". Once things take a definitive form, we might bring out an update based on followup and evolution of the approach. Some of the content can also be used for future communication about our innovative and mesh-based bounties solution.
@allancto what I see in the current draft is a bit different from what I expected, but I suppose it's OK.
In our July 4 discussion, I said "if you write objectives that we’re clearly not meeting, that will advance the discussion". So I expected not only metrics ("number of burgers sold") but also targets ("at least 100 burgers per month") so that we could tell whether we were meeting them or not.
I don't see the targets. But I guess I don't need them.
I'm willing to organize reporting quarterly on the metrics in the current draft: number of participants, utilization of communication channels, etc. (To be clear: I'm also content with the level of reporting we are already doing, so I would be OK if this metrics draft were set aside.)
I reviewed the introductory material only lightly. I was going to suggest removing it, but I see it's valuable to at least one reviewer (@kitblake ) so I'm not going to suggest that after all.
I had one oustanding comment regarding "all other human creations, are inevitably created with “bugs” which @allancto has since addressed.
Also: I don't have access to the version history, so I can't tell when it was last revised.
@deannald , @PatrickM727 , I propose we reboot the list of Bounty Task Guides; that is: revoke all certifications an only reinstate each task area only when we are more clearly positioned to "align contributions with goals of the RChain cooperative."
I hope we can execute the reboot a week from today; I think that gives sufficient time for discussion. :+1: :-1: reactions are most welcome.
For example, for Development, I think #273 demonstrates an effective working relationship with the core development team and a basis for budgets based on story points. A few more things seem worth working out before closing that issue turning this area back on: (a) some redundancy for when I'm not around and (b) the documentation that has been pending for ages, and (c) a budget projection. For the projection, I can base it on our two previous reports:
| time period | Expenses (USD) | issue for details |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 Q2 | $24K | #850 |
| 2018 Feb-Apr | $36K | #678 |
| 2017 Aug - 2018 Jan | $10K | #678 |
Background
Aligning contributions with coop goals has long been a challenge; especially the part about knowing what the coop goals are and whom to coordinate with. To date, we have operated on a best-effort basis and accepted the shortcomings.
Discussion in #bounties since RCon3 has included a considerable amount of dissatisfaction with the return on investment in the bounty system. When considering a suggestion to pause the bounty system until after mainnet, at first I thought that went beyond the remit of the TAC, but it occurs to me that if we revoked all trust certifications, it would have the same effect. I don't think it's essential to wait until mainnet, but I do think it's worth raising the bar for making the relevant sociocratic connections, getting mandate, establishing budget criteria, and making projections.
cc @ddayan @AyAyRon-P @jimscarver @JoshOrndorff @allancto @pmoorman
Anyone new to the discussion is encouraged review
- #375 on building the trust metric, including Trust Ratings
- #616 to carry out the Apr Terms of Service board resolution, whence comes the Task Approval process
- #672 on building the initial list of guides
- #785 on the number of apprentices etc.
and perhaps some older discussions:
- #284 Establish norms for financial reward for comments
- #318 reward for results rather than effort
- #370 Define "Purpose & Principles" for the RChain bounty program (RAM)
I voted on the above proposal and suggest we show our sentiment with 👍 👎 👉 etc.
