Developer Advisory Board - Retrospective Season 5

1. What is your assessment of any benchmark milestones and/or impact KPIs that were set in your Budget Proposal or Charter at the start of the Season? Have you made progress towards, or achieved, these milestones or KPIs?

The goals laid out in the original proposal were:

  • Assess and approve Delegate Mission Request 13 drafts based on their technical merits (completed)
  • Aid the Grants Council in assessing approved Delegate Mission Requests and Mission Applications 13 under Intent #1 (completed, and expanded scope to other Intents as well)
  • Advise the Grants Council in assessing the completion of technical milestones (not yet required)

2. Impact assessment - how well did your team’s outputs support the Intent they were authorized under?

The Developer Advisory Board accomplished the goals of providing important guidance on the Delegate Mission Requests and on the applications for these requests.

In both cases, this feedback was taken into account and had an impact on the final decisions.

3. What changes would you make to the Internal Operating Procedures (IOP’s)?

The workflow for DAB members to contribute their feedback seemed to often be rushed and included at the end of the Grants Council assessment. This accomplishes the goal of minimizing the projects looked at by the DAB, but also causes the reviews to be done more quickly than would be ideal.

For future seasons, we would recommend integrating the DAB’s feedback earlier in the Grant process, ideally on a rolling basis. This would allow the DAB to:

a) take more time on each request for feedback
b) provide feedback earlier in the process, and inform questions asked to applicants

It would also be beneficial to update our IOPs to more efficiently assign feedback to different DAB members, as these assignments took more logistical overhead than necessary.

4. Suggested adjustments to the Charter?

The Charter seems appropriate. If there are other areas that would benefit from technical insight, we would welcome other responsibilities that support the ecosystem.

5. What improvements to the team’s mandate would you suggest for next Season? If you don’t believe the team’s operations should continue next Season, please explain why here.

The mandate seems appropriate. The primary goal of assisting in the Delegate Mission Request and grant application process seemed to provide value and important guidance in the allocation of funds.

If there are other areas of the Optimism ecosystem that would benefit from technical expertise, our only recommendation for shifts in the mandate would be to expand the scope to provide more value.

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