Travii's's Buddy System Rage Report

--- ###### tags: `Buddy System` --- # Travii's's Buddy System Rage Report ## Goals *What are the goals for pairing up with a buddy?* The goals at the beginning were different from where they ended up. The original idea was to help people get up to speed faster with Warcamp. DAOhaus, Warcamp, WC circles and Uberhaus creates a complicated system that is difficult to appreciate. It took us 5-6 months to truly understand how it all fits together. So the original idea was to help people coming into the community get oriented, answer questions, and provide support. ## Experiment Design *What is the experiment design?* **Hypothesis**: Pairing potential Warcamp contributors with a veteran that already has familairity with our systems, will allow the new recruit to get up to speed faster. The crux of the experiment is in the dynamics of the pairing. We did not enter into this experiment with a clear structure or time frame in place, but one emerged in our time together. DAOhaus lacks an apprenticeship program and the onboarding flow lacks clear structure in some areas. We set out to respond to this problem by defining a minimally viable structure to fill this gap, which developed into the following: --- ### Minimally Viable Buddy System 1. **Daily calls**, 4x per week. Instills repetition and personal reliability. 2. Allow each other to **vent** in a manner that doesn't fit in other meeting spaces. 3. Ask each other for **feedback** and have reflexive conversations about DAO priorities. 4. Extend a **direct line** to ask questions about how the DAO and sub-DAOs work. 5. Collaborate in **identifying gaps**, and then working together to document them for the benefit of the whole DAO. 6. Share divergent experiences and **cross-disciplinary training**. 7. Challenge each other to get explicit about **where we are personally trying to get to**, in relation to where the organization is trying to go. --- We began with a cadence resembling an agile standup with daily check-ins to share what we are currently working on and what breakdowns might inhibit our progress. As time went on, our 20 minute structured syncs evolved into longer form conversation, a natural agenda that avoided prescription. ## Thoughts Going In *What were your thoughts approaching the buddy collab?* We were primarily focused on relationship building. We recognized that we wanted to spend more time sharing our experiences, learning, and teaching from each other, so we needed to figure out a way to make that happen. Based on our previous experience sharing knowledge/skills at RaidGuild, we hoped these conversations would expedite our shared interest in delving into the complexity at the center. We knew we would be able to go farther together, as we each had our fingers on the pulse of different specialized areas of interest. ## Expected Results *Do you have any thoughts on the expected results for this pairing? Are you testing any of your thoughts/assumptions on the expected results?* We expected that TW would be onboarded more efficiently, amounting to a swift identification of how to provide maximum impact while avoiding the frustration and stress of having to figure it out alone. Since the beginning, we have both been dedicated to creating structure to document "how we hacked our way into the dense jungle," so that those that followed might have an easier time. As machete wielders, we were keen to capture our experiences while working towards formalizing best practices. We anticipated that having someone to hold accountible and be held accountible to would be powerfully productive for us as individual contributors. Part of the disorientation of DAO labor is not having a boss, not wanting a boss, yet needing clear feedback on our ideas and outputs. We hoped the buddy system would allow us to keep our heads down to focus on our work while receiving much needed direction on whether the tasks we have dedicated ourselves to are providing as much value as we would hope. Developing a critical eye towards increasing the fidelity of our feedback was a driving motivation. Quickly and efficiently identifying how to add value to the DAO is also important for reciprocating that value back to the contributor, ie: *getting paid.* We tend to sit on the sidelines longer than necessary, and this can amount to many months of uncompensated contributions. We wanted to help future contributors avoid this situation, to beeline for quick activation and demonstrate their value and be properly compensated. ## Learnings/Actual Results *What were the learnings/actual results? How did this compare to what was expected?* There's always room for improvement and we will continue to explore better options for capturing learnings into a repository accessible to all. Standardizing our tools for knowledge capture and sharing will increase the visibility and integration of this important information across the DAO. We have been using HackMD to capture our labors, exploring Github for archiving, and experimenting with Logseq for crafting knowledge graphs. We learned this initiative is much bigger than simply onboarding. The accountibility and trust building became essential. Having a space to blow off steam and process complicated social relations was key to our individual productivity. The psychological dimensions build culture and should not be downplayed. These convivial dynamics support and feed into the technical aspects of product development, especially since we are an org that remains explicit about infusing community values into the product we are building. As a non-technical contributor coming into DAOhaus with an intermediate knowledge of the complexities of the larger ecosystem, the amount and density of information required to fully understand the components of this team remained disorienting and overwhelming. In January (when our collaboration began), the transition from V2 to V3, the release of Baal, and all of the technical and cultural dynamics of CCO3 were all emerging simultaneously. Witnessing the emergence of Yeeter, dogfooding this tool for the CCO, and the ongoing rapidfire evolution of how all of these components align was intense. The buddy system facillitated a breadth and depth of understanding on all of these related issues that would not have been possible alone. Our conversations allowed us to articulate the wider context of these emergent tools and associated ideas to greatly accelerate our own learnings, and also to recognize what elements were falling through the cracks of awareness due to the general velocity of innovation. An important component of this system is trying to understand what the other person is trying to achieve, evaluating if they are getting the response they hope for, and if not, being able to reflect that learning to brainstorm alternative strategies to explore. This builds confidence in contributors to have a more pronounced voice in the organization. Even if we individually feel confident in a project direction or knowledge resource, it has consistently proven to be highly valuable to be forced to articulate those details to each other. This is how understanding is aligned and amplified in the organization. We are able to see more of the map when we analyse it together. This contributes to the autonomy and decentralization of our work flows. ## Next Steps / Future Rages *What are the next steps now that this is complete? Does this inform any future buddy system ideas or pairings?* We are contemplating future pairings for how we can perpetuate this momentum with new contributors. We have experienced multiple iterations - and libations - so we hope to extend these experiences so new members can access and learn from them. It is important to formalize these learnings while avoiding standardization. These best practices have proven fruitful for us, but certainly other contributor pairing should retain the flexibility to figure out what works best for their personalities and goals. We encourage future participants of the buddy system to *pull* ideas from this document, adapt them for their own purposes and improve upon them in their own way, and avoid *pushing* tasks upon each other. This reflects the etiquette of the Magesmiths kanban work flow. Providing inspiration and careful consideration is valued over prescriptions that detail exactly how a process should be executed and nurtures individual autonomy. Documenting our processes, no matter how idiosyncratic, is essential for others to be able to access the information. Hence, the writing of this rage report. The MVP will be posted to Discourse to be reviewed and ratified by the DAO if we wish to (collectively) proceed. ## Technical Notes / Obstacles Overcome *What key technical challenges were overcome? What are notes to future Warcampers who are building off of this buddy experience?* Due to our familiarity, we might not as be responsive to each others async coms in Discord. This is a disservice to the larger community, who are not aware of our internal conversation. This might be conceived as siloing of our knowledge. This effect is related to the more general information overload that occurs with our DAO coms channels. We have attempted to ameliorate this issue through detailed documentation and sustain an ongoing conversation about the importance of presenting this information as easily digestible *briefs* to our comrades. We meet in Discord `Warcamp` voice channels, allowing other contributors to drop in on occasion. Despite our best efforts, some powerful ideas have been lost. The value that we capture is aparent in the work we are doing in the DAO, yet capturing and indexing the copious amount of generated information remains a problem. We continue to explore options for improving our information architecture. We hope future contributors will develop their own novel techniques and best practices to put forth the most meaningful learnings to the DAO so that they might be integrated. We want to work towards a cross-DAO knowledge sharing repository/system while continuing to iterate this structure. ## Key Observations *What are the key takeaways for folks skimming this report?* - Feedback loops are important. - Talking through complex problems is important. - Accountibility to each other is important. - Synchronicity for inter-circle knowledge sharing is important. The Buddy System is a great tactic for getting new contributors up-to-speed, identifying synergies, helping each other grow, bridging silos in the DAO, and identifying gaps in our individual and collective understanding. On the cultural side, the Buddy System cultivates conviviality, offers checks and balances to ensure ongoing cultural alignment to make sure we are building the right things in the right ways in the right order for the right reasons.