Principles of DAO Organizing
Principles
By Scott Moore and Maxwell Kanter:
Principle 1 → Community is the heart of the DAO
A DAO is simply a group of humans who come together, form structures, and coordinate. As our friend David noted, these structures keep everyone "connected and in close communication so their actions are coherent and mutually reinforcing, combining into something greater than the sum of the parts." Only by keeping a community healthy can a DAO grow sustainably.
Principle 2 → Alignment is the lifeblood of community
Seeking alignment and consensus building where possible is crucial. Sometimes - it's necessary to move quickly and executively within a DAO, but it's important to be aware that this might create "alignment debt."
The most cohesive DAOs have formal processes (e.g., retros, practices around context sharing, recurring meetings) and cultural norms (e.g., contributor culture, social connections, inter-squad mingling) to help pay down this debt via regular consensus building. Establishing and maintaining high levels of shared context and trust allows communities to feel empowered to participate in a common mission.
Principle 3 → Sense and respond > command and control
As with all things, you can have too much or too little of them. It's possible to lean too far into structure (e.g., meeting every day at the same time), and at the same time, a lack of structure can be infuriating (e.g., we'll meet when we meet). Don't expect everything to be set in stone from day one, sense and respond to your environment with agency and conviction.
Beyond our three principles, Linda Xie, a steward and delegate at Gitcoin, also recently highlighted her key learnings from DAOs.12 Some of her key takeaways are as follows:
- establish a clear mission to maintain alignment
- explore progressive decentralization to ensure context is shared effectively
- implement smaller working groups and enable local domains of authority
- ensure accountability and ways of assessing engagement and activity
- discuss compensation models that promote fairness and equity
- establish long term sustainability (or defined lifespan) as an explicit objective
- create a culture where people are comfortable having tough conversations
- build in regenerative structures, take breaks and touch grass. "
(https://www.forefront.market/blog/internet-native-organizations)