GMC Administrator Role - Call For Feedback

During the April 2023 awards period the GMC approved a bounty for GMC administrator submitted by Caluduran. The GMC identified that the current liaison system where multiple GMC members are assigned to different projects is flawed, and a more efficient system would have one person assigned to collecting all that data.

After discussion, the GMC has decided to expand the scope of that role further. This decision is made in consideration of the Rolling Awards Proposal [link], which necessitates the appointment of a dedicated individual to regularly organize and gather information. Here is the current scope of the tasks the GMC has outlined.

  • Primary liaison for all applications and ongoing projects. (Original scope)

  • Tracking and submitting payments. (efficient approval system will be built to eliminate errors)

  • Collaborating with the community to enhance the GMC, and effectively communicating any improvements and modifications to its processes.

  • Drafting and leading discussions for official GMC statements and proposals on the dao forum, and communicating effectively with members and the wider community.

  • Providing timely reminders to committee members regarding deadlines and other important action items, as well as any other administrative scheduling.

  • Maintaining accurate records and documentation, including spreadsheets and other documents related to the application scoring process, GMC activity, etc.

Given the significance and scale of this role, the GMC seeks valuable input and recommendations regarding the hiring and management process. Here are several key questions for your consideration:

  • Management of role
    • Terms of hiring (how much pay, whether position is renewable, etc.)
    • How performance is evaluated
    • To whom and how does the admin report?
  • Hiring process
    • Interviews, written applications, etc?
    • Who makes hiring decisions, and how?
    • What communication happens with the DAO, and when?
  • Are there any legal or tax concerns?
  • Should GMC members who are interested in the role recuse themselves from this process?
  • How is a GMC member hired as an admin replaced?
  • Anything else?

The GMC intends to include this position in a new RPIP with: Rolling Awards [link] and Removal Of Retro Cap [link].

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For further context, the GMC approved an award for BA022314 in the amount of 162 RPL, or $7500, for six months of work. This equates to 27 RPL or $1250 per month. To illustrate, at a rate of $50/hour, this would equate to 25 hours per month or 5.8 hours per week.

In my opinion:

  1. This position will be best as a renewable role with the expectation that future grants will fund the role in perpetuity.
  2. The GMC should post a job description, solicit applications, and interview applicants OR the GMC should directly hire an admin into the role where the admin’s first and singular task is to document the job description, future hiring procedures, management procedures, and so on, to be reviewed and approve by the GMC.
  3. Legal due diligence should be a hard a requirement before hiring anyone for this role.
  4. The GMC admin should be expected to submit a (monthly/bi-monthly/quarterly?) self-evaluation summarizing their activities and how they fulfilled their duties as defined by the job description. The GMC should review, discuss, and provide feedback to the admin. This could also be an opportunity for the GMC and admin to renegotiate the role definition, compensation, etc.

I’m not sure, but some aspects of the process we land on here may be generalizable and documented into an RPIP that helps to facilitate hiring by pDAO in the future.

P.S. @calurduran as the proposer of the GMC Admin bounty, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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The main reason that I proposed the Bounty as a more limited position was that I thought it was the biggest position that could be justified through the Bounty system rather than through something involving more community feedback (such as this conversation). I support the role as outlined in this proposal even more than the one I submitted as a Bounty.

Of the volunteer committees/organizations I’ve been a part of, the most effective were the ones where there was a paid administrator (or administrators for larger organizations) who did all of the day-to-day stuff and a volunteer elected committee that discussed and voted on high-level decisions. For the GMC that would look something like a paid administrator who actually ran the grants awards process, interfaced with the community, set up and publicized the various bounties, and kept the committee running smoothly. In the event that they are not a duly elected member of the GMC they should still be granted non-voting ex officio member status.

The GMC should still retain all of the responsibilities of having to make the decisions regarding grants, bounties, etc. I think that will likely be the hardest balance to manage. Not necessarily from a “power hungry dictator” standpoint, but as I myself can attest from my brief time on the GMC, it is often easy for a person (such as the mooted administrator) to assume all the responsibilities in the name of efficiency.

5 Likes

I am hugely supportive of the expanded position outlined in this post. Sure, it will cost more than the original bounty submitted, but the value it will add to the GMC is incalculable.

I have two names in mind of people I would love to hire in this position as both have shown tremendous aptitude for the duties involved. I think the hiring process might be the most complicated part of this.

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