Audit Circle Meeting #3
Scheduled date/time of meeting : 1600 UTC, Thursday, 14th April 2022
Attendees:
Matthias Sieber | CEO Loxe Inc |
Ron Hill | SPOCRA |
Phil Khoo | AIM |
Stephen Whitenstall | QADAO |
Thorsten Pottebaum | |
Vanessa Cardui | QADAO |
Andre Diamond | Treasury |
Miroslav Rajh | Treasury |
Megan Widney | Documentation / minutes |
Apologies
Eric Helms | SCATDAO |
George Lovegrove | PACE |
Jo Allum | Auditability Challenge Team Lead |
Information
Project Board - https://github.com/orgs/Catalyst-Auditing/projects/7/views/1
F7 Ideascale Proposal - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/381354
F8 Ideascale Proposal - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/399163
GitBook - https://quality-assurance-dao.gitbook.io/catalyst-audit-circle/
Agenda
Previous Meeting minutes : https://quality-assurance-dao.gitbook.io/audit-circle/project-management/meetings/audit-circle-meeting-2
Updates
Megan is here to help with taking minutes
1) Audit Circle Treasury
Andre & Mirolav - updates on Treasury setup, member payments, costs & expenses.- 5 minutes
“It's basically that we don't have enough to pay everyone for Audit Circle meetings, There are two options I can think of. One is to pay everyone $250 for now and the last $250 later. The other option is to pay only 6 people $500 and the other 2 people at a later stage. Miroslav will give this update tonight.”
Payment for Town Hall slides, doing minutes & meeting attendance
16:08 Phil - payment in ADA as paid to treasury? Or in the future into a Stablecoin? 16:09 Stephen - Town Hall slides, doing minutes, paying for meeting attendance, deliverables, in that order
Action : Meet Treasury team on Friday 15th April 2022 to discuss options
Post recommendation in Discord
Update : Recommend paying Megan $100 for minutes & Ron $ 75 for Town Hall Slides.
Hold on meeting payments until ADA recovers to Fund release level
2) Town Hall Slides - 5 minutes
Ron - to give an update on Town Hall Slide Presentation
Link to slides used - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oeJD7hfa_xACtviHhc_f38-k3sudPBTxlOJbog8EqK4/edit?usp=sharing
Action : ADA payment due for 3 X TH Slide presentations at $75 each.
Any updates, feedback or suggestions.
05:43 - Matthias - "I have the suggestions just for for understanding that this was an introduction. That was the first time that many people knew about the audit circle. Maybe just the presentation tried to make it a little bit more concise, but I appreciate one was the presentation I dialed in for that. So just to make it more concise, I struggled with that, too."
3) After Town Hall - Audit Update - 5 Minutes
Thorsten - to give an update on last nights ATH “Audit Update”
06:58 - Thorsten - increase in standard for accountability, insurance. Community feels like the reporting … Concern that people will just take the money and run. How can quality assurance be tailored? Release funds according to achievement? Stacking of funds by Proposals - consider proposers with multiple proposals.
An interest in standards or a framework for accountability or quality assurance as such.
Reporting doesn’t substitute a more thorough assessment. There is still this concern that people will just take the money and run away with it, even doing the reporting.
How quality assurance can be tailored. There was the recognition that not everything should be looked at with the same scrutiny.
Release of funds according to achievement. Approval of what is spent based on time and fund.
The stacking of funds by proposal. Where someone has more than one proposal should be considered also in this context. If you have 300 proposals then the assessment should depend on the aggregated funds.
09:25 - Thorsten - Discussion about reputation. If you don’t do assessments and audits, that might damage your reputation. Capability and qualification of the team to deliver.
11:05 - Thorsten - Discussion around training and whether auditability should be self governed by the proposer. And the KPI should help with that? Or is it something an external viewpoint is required.
Action -
Any updates, feedback or suggestions.
4) Fund 8 - Audit Circle F8 Proposal - 5 Minutes
Flash CA assessments completed
Action : Promote F8 Audit Circle during Voting
5) Project Board Review
A quick look at the state of the Audit Circle Project Board.
Audit Circle Project Board - https://github.com/orgs/Catalyst-Auditing/projects/7/views/1
12:40 - Stephen - Where we are with deliverables
6) Scope & Deliverables of Audit Circle - 25 Minutes
All members - The present summary of Audit Circle’s scope is :
“The Audit Circle will survey, facilitate retrospectives and report on funded proposal audit processes.”
Survey deliverables
6.1 - The Funded Proposal reporting system - 10 minutes
6.1.1 - Qualitative data gathering (Survey deliverable)
Action from previous meetings : Gather more qualitative data in respect of what should be on the funded proposal monthly reporting form. Go out to other funded proposers & gather informal feedback - Matthias
16:24 - Matthias - "I do not have any real updates. The Fund 8 process is closing out, and now we're in voting and there is the dread of having to do reporting going forward. I was in a Twitter space where someone mentioned that they increased the budget a lot more because of the dread of reporting. And wished they did not get funded. And that's so odd thing to hear for me."
6.1.2 - Google Form Design & Implementation (Survey deliverable)
Action from previous meetings : A Google form that is short & easy to complete. Vanessa / Phil.
18:34 - Vanessa - Updates
According to the Fund 7 proposal we are to do an external and an internal survey.
External survey
I'm taking an external survey as meaning the funded proposals. And the Fund 7 proposal foregrounds their needs as not whether they are delivering on audit but more what do they need?
What are their issues and problems? A kind of problem sensing.
Identified three possible approaches that we could take. Because I do not think a Google form should be too long. It would be good to get from this meeting what would be the best angle to take?
The first approach is about proposal attitudes to audit in general.
Questions for that could include -
What do proposers think about their obligations towards audit?
What do they think their obligations should be?
How do they perceive audit? Is it a burden?
The second approach is about monitoring & data gathering.
In the chat someone said that you can't audit if people don't gather data. From listening and talking to people I get the sense that many funded proposals don't have a clear idea of what data they must gather. A survey that asked whether that is true or not.
Sample questions would be:
What are proposers measuring and counting?
How are they collecting and storing that data?
Do they feel confident that they know what to measure and how to store it?
Is it verifiable?
Is there a developing consensus within Catalyst on best practice?
Is that informed by the needs of all sorts of projects? Or does it seem to be geared towards a certain type of project, and people are feeling that it doesn't fit in?
The third approach would be the current audit process.
This is a functional type of survey that asks -
How did your proposal account for auditability?
Are you doing that?
How do you feel about the changes in the monthly monitoring forms?
Any specific questions about the monitoring form? How do people feel about it?
Do people go to the coordinator meetings? And if not, why not?
Have they have contact with their challenge team or not? (People are perceiving Challenge teams as an audit process.)
Ron - 22:07 - What are we auditing ?
Vanessa - 22:31 - Scope is how funded proposers audit their projects.
Planned Action : Creation of a focus group to look at survey - Vanessa, Phil & Ron
6.1.3 - Where do I go ? (Survey deliverable)
Action from previous meetings : How to catch needs & expectations
Planned Action : Thorsten / Stephen - Writing up previous After Town Hall for final report
Planned Action : Arrange After Town Hall to sync with monthly report 24th April - Stephen
6.2 - Organizing retrospectives or workshops - 10 Minutes
6.2.1 - Audit Circle - Office Hours
Planned Action : Updates on Audit Circle - Office Hours - conversations with Pacific TH or other THs or communities - how this feeds into final report- Matthias
Any updates, feedback or suggestions.
6.2.2 - Using Coordinator meetings for retrospectives
Planned Action : How to approach and compile information
Action from previous meetings : Useful info - the status coord meetings - Stephen to clarify
6.3 Researching, preparing and presenting a report - 5 minutes
Planned Action : Prepare template & format for final F7 report
Deadline : 9th June 2022
7) Fund 7 Proposal Reporting - 5 Minutes
All members - The second monthly report will be due on 24th April 2022 (https://quality-assurance-dao.gitbook.io/audit-circle/proposal-reporting/fund-7-proposal/f7-monthly-reports)
Action : Submit Monthly Report for F7 Audit Circle proposal - Stephen
8) Any Other Business - 5 Minutes
Project Catalyst Weekly Newsletter - 5 Minutes
https://github.com/Catalyst-Auditing/Audit-and-Oversight-Coordination/issues/57
Action : Suggest summary of this meeting for Daniel Ribar’s weekly newsletter. - All
Over run time - 5 minutes
Next Meeting
Next Meeting : 1600 UTC, 28th April 2022
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