Audit Circle Meeting #4

Scheduled date/time of meeting : 1600 UTC, Thursday, 28th 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-3

1) Audit Circle Treasury

Treasury: Miro: setting up an Airdrop to send to everybody the same day. Probably next week/first week of May.

Action: confirm with Miro and Andre tomorrow.

2) Town Hall Slides - 5 minutes

Town Hall slides (1:45): Ron couldn’t do them, so Stephen did. Focus is on the Survey. (link to slides)

Vanessa: have you got someone lined up for next time (Town Hall slides)?

Figuring out who to do them. Settled on George or Vanessa. Toggling/changing each week, but George next week, then Vanessa ?

Stephen already has some stuff prepared, can forward it to Vanessa/George

3) Fund 8 - Audit Circle F8 Proposal - 5 Minutes

Fund 8 Proposal (4:24)

Tweet/post/share about voting! We’re not going to entirely finish for F7, so we need to carry over some tasks into F8.

4) Project Board Review

Project Board review (5:13 toggled screen over to Audit Circle GitHub Project Board)

(Eric Helms showed up around 17:09/6 mins into recording)

GitHub Project Board: what we have planned is a Facilitation of a Retrospective, but we’re still not even sure what a “Retrospective” means in the context of what we’re Delivering.

To-do: newsletter today (summary of the meeting).

In-progress: main Deliverables:

  • Surveys = Phil, Vanessa, and Ron.

  • Gathering Qualitative Data = Matthias.

  • Pacific Town Hall = Matthias.

  • Audit Circle minutes & notes = Stephen & Megan.

  • Add Megan to GitHub?

  • Fund 8 Proposal

  • Slides - done

5) 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

5.1 The Funded Proposal reporting system - 10 minutes

5.1.1 Qualitative data gathering (Survey deliverable)

Where are we on Qualitative Data Gathering, Matthias?

Matthias: what’s on the form and when. Return-on-Intention

What things should be on progress reports, versus what shouldn’t permanently be on them.

Vanessa (9:52): seems to be confusion on the reporting forms. Not a good sense of why certain things are being asked.

Size of community for projects - some folks are worried that they’re being judged negatively due to not having a big community around what they’re doing.

Matthias thinks so.

George: preferred previous; current one feels “bloated” and cumbersome, and some questions aren’t relevant every week. Feels that there should be a difference, with Progress Reports simpler. “It’s a regression, not a step forward.”

Eric? Biggest issue is with the self-reporting part of it.

People don’t have a sense of what’s being asked

(Matthias) You’re being judged if you don’t hype and build a community

(George ~11m) Progress reports versus [??]

Stephen: Eric, any suggestions? If you’re doing auditing, should you expect the same thing each month?

Eric (12:30): Good to understand the purpose of the reporting: accountability? Progression and deliverables??

Purpose of the reporting is important to focus on: just providing information? Accountability? We should design it around that. Design the reporting forms around what information you’re wanting.

Stephen: common theme seems to be “what is the reporting for?” (14:00)

Eric: feels that reporting currently is more just a “check the box that we do reporting” and hasn’t yet had much impact or mattered much. “The information that's on there, it doesn't really seem to lead anywhere, you know, increase transparency or let you track what projects are doing”

Consequences going with the verification. Tokens? Community?

Stephen: what is and why is it being changed? What is it for? Auditing? Accountability?

Eric: (~15:00) hasn’t understood why we’re doing what, what the value is

5.1.2 Survey Design & Implementation (Survey deliverable)

Planned Action : Creation of a focus group to look at survey - Vanessa, Phil & Ron

Survey Design (15:45) (Vanessa, Phil, and Ron)

(screen changed over to GitBook Audit Circle Meeting 2 at 16:08)

(screen back to Audit Circle Meeting #4 GoogleDoc at 16:20)

Vanessa (~16:30)

Focused on whether they feel confident that they know what information to gather, to make their proposals auditable. So we're looking at what people collect, how they collect it, how they share it, how they store it, and whether they feel confident that they know they're doing the right thing.

We have thrown in a question which we're still working on, on what people think that audit responsibilities ought to be

Anonymity would be best - as Mercy pointed out, people feel nervous about whether they’ll be judged negatively. “We don't want to demand that people tell us which project they're talking about. I think that will be counterproductive.”

We're inviting people to say what the total budget of their project is, and what what their project is trying to achieve

Vanessa: …Ron, what do you think?

Will put the link into the Discord

5.1.3 “Where do I go” Survey

“Where do I go” Survey (19:30)

Workshops and Retrospectives with the community on Audit issues

A few weeks ago we did it as kind of an “audit update,” and opened a Breakout Room for getting people’s feelings and thoughts about auditing

Should we hold another ATH breakout? Should it be about [??] and WHEN should it be? Around 24th May?

Was another planned Action item to do another After Town Hall to synch with monthly report timings on the 24th

Thorsten is writing up for a final report some people’s feelings

Should we hold another After Town Hall? Should it be about the monthly reporting? WHEN should that be? Before the 24th of May.

Any more comments about the Survey?

Vanessa: don’t need to wait. Making it next week, then reporting is fresh in everyone’s minds.

Ron: we had Danny at the last ATH

Ron: will there be any action from it? Maybe engaging more in ATHs could be helpful

Timing

Ron likes the idea (of another ATH)

Last time it was very general

Ron: yes, a lot of people might come. It would be helpful

~18th of May ATH?

Also to encourage more Funded Proposals

(22:21) Vanessa: do we really need to wait until the 18th? The reporting might be fresher in everyone’s minds if we do it earlier

Ron: The data we’re gathering, what are we doing with it (who do we take it to, what changes are happening, can we effect any of the changes going on now?)

Danny was in the last After Town Hall; maybe we could (?? connect via Danny with IOG?) and it could lead to something else?

Stephen: the timing being earlier might provide an opportunity to engage more with IOG

Stephen: When does voting end?

Vanessa: 12th?

Matthias: May 5th

Stephen doesn’t want to overlap with voting, cuz that would split focus/distract.

Let’s make it 11th May. Stephen will reach out to Danny; subject of monthly reporting. Anybody else from IOG?

Vanessa (25:07): might this be better in a Coordinator meeting? Cuz everyone there is a Funded Proposer

Stephen: gotta check what’s going on in Coordinator meetings, would probably prefer for it to be ATH, to open it up

Action - Stephen to schedule an ATH for 11th May, to bring IOG in

5.2 Organizing retrospectives or workshops - 10 Minutes

5.2 Organizing Retrospective Workshops (26:03)

Stephen: Office hours w Pacific Town Hall. Matthias?

Matthias: the last few Pacific Town Halls haven’t been very popular, not very many Funded Proposers. Not sure if we want to keep doing that. Preference to Gimbalabs Playground?

Matthias has scheduled for June 7th to talk about Reporting, and May 10th a proposal for Matthias’ company.

Stephen: if Audit Circle is gonna stick around, then Gimbalabs Playground?

The purpose of the June 7th meeting would be? Reporting?

Matthias: Reporting.

Having a Form and getting qualitative data through conversation/dialogue is helpful

Pacific Town Hall might be an option, just not for the next few weeks

(Stephen) Let’s all agree: should we take that? Gimbalabs?

Matthias: should we reserve the spot? The audience is usually pretty engaged. (29:28)

Stephen: is there anything we should be doing at Coordinator meetings?

George (30:12): clarifying what we’re doing at the Coordinator meetings. Inviting to talk about auditing at the end? Letting folks know we’ll be around

Stephen: also some crossover with the Funded Proposer’s sub-circle, right Vanessa? Vanessa: (30:52) FP subcircle is gonna try to use the Coordinator meetings a bit more. We're currently looking at the Proposer’s Guide, so that's what we're trying to get people to talk about. I think the people who might be interested in that might also be interested in a conversation about auditing. So let’s not divide their attention too much?

Stephen: what about the relationship between all these different groups? Audit Circle vs Funded Proposers.

Should Audit Circle just be observing that just to make a note of that? That “that’s what you’re doing”

5.3 Final Report

Planned Action : Prepare template & format for final F7 report Deadline : 9th June 2022

5.3 Final Report (33:05)

Stephen: fill and build out the Final Report, and we’ll fill it out over the next month, so we get it finished by end of June. (17:38)

Creating/writing up the Audit Circle 1 - Final Report. Trying to get that filled out over May, to be finished by beginning of June.

We are working on Surveys. Data captured by Matthias. Context about what’s going on in the ecosystem, George (could be an informative report). Recommendations and Conclusions, Eric, and could be differing views, Eric.

Eric: you read my mind. I was just about to ask about a Recommendations section.

Impact Auditing vs Progress Auditing (George 35:35), and if you’ve “pivoted” making it clear what you’re delivering for the money you’ve received.

Any Recommendations or Conclusions, Eric?

Eric: I’d rather wait until the Survey results come back, to give better recommendations. (17:40 = 36:20)

Stephen: Between now and then I’ll work on it (Audit Circle 1 - Final Report), and what is the current landscape? We could even refer to things like LIDO Nation and SCAT

Could refer to Vanessa and Ron’s and Phil’s work on surveying the focus groups, and Thorsten and Matthias’ work on more qualitative data.

We should do a review of this report in the next or final meeting, and sign it off.

Retrospective terminology.

Eric: Always been confused by Retrospective terminology. Others are probably confused. We need another way to define it.

Stephen: Surveys, what might be called “Qualitative Data” from Matthias and Thorsten.

Retrospective? It seems rather redundant, doesn’t it, Eric?

Eric: yeah, I’ve always been confused.

Stephen: should we just take it out?

George: Results?

Ron: it’s like the analysis, and then the Conclusions are what we take from it.

Vanessa: yes, exactly. People can see what the problem is; that’s the point of it

Matthias: I think it could be beneficial to have a Retrospective.

“Layered approach”

But maybe “Analysis” or “Discussion” is a better term. If Audit Circle continues to have it, it could be very beneficial to see/observe how we work together. Examples/why so:

Vanessa (17:47): it would be quite useful to have a Retrospective part/section in our report. Are we just saying we don’t have time? Is that why we’re getting rid of it?

We have the raw data, the analysis of that data, and then us talking about how we went about it

Ron: What is a Retrospective? Does it mean having a meeting and then reflecting on it? Could we have a meeting and (??). We’ve been grouping it with Workshops.

Vanessa: a Retrospective is something different.

Stephen: that’s what we’re trying to clarify.

Is it a retrospective of Audit Circle, or of analyzing the data?

(12:48 call-17:52)

Stephen (45:15): aim for next meeting being more about analyzing the results we have

Matthias on board to write down where we found there was a lack. Like sample size or what’s wrong with our survey. Really struggles with the term “Retrospective”

Stephen: a way of working towards that, we can discuss at the next meeting our analysis, next meeting will have more meat in the report. Then we’ll meet on the 6th to say “what is the meaning of this? This is the Retrospective, and this is our Recommendation”

George:

(17:52 UTC Vanessa linked Retrospective Meeting Tools into the chat)

Stephen: the context is that the Final Report is going to answer how we’ve closed out. We could include feedback on how we ran the Proposal, George.

Is that confusing?

George: I like that idea. 5-10 lines. Reflection as a whole, collectively. We could talk about shortcomings in data gathering, that’s relevant to the Report.

Eric: how are we distributing this Report?

Stephen: it’s a Closing Report. We can do it in a few ways. Yes we can distribute and publicize it, then we can do a video, like as a Closing Report. Might be best as an Action for next meeting

Eric: Let’s include a copy of the Report in the regular Catalyst email newsletters that go out.

Stephen (12:56): yes, let’s do that, let’s take advantage of that. We do also have a GitBook

Eric likes the idea of a PDF attachment, not just a link, because lots of people don’t click links

Vanessa: the idea of the Retrospective angle, maybe we should do that as a private meeting, which we can extrapolate from, then we could say certain things more?

Technically the rules are that we have to make a video.

Stephen: yes, we do.

(end of point 6)

Eric: although people might feel more comfortable in private meetings, there’s a catch, where then community members feel suspicious about what we might be saying if it’s behind closed doors.

Stephen: We could do a bit of both (hybrid). Yes, it is nice to have an un-recorded space, where people can open up more.

Stephen: final minute: Fund 7, I submitted a report that wasn’t very informative, on 24th April. (LINK - GitBook). This shows the great detail that we’ve put in.

(Stephen) Develop an Audit Circle token? We can discuss that next meeting.

If you’re in Discord and have input on what to put into our newsletter, please add it to the Discord, so we can pass it to Danny to put in

7) Fund 7 Proposal Reporting - 5 Minutes

All members - The second monthly report was submitted on 24th April 2022 (https://quality-assurance-dao.gitbook.io/audit-circle/proposal-reporting/fund-7-proposal/f7-monthly-reports)

Next monthly report will be due 24th May 2022.

8) Any Other Business - 5 Minutes

Project Catalyst Weekly Newsletter - 5 Minutes https://github.com/Catalyst-Auditing/Audit-Circle-Coordination/issues/1

Action : Suggest summary of this meeting for Daniel Ribar’s weekly newsletter. Over run time - 5 minutes Next Meeting

Next Meeting : 1600 UTC, 12th May 2022

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