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Week 42

Mon 13th Oct - Sun 19th Oct 2025

Thursday 16th October 2025

Governance Workgroup

Narrative:

The first of 2 sessions about holding WGs accountable beyond just the budget consent process.

WORK QUALITY We noted that despite having discussed work quality several times, we still have not established an ongoing process for a) assessing it and b) dealing with perceieved problems with it.

We do have the ad-hoc approach of running sentiment surveys to gather opinions about it; but as yet, the only action that has been taken on the basis of these is to adjust budget caps, which does not really address work quality.

We noted that there probably needs to be a public, Program-wide discussion on what is meant by "good / bad quality work". On this,

    1. we had some discussion on whether or not it is even quantifiable;

    1. we agreed that it should be evidence-based as far as possible (i.e. we should ask people to back their opinions up with evidence)

    1. perhaps requiring or recommending a Theory of Change from each WG would help them to define for themselves what "good quality work" means for them, and then the Program counld hold them accountable to that?

    1. Maybe this ("what is good-quality work?") would be a good Town Hall topic.

    1. Whereas in the past there was a broad agreement that "work quality" discussions should be decoupled from budget decisions, the feeling of this meeting was that this is no longer the case, and that if a WG is producing bad quality work, it should affect their budget.

ACCOUNTABILITY In the rolling agenda doc, there has been a suggestion of having a range of of possible processes to hold WGs accountable - e.g.

  • using sentiment analysis to decide if a WG should be stopped;

  • probationary periods, and/or a process for giving a WG a warning and a time period in which to fix a particular expectation that needs to be met or it ceases to exist next quarter

  • possible overall restructure of the whole Program to address issues raised

We agreed that the measures taken would need to be decided on a WG-by-WG basis, tailored to the specific issues that have been identified for that WG. We discussed how this could be done, and concluded that using one of the WGs' own meetings for the discussion would wrk best, rather then trying to cover each WG in Givernance meetings in Q1 2026.

We agreed it would probably be unfair to end a WG on the basis of a sentiment survey alone, and that input from past consent processes should also be used

We suggested there could be a set of ground rules for minimum expectations for WGs, and any underperforming WGs should be given a chance to improve before being stopped.

SENTIMENT SURVEY v.3 Most of those in the meeting felt that we should implement a new sentiment survey this Quarter, but in a more focused way, looking at work quality, transparency, and perhaps impact / outcomes, as these have been raised several times in past GovWG sessions and in the budget consent process as important.

We'll use GoogleForms, because of the analytics it offers - and it will be anonymous.

We also want to include space for people to give rationales for their views, because in the last survey (which did not ask for reasons), the responses were sometimes puzzling

Timeline for this:

  • Lola will draft the survey; it will be sent out early Nov with a closing date of 17th Nov

  • We will analyse results by the end of this Quarter

  • Then early next Quarter (Q1 2026), we'll sit down with WGs who have had "poor sentiment" and talk thru what changes are being suggested - we'll also use past objections in the consent process as part of this

  • And we will, by then, have in place a range of possible measures / actions that can be implemented, but we'll work it out with each WG on a case-by-case basis

  • The WGs will be asked to implement whatever is agreed during the rest of Q1 2026, and reflect it in their reporting and budgeting for Q2 2026.

FOR OUR NEXT MEETING, ON TUES 21ST OCT:

    1. we need to discuss what these "measures and actions" could be

    1. we need someone to draft a bit of text explaining the sentiment survey and how it is going to be used

    1. Sign off Lola's survey draft

    1. decide who's distributing it, and think a bit about how to best publicise it

Discussion Points:

  • Processes for addressing work quality

  • Possible processes for holding WGs accountable

  • New sentiment survey

Decision Items:

  • We will implement another sentiment survey this Quarter, using GoogleForms, with a more targeted focus on work quality, transparency, and impact, and with space for people to give a rationale for their views. The survey will be anonymous.

    • [rationale] To gather data on the issues that have been identified in GovWG meetings and in the consent process as important (work quality, impact), and ensure we understand the reasons for people's views

    • [opposing] there was an opposing view from Vani that we shouldn't do a new survey, but should instead work with the results of previous surveys and consent processes, to avoid "survey fatigue" - but this wasn't the majority view

    • [effect] mayAffectOtherPeople

  • We decided that contrary to past discussions in GovWG, a WG's work quality SHOULD affect its budget, and discussions on work quality should perhaps no longer be viewed as "decoupled" from discussions about budget allocations

    • [rationale] a general sense that, particularly in these times of low token price, we do not want to be paying for work that is widely perceived as low quality

    • [effect] mayAffectOtherPeople

  • We agreed it would probably be unfair to end a WG on the basis of a sentiment survey alone, and that input from past consent processes should also be used

    • [rationale] because sentiment surveys are widely perceived as unsupported opinion, more so than issues raised in the consent process

    • [effect] mayAffectOtherPeople

  • We agreed that regardless of the exact process, underperforming WGs should be given a chance to improve before being stopped

    • [effect] mayAffectOtherPeople

  • We agreed that there should be a range of possible processes and measures that could be used with "underperforming" WGs, and that actions should be decided on a WG-by-WG basis according to what the issues are for that WG, and based on discussions with the WG itself. These discussions should happen in the WG's own meetings, rather than in GovWG meetings.

    • [rationale] Because it's hard to think of all eventualities in advance, and it's important to decide on actions in collaboration with the WG concerned

    • [effect] mayAffectOtherPeople

Action Items:

  • [action] Lola will draft a survey [assignee] omolola lawson [due] 21 October 2025 [status] todo

  • [action] All to discuss, in a future meeting, possible "measures and actions" that could be taken to address problems identified by the sentiment survey [assignee] all [due] 21 October 2025 [status] todo

Keywords/tags:

  • topics covered: sentiment survey, sentiment analysis, work quality, Theory of Change, impact, outcomes, WG accountability, Budget caps, token price

  • emotions: Focused, Collaborative, thoughtful, analytic, forward-looking, lots in Chat, Only a few of those present spoke

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