(IDEATION) SCP-222 Operations Workstream Renewal

Proposal Discussion
1

[SCP-222] Operations Workstream Renewal

Summary

This proposal seeks to establish @MBMaria as the Workstream Leader for Operations for a 4-month term from September 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026. This workstream will focus on maintaining uptime of the ShapeShift product suite, ensuring products remain bug-free, delivering a polished user experience, managing DAO customer support through Chatwoot, coordinating the Hackenproof bug bounty program, and fostering cross-workstream collaboration to meet the DAO’s operational needs. With 4.5 years of experience in the ShapeShift operations team, @MBMaria brings deep institutional knowledge, established relationships across workstreams, and hands-on expertise in testing, customer support, and operational processes to this role.

This proposal adopts [SCP-92] Definition of Workstream Leader

Abstract

As ShapeShift continues to grow and evolve, the reliability and quality of our product suite remain foundational to user trust and DAO success. The Operations workstream is an integral part of the growth and development of healthy systems for reliably producing and maintaining the ShapeShift product suite and its uptime, responsiveness and feature functionality. The Operations workstream provides front line assistance and monitoring of the products produced by the DAO in both customer support and feature testing throughout the release process. The workstream additionally provides similar support and structure to the DAO, its ecosystem, networks, and meeting structure.

This 4-month term is designed to provide stability through the end of 2026, with a focus on operational excellence and workstream collaboration.

Motivation

The ShapeShift DAO has built an impressive suite of products that serve thousands of users. However, maintaining the reliability, quality, and user experience standards our community expects requires dedicated leadership with both institutional knowledge and cross-functional credibility.

Renewing this workstream will allow Operations to continue to work side by side with other workstreams to increase efficiency in individual procedural processes across the DAO and help progress deployment and testing processes while still verifying and maintaining reliability, health, and full functionality of all outlined responsibilities and services.

@MBMaria brings:

  • 4.5 years in the ShapeShift operations team with deep familiarity with the systems, processes, and culture

  • Thorough knowledge of testing requirements and processes ensuring QA protocols align with operational realities

  • Active customer support experience via Chatwoot, with existing workflows and user pain points already understood

  • Established relationships with workstream leaders across Engineering, Tokenomics and Moderation, enabling immediate collaboration without relationship-building overhead

  • Adaptability and Flexibility which have proven to serve the needs of the DAO in its ever changing environment. Having built levels of trust and accountability it would be ideal to keep and continue to develop these skills for the betterment of the DAO.

Specification

Term

September 1, 2026 – December 31, 2026 (4 months)

Core Responsibilities

1. Platform Reliability & Uptime

  • Monitor system health and uptime metrics across the product suite

  • Establish and maintain incident response protocols

  • Coordinate with Engineering on infrastructure improvements and reliability initiatives

2. Quality Assurance & Bug Prevention

  • Implement and oversee QA processes to minimize bugs in production

  • Establish pre-release testing criteria and sign-off procedures

  • Track, triage, and ensure resolution of critical bugs

  • Ongoing regression testing of product suite

3. Cross-Workstream Collaboration

  • Serve as a liaison between workstream leaders to align priorities

  • Identify and help resolve cross-functional blockers

  • Represent operational needs in governance discussions

4. Customer Support (Chatwoot)

  • Manage and respond to user support inquiries through the Chatwoot platform

  • Maintain response time standards and escalation procedures

  • Identify common issues and feed insights back to Engineering and Product

5. Bug Bounty Coordination (Hackenproof)

  • Serve as primary liaison with Hackenproof

  • Assess incoming bug bounty reports for validity and severity

  • Escalate verified security issues to Engineering for remediation

  • Coordinate bounty payments as required

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

*WorkStream KPI’s

Deployment and Regression Testing

Goal: To catch 95% of prod issues during the deployment testing process.

To catch user facing issues in production environments in regression tests and #triage them accordingly.

A deployment test is completed by the Operations Workstream during each release process and upon request in pre-deployment branch testing.

Specific regression tests are performed twice a month by an Operations Workstream contributor in accordance with regression testing best practices.

Operations prioritise blocking bugs, supporting engineers, and efficiency in the processes already in place over chasing non-blocking bugs for a ‘perfected’ release.

Budget

Total Workstream Compensation (4 months) is $34,000 all in FOX which is a 15% reduction from the previous proposal.

Please see full Budget Breakdown here: [Operations Workstream Budget]

Previous Monthly total budget: $10,000
Previous Monthly USDC: $0
Previous Monthly FOX: $10,000

New Monthly total budget: $8,500 (15% decrease in overall budget)
New Monthly USDC: $0 (0% change)
New Monthly FOX: $8,500 (15% decrease)

Old 6 month snapshot USDC budget: $0
Old 6 month snapshot FOX budget: $60,000
Old 6 month snapshot Total budget: $60,000

New 4 month USDC budget: $0
New 4 month FOX budget: $34,000
New 4 month Total budget: $34,000 (Decrease 15%)

*If compared to 6 month snapshot: 6 month FOX: $51,000

Additional Headcount Provision:

  • @reed will remain as an on-call contributor

  • This proposal includes a caveat for adding one (1) additional workstream member if customer support volume or product testing demands exceed the capacity of the Workstream Leader

  • Additional headcount will be detailed in a budget amendment proposal if and when required, including specific compensation and role responsibilities

Benefits

  • Minimal Ramp-Up Time: 4.5 years of operational experience means @MBMaria can execute immediately without onboarding delays

  • Institutional Knowledge: Deep understanding of ShapeShift’s testing processes, support workflows, and product nuances

  • Established Relationships: Existing trust and communication channels with workstream leaders enable faster cross-functional coordination

  • Hands-On Expertise: Current involvement in customer support ensures the role is grounded in day-to-day user realities

  • Security Posture: Centralized management of bug bounty program ensures timely response to security researchers

  • Flexible Resourcing: Built-in mechanism to scale team if demand requires

Drawbacks

  • Single Point of Failure: Success depends heavily on the workstream leader’s availability and effectiveness

  • Limited Term: 4 months may require renewal discussions mid-initiative

  • Support Burden: High support volumes could divert attention from other responsibilities without additional headcount

Vote

FOR: You support establishing @MBMaria as Workstream Leader for Operations for the 5-month term September 1, 2026 – December 31, 2026, with the budget as specified.

AGAINST: You do not support this proposal.

FOR With Changes: You support establishing @MBMaria as Workstream Leader for Operations but with changes.

1 Like
2

Thanks for proposing this renewal, I support it! These services are indispensable for the DAO’s continuation and the security of our users.

I’m sad to see @Tyler_ShapeShift leave his position, I’d like to thank him for all his previous terms as Ops’ Workstream Leader and the services he has provided to the DAO over the years! I don’t know what your plans are next but I wish you success and happiness in them.

@MBMaria A minor thing I’ve noticed, in the budget spreadsheet, the dates do not match the ones in the proposal’s content “1st Sep 26 - 31st Jan 27” vs. “September 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026”. I figure the latter is the correct one since we try to match all the Workstreams’ start dates on the calendar year.

Lastly, is the weekly Governance call presentation/hosting going to continue under this renewed Workstream? I don’t see it specifically mentioned but there is a mention about governance discussions.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the support as always, @Fireb0mb1 , and thank you for your attention to detail! I have updated the dates on the budget worksheet which were incorrect. They now match the term stipulated: 1st Sept - 31st Dec 2026.

As for Governance, as stated, I am happy to be a spokes person for the Operations Team. I do not know if the weekly governance call needs to be on every week given there has been minimal action in the forums the past few months. If this is something that the fox community believes to be important, I would be willing to run governance calls on the weeks that there are forum posts to be discussed. For any weeks that I would not be available, Im sure we can figure something out between the rest of the workstream leaders so that the topics in the forums have an opportunity to be discussed.

1 Like
4

Thanks for the correction!

This sounds good to me, I do think the call is important to coax public discussions about what the DAO is currently doing without the burden of text for its participants and it’s the last periodic call the DAO is hosting too (if you don’t count the finance committee call which is a more specific concern) :sweat_smile:

But that’s obviously just my opinion, maybe other members would prefer it to be completely async and basically all governance discussions would happen on the forum at this point.

It’s not a deal breaker for my support of this proposal, but a “nice to have” to preserve the community feeling, and for lack of better word a ritual that gives an opportunity for anyone to reach the DAO and its contributors “live”.

1 Like
5

Hey Foxes , This just passed Ideation. Thanks for the support. Please vote here for official proposal:

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