[SCP-207] Operations renewal March 2026 - August 2026

Summary

Approving this proposal is would signal a continuation of budget funding for March 1st 2026 - August 31st, 2026, for an ninth consecutive term for the current Operations workstream that was established and renewed with passing of the previous proposals: [SCP-8], [SCP-59], [SCP-94], [SCP-125], [SCP-147], [SCP-165], [SCP-179], and [SCP-190].

This proposal seeks to renew the Operations workstream with its current contributors, but with a reduction of its KPIs and goals relative to the reduction in compensation. The Operations workstream is always open and flexible to collaborative updates to future responsibilities, processes, and success metrics to continue to support the DAO as we continue to constantly evolve.

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

Abstract

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.

Through Production Issue Procedure Best Practices, Triage Management, Deployment and Regression Testing, Customer Support and DAO Admin Procedures and Practices, the ShapeShift DAO Operations Workstream provides essential resources and tools for efficiency, organization, and overall product and services health that are vital to the success of the DAO, the product suite, it’s contributors, and $FOX token utility.

Motivation

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.

Areas of focus and Operations responsibilities maintained by the workstream also include: Hosting the Weekly Governance call and advocating the Governance process, Organizing and hosting the quarterly AllFox community call, Leading and collaborating Expected Feature Release Testing guidelines, and other meetings or DAO processes, RDP management, and full coverage of customer support.

The Operations workstream continues to focus on the wider picture of the product suite’s uptime, functionality, and overall health and user support. It additionally mirrors that responsibility in the DAO Discord, Github (Linear), and Notion by synergizing and coordinating cross-stream collaboration further strengthening the DAO.
Specification

The Operations workstream Notion repo can be found here.

Operations maintains:

Triage: Known Issues, Release Stats and testing fees,Ops Sprint, Governance Call, AllFox, Go/NoGos, Retros, RDP program, Customer support (via Chatwoot).

The Operations Workstream strives to keep the greater DAO agile and committed to maximizing efficiency, scalability, and transparency with a strategic lean into data-based decision making. At times, best practices and procedures may be challenged, modified, updated, changed, archived or revisited to maintain those objectives. (See: Marketing content creation support flow, The Bounty Process, Trusted Community Devs, Triage Report Tracker, Unsolved User Problems, the governance tracker, POAP minting, daily regression testing, the evolution of goat/no goats, Gitbook, etc)

The renewal term length for this workstream and its contributors is 6 months, from March 1st, 2026 through August 31st, 2026.

This proposal continues @TylerTylerTylerTyler | ShapeShift as the Workstream leader, @MBMaria as Operations Coordinator, and @Reedthorfox as an hourly part time contributor.

Budget ask: $60,000 over 6 months to be sent monthly in Colony in locked and unlocked FOX

Previous Monthly total budget: $26,900
Previous Monthly USDC: $16,648 (62%)
Previous Monthly FOX: $10,252 (38%)

New Monthly total budget: $ $10,000 (62.8% decrease in overall budget)
New Monthly USDC: $0 (0%) (100% decrease)
New Monthly FOX: $10,000 (100%) (2% decrease)

Old 6 month snapshot of 12 month USDC budget: $99,888
Old 6 month snapshot of 12 month FOX budget: $61,512
Old 6 month snapshot of 12 month Total budget: $161,400

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

Realized USDC savings from new proposal: $16,900/month or $101,400/term

Full budget details

There are two changes in this proposal’s budget from the previous renewal:

Compensation decreases were given to both Tyler (-75.86%) and MBMaria (40.48%). Tyler’s job requirements, responsibilities, and availability will be adjusted going forward with emphasis and priority given to supporting and triaging Ops issues, being an advocate for Operations in Leadership, Advocating for Ops Sprint, Weekly Governance, Weekly Leadership, and Quarterly AllFox. Tyler’s availability will dramatically change with this decrease and his role will be fractional/part time. MBMaria has proven to be a backbone of the Operations Workstream and has continually upskilled to match the requirements and requests of the Engineering team in our testing and release processes. Testing requirements may change over the course of the term but have still proven to be essential during the transition to more disruptive integration with AI. Her compensation has reduced to near what she was making when she was first hired albeit her responsibilities and tasks have only increased during her career here.

A decrease in Test funds/Op EX/We FOX’ed up was also applied to reduce the amount of FOX asked and being used to test.

This changes reflect an acknowledgement that the only way the DAO will be able to see meaningful revenue is through dramatically altering the spend needed to maintain and continue the project. This proposal seeks similar adjustments in compensation to mirror other tough decisions that were made in the mind of austere survival. Following in the footsteps of [SCP-204], and the reduction of the Marketing Workstream spend recently, this proposal puts the DAO first, forgoes any compensation in USDC, and keeps the essential team and integrity of the Operations workstream at an extremely minimal budget.

Operations would account for ~0% of the total DAO monthly stable spend if this proposal were to be passed. Taking only FOX does not solve the revenue problems the DAO is facing, but it is a first step in isolating the factors the DAO has control over while it rediscovers cost and utility for all workstream renewals.

If network conditions or the price of FOX decreasing dramatically alters or changes Operations ability to perform required deployment and regression testing, an additional proposal addendum for test funds may be proposed.

Operations will continue to be mindful and agile about its processes with the DAO to continue to provide proficient coverage and support in all of the outlined areas of this proposal while continuing to maintain our KPIs under this optimized budget.

Specific Goals and Success Metrics
The goals and success metrics for the Operations Workstream are listed below, split into current Goals and KPIs.

Current Measurables:

Production Issue Best Practices
Goals: To minimize downtime of the entire product suite.
To resolve production environment bugs efficiently with minimal disruption to engineering processes, deployment cadences, or user experience.
KPIs: 99% uptime of the product suite and services:
August: 100%, September 100%, October: 100%, November: 99.9%, December: 100%, January: 100%, February: 100%
Average 6 month uptime: 100% (99.83% last term)
<8 Production Issue Escalations per Quarter: 0 escalation in the last 3 quarters: 0 in Q2, 0 in Q3, 0 in Q1.
<50 Total Combined DAO Contributor hours dedicated to Production Issue Resolutions Per Quarter: 0 hours dedicated.

Triage Management
Goals: To discover, isolate, navigate, and manage resolutions of user facing issues in all ShapeShift products and services.
To provide known troubleshooting and mitigation steps for issue reporters and users during the discovery and recreation of triage tickets.
To mitigate and expedite time required from core contributors spent on bug tickets, issue reports, and production level emergencies.

To transfer correctly completed and accurate Github tickets of triage bugs to Engineering or Product to be posted for bounty.
KPIs: Greater than 80% resolution rate goal: 100% this term, 88.39% term seven, 96.8% Resolution term six, 75.3% Resolution rate term five, 71% resolution rate term four.
This goal was maintained this term. Operations succeeded in continuing our overall resolution rate term over term with improvements and optimizations to the Triage process and ticket review/clean up practices as a new focus the previous term.

Deployment and Regression Testing

Goals: 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 week by an Operations Workstream contributor to complete a full monthly regression testing schedule in accordance with regression testing best practices.
Operations prioritize blocking bugs, supporting engineers, and efficiency in the processes already in place over chasing non-blocking bugs for a ‘perfected’ release.
This KPI specifically will change depending on new release processes agreed to by renewed workstreams this year.

KPIs: <2 Cadences missed per quarter due to bugs overlooked in Ops Testing (1 cadence missed last term)

<2 Rollbacks during releases per quarter due to bugs overlooked in Ops Testing (0 Rollbacks occurred last term)
DAO Admin Procedures and Practices
Goals: To organize successful DAO meetings related to Goat/No Goat, Retros, Ops Sprints, and AllFoxes.
To track, organize, record, and optimize DAO repos keeping them current and relevant. To help in cross workstream collaboration projects that optimize efficiency and collaborative, transparent communication.
To provide assistance in projects that require support in generating procedures to be completed for the DAO or other workstreams.
KPIs: Keep All Workstream leaders and key contributors informed and involved in contributions to all Ops Sprints, Governance Calls, AllFoxes Slide decks, Go/No Gos, and Retros.

Benefits:
If this proposal passes, the DAO will continue to fund the Operations workstream budget to meet the deliverables and services outlined which are integral to the DAO’s success and current practices. Coverage for Prod Issue escalations, Triage Management, Regularly scheduled regression and deployment testing, Customer Support, Cross workstream alignment and stakeholder resources would all be focused, maintained and improved upon by the workstream.

Passing this proposal will continue uninterrupted support and services offered from the Operations workstream to the DAO.

Drawbacks: Funding this workstream costs the DAO FOX during the duration of the proposed term. This workstream would cost the DAO treasury potentially $60,000 over 6 months ($10,000/month) if all funds are needed and exhausted in the budget costing the DAO $ from the FOX treasury.

For
For with Changes
Against

1 Like

Initial feedback is what I gave to moderation as well, should probably do 6 months. and revaluate at the 6 month mark. It’s the feedback I will give to all workstream renewals at this time.

Will read more and give more feedbac after i read more.

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Hey, thanks for submitting this Ideation to review the Ops Workstream. And thanks to the Ops team of this ending term in which you’ve met most of KPI goals perfectly!

[SCP-TBD] Operations renewal February 2025 - February 2026

vs.

The title should be updated to reflect the 6 months duration.

You’re missing few 0’s here for the total and FOX :sweat_smile:

Has this been discussed with the other Workstreams it affects (Engineering/Product) and does it allow to meet the cadence/quality requirements for releases they aim to achieve?

My somewhat external point of view leads me to think this is the major collaborative and executive service Ops is providing for the DAO and likely the one that requires the most coordination. While I’m preoccupied with the budget as much as anyone else, I think testing should likely happen at the same pace/quality it has been if we want to keep the current momentum (in terms of chains/features added/bugs fixes), will this line of budget allow this to happen or will it slow down?

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Apologies for the hasty post before my final proof read. Yes @PTT and @Fireb0mb1 The proposal is for 6 months only, not 12, the post has been updated to reflect that.

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There will need to be future passing of renewals for both of those workstreams, (ideally with similar cuts intended to decrease spend.) Our intent is to always hit our KPIs with regards to operational uptime and functionality. This will most likely take a hit due to decrease in funding, and the teams will need to agree to new release processes that can have the limited resources in mind.
This can look like fewer releases, stricter testing/release times, or a myriad of other ways we can collaborate to find a middle ground that meets our resourcing with teams that renew going forward.

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This post has now been moved to ideation: Snapshot

I do not support this renewal. This workstream is unnecessary. To be completely honest, I believe that continuing this workstream will have zero gross positive impact on the DAO operations, even under the assumption of 0 USDC (or, for that matter, 0 fox/locked fox) spend.

The operations workstream negatively impacts velocity & morale, complicating coordination for product and engineering and creating unnecessary work and delays. The existing coordination overhead is slowing things down with no observable positive effects.

The core functions mentioned here aren’t specialized. QA testing, release coordination, user support - product and engineering can absorb these. Engineering and product can complete all tasks mentioned here more efficiently without the extra handoff layer.

KPIs here Look fine… but don’t show actual value-add. A ~100% uptime, 0 production escalations for 3 quarters, and 0 contributor hours dedicated to production incidents does not a productive KPI set make.

The KPIs mostly reflect our shrinking user base, high product stability or limited operational surface area, not operational excellence. In any case, it is not yet clear what existential risk this team is currently mitigating.

The metrics presented show:

• ~100% uptime

• 0 production escalations for 3 quarters

• 0 contributor hours dedicated to production incidents

Specifically, what does the operations workstream do that couldn’t be (better) handled by engineering owning their own testing and product managing user feedback directly? Any support should rely on the answer to this question, and this question only.

Absorbing operations functions into existing teams can be accomplished within engineering and products existing capacities. Budget cuts are hard, but this is the right place to consolidate going forward.

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Various teams i talk to, all say the same things.

Dev teams should test their own code on its own.

Then someone else should actually test it again.

Then it should be testing with a variety of variables.

Why would we pay an engineer to waste all the time with the 2nd and 3rd testings?

They dont have time.
Product wouldnt have the time either, they should be working on the product layer stuff, not the testing work.


This proposal has now passed Ideation and has been moved to final vote in snapshot: SCP-207

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