IPP: The Internal Policy Proposal Process
Heavily influenced and sometimes straight borrowed from Aragon’s AGP process
IPP stands for Internal Policy Proposal. An IPP is a document that details a change to the rules and procedures we follow at Blockchains, broadly defined. All IPPs must be consistent with what the individual proposing said policy reasonably believes is in the best interest of the company. The IPP author is responsible for building consensus between their fellow workers for their IPP, and documenting dissenting opinions.
The IPP process is intended to provide a formalized process to give power to employees to signal their collective interests to executive leadership. Central to the Blockchains’ vision is the promotion of collaboration and empowerment of the individual, but without a signaling mechanism, executive leadership is left to make decisions on behalf of the company without data concerning employee preferences. A more democratic and worker-driven mechanism to shape our organization should enable a greater sense of employee satisfaction, citizenship, and accountability.
Parties directly involved in the process are the IPP author, Blockchains’ workers, voters in Blockchains test DAO, IPP Editors, and executive leadership.
-
Stage I: Select IPP Track
-
Stage II: Pre-proposal
-
Stage III: Draft Proposal
-
Stage IV: Final Proposal
-
Stage V: Blockchains test DAO vote
-
Stage VI: Executive report and vote
IPPs are not proposals for matters concerning a single individual, action, or project, but must concern the rules and procedures which dictate actions, projects, and individuals more broadly. For example, an IPP can not be used to request additional PTO for an individual, but could be used to change PTO policies more broadly. To help narrow proposal topics, IPPs must fall under one of the following five tracks:
-
Products and services: Rules governing the products and services we create and use
-
Worker Affairs: Policies and procedures directly related to and affecting employees
-
Collaborations: who we will work with, and how.
-
Stewardship: how we manage the living and non-living things on Blockchains’ land.
-
Meta: changing the proposal process
Proposals that cannot be categorized into one of these tracks will not be circulated or promoted by the IPP editors ahead of the vote, nor will IPP editors post the proposal in the Blockchains test DAO for consideration by voters. At the discretion of IPP Editors, a proposal may be categorized as “Other” until a new track is approved as part of a Meta IPP.
Proposals made to the Products and Services track concern universalized policies about the products and services created, co-created, used, or financed, by Blockchains.
Examples:
-
Should Blockchains allow the use of cloud software for internal operations?
-
Should Blockchains provide data collected from customers to law enforcement?
-
Should Blockchains build software on proof of work blockchains?
Proposals made to the Worker Affairs track concern workplace management, decision-making, compensation and benefits, and other policies decided by the company affecting employees as a whole.
Examples:
-
Should Blockchains have a dress code?
-
Should Blockchains employees adopt the recently piloted reputation system?
-
Should Blockchains make employee salaries transparent to promote equal pay for equal work?
Proposals made to the Collaborations track concern questions about our working relationships with government and private entities.
Examples:
-
Is a Blockchains partnership with Google in line with our values?
-
Should the minutes of meetings between collaborative entities be made available to Blockchains employees?
-
Should Blockchains partner with military agencies?
Proposals made to the Stewardship track concern the management of natural resources existing on Blockchains’ property.
Examples:
-
Should Blockchains adopt an anti-dog food smell pollution policy?
-
Should Blockchains continue to provide water to the wild horses?
-
Should Blockchains build a hiking trail around Painted Rock?
Proposals made to the Meta track concern changes to the IPP process.
Examples:
-
Should we use DAOstack instead of Aragon to vote?
-
Should we include a track specifically dedicated to smart city concerns?
-
Should the results of IPP votes be binding?
During Stage II you should seek feedback on your IPP idea by sharing it with your peers in the Blockchains community and soliciting their feedback. Don’t forget our colleagues living and working abroad. Examples of appropriate venues to share your IPP idea include:
-
Rocket.Chat
-
Email
-
Start an employee Signal chat (encrypted text messaging)
-
The lunch room
-
Schedule an employee education event.
-
The governance sharepoint (once established)
Be open-minded and respectful of all feedback you receive. Adjust your proposal to address serious concerns as they come up to increase the odds of your proposal being adopted.
We will soon be adopting sharepoint to enable an internal communication and file-sharing system, but for now we have no such system for collaboration and sharing. This being the case, I have included instructions for the coming system.
After you have asked your fellow workers whether an idea has any chance of support and have received sufficient feedback to feel confident going forward, you can create a draft IPP. Use the Internal Policy Proposal Template, found in the U: drive in the Policy Proposal file. This will also be found in the governance sharepoint.
Save your completed IPP draft as a discussion thread in the governance sharepoint.
At this point, the IPP Editor will work with the Content and Communications Department to announce the proposal in the Week in Blockchains newsletter and solicit community feedback. You can then make any revisions to your proposal, and solicit more feedback, and revise again for as many or few times as you want.
Once you believe that your IPP is ready for a community vote, notify an IPP Editor to upload the final draft to the IPP Final Draft folder in the governance sharepoint. Only IPP Editors have permission to upload to this folder. An IPP in Stage IV is the final version that will appear on the ballot during the next Blockchains Community vote cycle.
One week ahead of the vote, IPP Editors will work with Content and Communications to announce the vote and upcoming proposals in the Week in Blockchains newsletter. At this point, if your final draft IPP has not been uploaded to the Final Draft folder, it will not be included in the upcoming vote, and will have to wait until the next voting cycle.
All IPPs that have been moved to the Final Draft folder since the last vote cycle (and announced in the Week in Blockchains newsletter) will be included on the ballot in the current vote cycle by the IPP Editors.
Voting will take place on the Blockchains Test DAO on the Rinkeby test net, and will be open for a period of one week (7 days; 168 hours).
If a proposal produces a Rejected result, then it is up to the author to either take it back to the draft stage and try again for the next voting cycle, or withdraw the proposal.
If the IPP is on the Meta track, if the proposal passes, then the IPP Editors are responsible for implementing those changes before the next ballot.
Blockchains community votes will take place quarterly on the following days, starting at 12:00 PM pacific time, and lasting for 7 days (168 hours).
-
Third Friday of January
-
Third Friday of April
-
Third Friday of July
-
Third Friday of October
For the results of a ballot to be considered valid, a minimum of 20 employees must have participated in the vote. For an IPP to pass, it must win more than 50 percent support.
If a proposal that is not a Meta track proposal passes the community vote, notification will be sent to voting executive leadership (VPs, C-suite, Jeff, David), and they will review the proposal.
At this time, a Review Session will be called. Present at this Review Session should be: the IPP author, all executive leadership who wish to vote, and a secretary to record the minutes of the session.
Any individual with an Employee-Accepted IPP will be given 5 minutes to summarize their proposal. Executives may then ask the IPP author any clarifying questions, and the author will have the opportunity to respond.
At this time, every voting executive will have the opportunity to voice a response to the proposal, including any concerns. The IPP author will be given 5 minutes to respond to any concerns.
Once every individual has had the opportunity to respond to the proposal, and the IPP author has been given their opportunity to respond to any concerns, there will be a consent round. Every individual will be asked to give or deny consent for the proposal. Consent is, in this context, does not mean that you love the proposal – only that you will allow it. In other words, consent is defined as having no “over my dead body” objections. If consent is reached, then the IPP is adopted. If consent is not reached, the IPP is Rejected, and returns to Draft stage.
Following the Executive Review Session, meeting minutes will be released on the Governance sharepoint.