DAO is a group of people who act without relying on a single person to make decisions.  Sadly, the vast majority struggle with this vital capability

We embarked on a research journey to understand how we could meaningfully define DAO communities and assess their health. This article is a short summary of our findings.

In this paper we propose conceptual foundations for defining a DAO community and propose how a DAO community’s health can be measured.

Creating and running a DAO Unit is a challenging task. Our research, in partnership with Sobol, identified 9 key challenges of operating DAO Units (DAO Teams, Guilds, and Pods). We researched the problems in adding Units to DAOs. We spoke with multiple DAO builders to ensure representativeness and validation of the problems that arose.

This article presents the conclusions of a research project between RnDAO and Sobol. In this research, we attempt to define groups within DAOs- what we call DAO Units. We also explore the definitions used by members of a range of popular DAOs, determine their motivations and approaches in creating DAO Units, and identify a series of common challenges when setting up and operating different kinds of DAO Units.

We frame 5 conceptual lenses that leverage the existing body of research on coordination and organisations and arrived at a definition of DAOs

Let's bring it back to the people. If you've ever been in an executive position, been an influential DAO member, or founded a new organisation, you'll likely viscerally know the weight of responsibility. There can be so much work, so much uncertainty and yet such a pressing need to make big, complex decisions, often with long-lasting consequences. It's exhilarating, but it's also exhausting if not downright nerve-wracking. Conversely, being in a disempowered position can quickly become frustrating, if not depressing. And the difference is often touted to be: leadership.

Coin Voting has got a lot of bad press recently. It has been criticised for aiding plutocracy and being vulnerable to attacks by large token holders (i.e. whale attacks). Less talked about, but probably more impactful is that Coin Voting also enables all token holders to participate in decisions, and more often than not, the token holders are not particularly known to the core team (a common result of attracting token holders through high APYs or other profit-oriented motives). In many DAOs, token holders are not a community but a group of strangers.

We spend most of our lives in teams and organisations. And anyone who’s ever led one has spent dozens if not hundreds of hours wondering: How do I make it great? What will enable us to do great work together and adapt quickly when a challenge comes our way? How do I keep the community happy and engaged?