Introducing Working Groups

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The Stacks ecosystem is full of capable people across different organizational boundaries. We also have many exciting challenges ahead of us, that require some structure for individuals to loosely self-organize around problems they care about. A "working group" is one such structure.

What is a Working Group?

A Working Group is a group of people convened to push forward a community initiative in the Stacks ecosystem. The point of the group is to give responsibility to an identified group in order to create clear accountability for developing the scope and proposed implementation of an idea, thereby increasing the likelihood of success.

A Working Group DOES NOT have the authority to unilaterally make implementation decisions, especially in regards to how the Stacks Blockchain functions. Rather it is the Working Group’s job to fully develop an idea or proposal as defined in its specific scope and bring that completed proposal back to the community for review, approval, and implementation through the existing governance structure.

For instance, a working group exploring NFTs on Bitcoin might ultimately produce a draft SIP as a deliverable, that has to then go through the existing SIP process.

Each Working Group has a “Lead” who is responsible for leading the group and ensuring it completes its missions.
Other roles may be created by the working group as needed.

Chartering a Working Group

When creating a Working Group, the following elements should be clearly identified and decided in its “charter”. Charters can be extremely lightweight, consisting of just 1-2 bullet points for each of the elements below. The important thing is just deciding and documenting it.

• Objective & Scope - why is the group being created, what is the problem it’s addressing, what is it trying to achieve, is there anything that is explicitly out-of-scope for the group, etc.
• Deliverables - what should the group be bringing back to the community once completed
• Timeline - when is the group expected to have it’s deliverables complete
• Lead - who will be responsible for leading the group and ensuring it completes its designated assignment
• Additional Context - Any additional context that might be important for the group including previous conversations on the topic, dependencies on or with other work going on, a special update cadence, etc

How do I start a Working Group?

Have an idea for a working group? Head over to the "Ideas and Suggestions" category and start a new discussion. If there's a group that comes together, and is aligned on a clear objective, deliverables etc -- you have a working group! To see the current Working Groups, visit the discussions tab.

If you could like a dedicated category for your working group, please add a discussion comment or thread for assistance.

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The BTC NFTs working group is making fast progress and we’re opening up calls to the public starting new week. Anyone that is interested in contributing can join in next Tuesday at 7am PT!

You can also subscribe to the public calendar here: https://www.addevent.com/calendar/uU517002

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