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Create a new project →
Creating a new role or recurring project in Deep Work is a process that can take a lot of ideas and needs to meet the constraints of the organization. While you can provide the ideas and work, someone who owns a role at Deep Work will have to make sure it makes sense within the organization, before it gets fully integrated.
Experiment with ideas and tasks, arrive at a project with value, create a solid project.
The process is simple.
1. Come up with a project idea
Finding an idea:
- Join our Wednesday meet up and discuss new ideas or explore what could be done in Deep Work to support someone or help them with work.
- You might have personal projects that you would like to explore how to find clients for or an idea for a larger project that could be interesting for the entire ecosystem.
- Or maybe you just want to prove your skills to someone while involving others in your idea.
- You can also view Project Requests and Ideas (work in progress) for inspiration and active requests for work that will bring value to Deep Work.
Try to already get a sense of how that project could either fit into Deep Work, how it could extend what Deep Work is doing or who would be the target audience if you want to take it outside of Deep Work.
2. Choose a mentor
Choose a mentor who you think will give you valuable feedback and protects the constraints of the organization.
The easiest is selecting a department (check Sobol for an overview) your project idea would fit in and contacting their mentor (click on the department in Sobol and check who is the "Assignee").
It's important that this person has earned tokens in Deep Work by doing work and understands how the organization works. They will be able to tell you how likely it is that Deep Work can compensate your work upon completion of the project or in the future, in case it becomes a recurring project.
It helps to reach out to them before you continue with creating the project so they are aware of your idea and where you see the value in the project. You can also discuss more details with them and get some advice.
3. Define the scope of the project
Scope with your mentor
If your project does not require work from a team, you can chat to your mentor (department representative) to decide on the scope of the work. A 1:1 chat about the scope and cost of the project is the fastest way to get confirmation on your idea and get started working on it.
Once you are confident about the scope and cost (step 4.) you can jump to step 5.
Scoping workshop
Workshops are a great way to start exploring the project deeper and involving the community. Use this Typeform to set up a workshop and notify everyone in the Discord. It will also create a calendar invite and a basic Miro template with instructions for your workshop. Make sure to invite your mentor to the workshop, too!
You can also facilitate a workshop structure of any other kind (user journey, SWOT, etc.) or even attend the meeting alone.
Keep in mind that before continuing you need to have the following conditions specified:
- Name of your project
- When are you starting to work on it? When are you planning to be finished by?
- What problem(s) are you addressing?
- What are some suggested solutions?
- What tangible tasks do the solutions consist of? How would you address solving each problem?
- How many hours do you anticipate spending on the work?
- Who will take responsibility for each individual solution?
- Who will take responsibility for the entire project? (ideally you)
- Is there an existing department your project applies to? If so, which one?
4. Define the cost of the project
Before setting up the project, specify and confirm with your mentor how many xDAI or DEEP tokens you would like to request from the treasury or applicable department.
This will most likely be an estimation and there is no correct way to precisely calculate the cost before a new project starts. You can, however, discuss the value with other people and get to an estimation that everyone else will most likely agree with.
Calculating xDAI compensation
If you want to calculate how much you (and the team from the workshop) want to request from the treasury in fiat or xDAI, use the hours you anticipate spending on the project (as discussed during the workshop) as a guide and compare the work you would do to the hourly rate of similar work. You can refer to this spreadsheet for four-hour day rates of roles within Deep Work, a public job database like GlassDoor, or ask your mentor.
Calculating DEEP compensation
If fiat compensation seems unreasonable or the treasury balance is low, you can request DEEP tokens. The value of the tokens depends on how you see them, so there is no objective guidance on the calculation. You can familiarise yourself with the token utility, distribution, governance, and profit share to get a sense of what makes the token valuable to you and others.
For example, you can calculate how much you would request if you worked for USDC (see above) and multiply it with a token multiplier: find a similar role inside or outside of Deep Work and multiply the USDC amount with a similar multiplier from this spreadsheet.
Calculating the cost of work is not easy. Ask your mentor for support or others who have requested tokens in the past!
5. Submit a funding request
Remember that a declined funding request doesn't mean that you can't go ahead with the project but further negotiation or review of the value is required.
6. Create a discrete project
Create a discrete project to experiment with your idea, based on the decisions you made during and after the workshop. It's important that you tag the mentor.
A discrete project can also be your entry point into the organization. Whoever can see the result of your project will be able to attest that you can do more work in the future. Before you start working, please make sure you sign up for an account.
7. Enjoy the project
Work on your project, run experiments, ask others for advice, do user research, bring it up on a community hang out. Try to talk about it as much as possible to gather feedback and finish with a result that makes you happy.
You can follow the progress of your project and add details on the bottom of this Notion page. Ask your mentor for access if you need to make edits.
8. Review with your mentor
After you're done, you will review the work with a mentor. Ask them if it fits into the organizational design of Deep Work or how it could become its own project or start-up.
If it needs further improvement, ask them what they think it needs and how you could make it better.
If your mentor clearly sees where this may fit into Deep Work, skip to step 7.
9. Iterate on the project
Some projects need adjustments and now that you have a first version of your requirements, list of tasks and maybe even a team, you can iterate. Review everything you did in the previous iteration, improve the project submission, task list, cost and team and start again.
10. Make it part of Deep Work or take it outside of Deep Work
If your mentor decides that this project is valuable, you can either make it part of Deep Work or create your own start up. It will have to be discussed with the everyone from the department or submitted as a proposal to Snapshot.
Once it has been voted on and accepted, you need to do the following:
- Write the workflow of tasks into GitBook
- Create a budget sheet or adjust the budget sheet of the department.
Ask your mentor to help you with these steps.
Last modified 12d ago
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Contents
1. Come up with a project idea
2. Choose a mentor
3. Define the scope of the project
4. Define the cost of the project
5. Submit a funding request
6. Create a discrete project
7. Enjoy the project
8. Review with your mentor
9. Iterate on the project
10. Make it part of Deep Work or take it outside of Deep Work