Catalyst Audit Circle

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Overview

(Conceived by George Lovegrove. Adapted by Stephen Whitenstall.)

The Catalyst Circle has been an effective way to help problem sense and prioritise problems that can be solved by the community. This form of coordination and governance can also be applied to the auditing process of the Project Catalyst ecosystem.

Since October 2021 community members with an interest in auditing and oversight have initiated research into reporting and participated in the Catalyst Auditing working group ( see https://catalyst-swarm.gitbook.io/catalyst-auditing/admin/meetings ).

The Catalyst Audit Circle would be tasked with:

• Listening to problems around auditability including use of the reporting system, confusion in the process and identifying bad actors.
• Prioritizing funded proposals issues with the help of the community by looking at the complexity, implementation effort and relevant concerns to guide what to solve first.
• Coordinating and collaborating with the community to investigate and develop potential solutions to auditing issues. Any solutions developed can go through the Catalyst funding process.

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Catalyst Auditing Circle proposal Intent

This proposal's intent is to problem sense and prioritize problems that can be solved by the community.

A complementary proposal "Community Governance Oversight" ( https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Community-Governance-Oversight/383517-48088 ) will provide oversight of improvements to and innovations in Catalyst Governance.

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Team

The Catalyst Audit Circle (up to 8 paid members) including :

Eric Helms - SCATDAO - Founder of Smart Contract Audit Token. Fund 5 Winner for Scaling up Cardano DeFi. Fund 6 Winner for Improve and Grow Auditability. CPA with over 10 years of audit experience in Big 4 as well as Fortune 500 Companies.

George Lovegrove - PACE, Funded proposer in F6: Improve and Grow Auditability.

Jo Allum, Auditability Challenge Team Lead, Funded proposer in F6: Scale-UP Cardano's Community Hubs (Cardano Canvas, Cards & Calculator).

Matthias Sieber (@matthiasksieber) - CEO Loxe Inc., Circle V2 representative for Cardano Foundation. Funded proposer in F6: Atala PRISM DID Mass-Scale Adoption, F6: DApps & Integrations, F6: Scale-UP Cardano's Community Hubs, F6: Developer ecosystem

Ron Hill - founding board member and CEO of SPOCRA (Stake Pool Operators Trade Guild). CQE, CSSGB, Industrial & Systems Engineer, Continuous Improvement Professional and Serious Change Agent.

Phil Khoo - experience as an accountant, UI/UX frontend and graphic design and business advisor amongst numerous other pursuits. He currently has a lead position in the development and direction of Cardano AIM and is co-creator of the Community Tools.

Stephen Whitenstall (@swhitenstall) - Quality-Assurance DAO, Circle V2 representative for funded proposers. Funded proposer in F6: Improve and Grow Auditability.

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Roadmap

Present - December 2021 to January 2021

Members of the Catalyst Audit Circle will continue to meet and collaborate with IOHK in the Catalyst Auditing working group (a bi-weekly meeting to unpack decentralised auditing) to prepare for the formation of the Community Governance Oversight group and the Audit Circle.

After Funding - February 2022 to April 2022

1. The Oversight group will be formed
2. The Audit Circle will be formed.
3. Members of the Oversight group will collaborate with IOHK, the Catalyst Technical Council, Catalyst Circle V3 and Circle Admin to develop and implement an oversight process for 1) Funded Proposals.
4. The Audit Circle will produce a report for Funded Proposals providing an assessment whether they meet the success criteria.
5. A Fund 8 proposal will be prepared by the Audit Circle and submitted in an appropriate Challenge to resource its ongoing activities in proportion to the scope of Catalyst governance changes in Spring 2022.

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Budget

Budget breakdown:

A) Meetings :

Remuneration for members of the Oversight group : $1000 per person (up to 8 members) for a total of 12 hours' work per person : comprises meetings (1 hour twice a month - approx 6 meetings over 3 months) and preparation (communications, working sessions, etc. : 1 hour twice a month).

Subtotal : $8000

B) Fixed Costs :

Internal/external communication and organisation tools: ($1000)

Video conference/meeting (Zoom/hangout) x 3 months

Google form / survey design

Web hosting, Domain purchase

GitBook subscription.

Subtotal : $1000

C) Deliverables / Outputs :

1 Surveys

2 surveys (1 internal & 1 external) over 3 months -

$ 1600 for 2 surveys or $800 per survey

This will be divided between Audit Circle members according to the amount of work they contribute to creating, disseminating and analyzing a survey, presenting it at After Town Hall and facilitating discussion.

2 Facilitation of a retrospective

Facilitate an internal retrospective - $ 800

This will be divided between Audit Circle members according to the amount of work they contribute to the retrospective including interpretation, synthesis and identifying improvement recommendations.

3 Production of a report

Production of a final report on the funded proposal process at the end of 3 months - $ 800

This will be divided between Audit Circle members according to the amount of work they contribute to the report writing including checking whether actions to resolve or improve have been executed and recommending further improvements.

4 Preparation for a Fund 8 proposal

Preparation to support the submission of a Fund 8 proposal to resource the ongoing activities of the Audit Circle in proportion to the scope of Catalyst governance changes in Spring 2022.

$ 500

Subtotal : 3,700

Requested funds in USD $ 12,700

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