This Request for Comments post presents the "what", "why", and "how" behind the creation of a product guild. Last month, OxArthur spurred the creation of the "product-guild" channel in Discord and mentioned at least eight other users who've mentioned interest in the creation of some kind of product team. The channel has been discussing the past week whether a product guild would add value to the DAO, and how it could best do so. Now we're opening up the channel's conclusions to the DAO as a whole to encourage questions, comments, and suggestions.
What even is a product guild? To answer that, it's best to discuss some of the roles of a product manager. A product manager or product owner is an essential role of a team working to build a product. Other members of the same team may include a scrum master, developers, quality assurance engineers, and a UI/UX designer. Some of the tasks of a product manager noted in Atlassian's website, are the following:
Understanding and representing user needs.
Monitoring the market and developing competitive analyses.
Defining a vision for a product.
Aligning stakeholders around the vision for the product.
Prioritizing product features and capabilities.
Creating a shared brain across larger teams to empower independent decision-making.
A product guild would essentially be a group of Developer DAO members who take ownership of a particular project in the DAO, while also being part of product-focused guild called the product guild. A member does not have to work IRL as a product manager to be part of the product guild. For example, a UI/UX designer who's part of the website team and wants to own the product side of the website can join the product guild and become the product owner for that particular project.
The product-guild channel discussed a product manager's importance and how the typical roles of a product manager could be applied within the context of the DAO. The channel identified the following as the tasks that should be expected of a product guild member:
Assist project teams in establishing milestones, avoiding scope creep, and securing funding
Uphold the traditional product management responsibilities like developing competitive analyses, prioritizing features, capabilities, user feedback and bugs, defining a vision for a product, etc.
Become the point of contact within and outside of the DAO for a certain project or multiple
Facilitate getting help for a project between guilds (for example, if a project needs help from a design guild member the product guild member can facilitate creating that task and an interested design guild member can take it up)
Be involved in the product guild as a whole to establish best practices and coordinate work
Why do we need a product guild? Here are some thoughts on how and why a product guild adds value to projects
Products in a DAO are often “faceless”. When a new member is onboarded, or an existing DAO member wants to start work on a new product, or someone needs to make a newsletter about the DAO, there is no clear point of contact for individual products. An assigned product manager can have a conversation with the member about what work is being done and what work is left. After talking with the product manager, the member will come away knowing how to contribute
DAOs are so async that it can be hard for anyone to keep track of what work has already been done on a product and what is left. A product manager can answer what has already been done, what is currently in process and what is left
If teams never have a plan for what they want to accomplish then they’ll never finish. The product manager can ensure that the team has a plan for what will be accomplished and can ensure the team has/maintains the talent needed to ship during the Season.
Scope creep is that “what if we ___” that ends up adding weeks of work to a team’s plate. Product managers keep the team focused on what needs to be finished and leads the discussion on whether a change of plans in a project would really be worth the effort.
Product managers can keep teams focused on shipping the most impactful features and be the point of contact for products who rely on stakeholders outside of the DAO. For example, if a team receives funding from a company to work on a project then the product manager can be the liaison between the project team and the company.
A product guild would be able to understand exactly what help is needed from outside of a project team and take initiative to get the necessary help.
A product guild member is able to see the "big picture" of a product and can prioritize new work that the team needs to do so that the team can remain focused on the tasks at hand. For example, if users are complaining of a new bug on a forum then the product guild member should be able to create a plan and timeline for the team to address the issue. The product guild member is an important in this case, because if a team has to reevaluate their schedule every time there's a new bug or someone has a new feature idea then not much progress would be made. A product guild member can also identify what features would be the most impactful to the market for the product.
Most of the uncertainty in the creation of a product guild is in how each of the roles of a product guild member will be carried out. The product-guild channel would like to create a product guild first and then best practices and the implementation of the "how" questions will be answered from this RFC and within the the product-guild channel.