Cruft started out as slang for the unused physics equipment stored in ivy league science departments. Over time its meaning has evolved to signal redundant or anything unwanted that accumulates over time.

In traditional organizations cruft is to be avoided at all costs. It signals inefficiently and waste.

However, in dOrgs (decentralized/digital organization), especially ones run online, cruft needs to be reframed into something else - or we risk morphing back into a traditional top down structure.

To help with this reframe, let’s take a look at decentralized swam organizations like bee and ant hives. In order to find food, many hunting parties scowler a large area of land. These excursions are essentially small experiments that are run in different areas to test if there is enough food to most efficiently feed the hive.

From the scouting parties that are sent out, only a small number find a food source that is worth calling the rest of the hive to help collect.

Does this mean that all the time and energy of the hunting parties that did not find food were a waste of time? Of course not. Their work played an essential role in helping the organization thrive.

In a similar vein, dOrgs will have projects that get half implemented, or accumulate pages of ideas without any execution, or create proposal after proposal that never see the light of day. Does this mean that these actions should be seen as cruft to be eliminated…like a traditional organization would?

We know that answer to that.

Then the questions becomes, how do we structure the organization in a way that turns cruft into fuel for the organization to use? How do we frame the cruft as an asset, rather than a drag?

This might look like creating a position with the responsibility to synthesize and sort the cruft in the dOrg for other contributors to pick up and continue using. Perhaps what gets ‘archived’ can be framed as a learning section of things that could have worked.

No matter what common cruft allocation strategies end up getting adopted, it’s imperative that we dedicate time and energy to figure it out.

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Learn more about DAO Experience Design:

https://daoxd.xyz/

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Cruft started out as slang for the unused physics equipment stored in ivy league science departments. Over time its meaning has evolved to signal redundant or anything unwanted that accumulates over time.

In traditional organizations cruft is to be avoided at all costs. It signals inefficiently and waste.

However, in dOrgs (decentralized/digital organization), especially ones run online, cruft needs to be reframed into something else - or we risk morphing back into a traditional top down structure.

To help with this reframe, let’s take a look at decentralized swam organizations like bee and ant hives. In order to find food, many hunting parties scowler a large area of land. These excursions are essentially small experiments that are run in different areas to test if there is enough food to most efficiently feed the hive.

From the scouting parties that are sent out, only a small number find a food source that is worth calling the rest of the hive to help collect.

Does this mean that all the time and energy of the hunting parties that did not find food were a waste of time? Of course not. Their work played an essential role in helping the organization thrive.

In a similar vein, dOrgs will have projects that get half implemented, or accumulate pages of ideas without any execution, or create proposal after proposal that never see the light of day. Does this mean that these actions should be seen as cruft to be eliminated…like a traditional organization would?

We know that answer to that.

Then the questions becomes, how do we structure the organization in a way that turns cruft into fuel for the organization to use? How do we frame the cruft as an asset, rather than a drag?

This might look like creating a position with the responsibility to synthesize and sort the cruft in the dOrg for other contributors to pick up and continue using. Perhaps what gets ‘archived’ can be framed as a learning section of things that could have worked.

No matter what common cruft allocation strategies end up getting adopted, it’s imperative that we dedicate time and energy to figure it out.

***************

Learn more about DAO Experience Design:

https://daoxd.xyz/

👇 Join my telegram channel by subscribing below 👇