So, there is a lot of counterproductive noise and emotions around the current state of the HA’s.
While first ideas are presented to improve the current state and to move the whole thing forward, i think anything proposed so far doesn’t actually address some main issues. But… its easy to blame those who do things, its more difficult to actually step up and help. As many others, i see a lot of value and have high expectations from the HA program and its future, so, taking some time this Sunday to do my part. Hope the read is worth your time.
So, as it stand right now, we can identify on some issues around the current state of the HA thingy:
For example….
Lack of Transparency
While there seems to be a collective agreement that things didn’t worked well, there is actually very little information on what exactly did not worked well and as a non-HA it is quite hard to find any public relevant & valuable information on the exact issues. Almost more importantly, there is no way to figure out what may have actually worked well, shifting the whole conversation into a negative-focused notion.
Rushed executions
I understand that everyone wants to get stuff done, rather yesterday than tomorrow. However, the current chaos may be mainly caused due to the fact that things have been very much rushed, giving very little time to ideate and develop required frameworks/processes which would be needed to ensure a more effective roll out of the whole thing over short/middle/long term. The time cut from proper planning, has to be paid from chaotic executions later as we see right now. I’m more a friend of “measure twice, cut one”… Feels here right now rather like, “dont measure, cut 11” XD
Lack of Trust
Due to the lack of transparency and clear frameworks & processes, there seems currently very little trust towards the HA program as whole from the wider community and the trust the larger community has in individual HA’s is not reflected and projected to the HA program as whole. Also important to mention that previous efforts to develop and refine HA frameworks/processes seem to mostly have happened within the HA program itself or between individual HAs with very little communications towards the wider community, once again increasing doubts and further heating a tension between DOT holders and the HA program. Not good, also not good for the HAs themself, as they have to fear blame as individuals and risk their own reputation. Engaged HAs have to pay a high price right now, and as community we should be very careful in not burning the folks we have there. When community feels frustration, it may be fair to assume that the HA’s which are really committed and engaged surely feel that frustration even stronger. Lets not blame the ones who actually try to improve the thing, lets rather help and support them.
So much on that… So, lets take a more positive-forward thinking approach and help the folks we voted for through a little challenging time, after all, they need us as community to step up and help getting things forward.
First, lets assume that so far, nothing has been actually wasted. in my opinion, the past 2 months already generated loads of learnings and valuable experiences. The main issue is that these learnings are so far badly collected/presented/actionised. If we don’t want to waste the past 2 months, there is a simple thing we can do. Extract the learnings from individuals, make them collectively accessible, do some proper reality-management… . A simple and effective step to improve on all 3 Issues stated above could be:
- Reflect
Host HA reflection sessions with all current HA’s. Make the round from HA to HA, let them state each one individually on:
- what worked
- what didn’t worked
- suggestions for improvements
- Prioritize
Once we have a good overview on what worked & didn’t and on suggested improvements, we can start to prioritise things and figure which issues need to be addressed and in which order. The prioritisation will by default lead towards an authentic emerging roadmap for the HA program.
- Implement
Once issues are prioritised and once we gain a more aligned and clear perspective on priorities and a roadmap starts to emerge, we can start to implement solutions to prioritised issues step by step in a coordinated and transparent manner. Aiming for a different approach here as currently presented at ref/1186 which already outlines a roadmap for Q4 2024 via a 100Day plan which in my opinion already rushed into a new thing without doing the groundwork first to ensure that a next iteration actually improves on the previous one.
Important thing is to record and share the reflection session(s) with the community, having the prioritisation as well as the implementation fully public, making sure everyone has access to shared learnings, to the roadmap as well as to the implementation of solutions. Be transparent on the good, the bad and the ugly.
Also, i would keep the current HA’s as they are right now as non-active HA’s actually dont block active HA’s from achieving things. Reducing the amount of HA’s for example, as currently proposed, doesn’t fix any real issues in my opinion. I see the HA program as a young thing which after all just got started, kinda perspective of “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
It takes time to build such a thing, and we should spend the needed time to make sure the HA program evolves into something we can be collectively proud of. Having a little more structure in next steps is as simple as effective especially as we have after all quite some very active, committed and engaged HAs already on place If there will be the need to heavily reform the program, we should make sure that the reformation happens in a coordinated and smart way, and hey, there are a bunch of smart folks around here, lets use that asset effectively. 
Relevant sources and context:
Referenda to “Reduce the Set of Head Ambassadors and Start an Effective Ambassador Program”
https://polkadot.subsquare.io/referenda/1186
Forum discussion
https://forum.polkadot.network/t/reduce-the-set-of-head-ambassadors-and-start-an-effective-ambassador-program/10177
Twitter discussions
Alice_und_Bob : x.com