In traditional organizations, even (perhaps especially) big ones, the mechanisms to decide what to build, and who will build it, and to test and approve what gets built, are fairly hierarchical and fairly rigid. If you are an individual contributor at the small end of the food chain, you don’t have any ultimate power to decide what product you will build or design. If you are a project manager, you won’t have much leeway to get your hands dirty in the building, even if you do like to dabble. If you see a problem with what is being built but it’s not your role to call it out, you might not have a real voice in the matter.
These hierarchical, big-org machines are effective in some ways, but those of us who have worked in them all know they also have a way of stifling passion and innovation. We all sense that it could be different, and better, but how to get there is a trick.
Blockchain technology is about decentralization. Decentralization means radically less centralized power and decision making. It puts that power – and responsibility – into the hands of individual contributors. You might think of blockchain as just enabling decentralized data, or money, but it can be so much more than that. The decisions about how the technology itself is built, and who builds it, and what they build, and who runs it, and who checks it, and how much everyone gets paid to do all this work – all of those things could be decentralized.
On the Cardano blockchain, the experiment to figure out how that could work is Project Catalyst. The community is refining a process that enables decentralized decision making that is both passionate and accountable. Through successive funding rounds, anyone in the world is invited to contribute ideas and build something. There has been a lot to learn along the way. We have completed 11 funding rounds and are gearing up for the 12th round to launch in April 2024 with a live event in Barcelona. This article covers some recent updates in the accountability systems of Project Catalyst.
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