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Dash Core Group May 1st Funding Proposals
DCG is submitting 2 funding proposals for the May 1st budget cycle:
1) DCG Compensation: $375,000
2) DCG Outsourcing: $76,000

This Proposal
Dash Core Group, in aggregate, will be requesting 59% of total available funding for the May 1st cycle.

This is cross-posted here

This proposal funds Dash Core Group’s planned outsourcing expenses. This account has not been funded since January 2017. Since that date, funds have been deployed primarily towards the following uses:

1. Implementing Agile software development within Dash Core Group:
During 2018 DCG launched the Agile Transformation project. The goal of the project was to create an Agile delivery structure within DCG, train our contributors in Scrum and Kanban methods and implement these methods within feature and service teams. DCG hired external consultants to guide us through the transformation efforts and as a result of this project 4 Scrum and 1 Kanban trainings have been provided together with ongoing coaching and iterative process improvements. The entire delivery organization has now transitioned to Agile delivery mode. Leveraging these methodologies, DCG has achieved significant gains in productivity, efficiency, product quality, discipline in delivery, communication, coordination and better predictability in meeting milestones.

2. Special transaction support:
As outlined in DIP-002, Special Transactions are not “Backwards Compatible” with existing cryptocurrency implementations. In order to provide a smooth launch of Dash Core v0.13.x a variety of Release Preparations were made that resulted in Pull Requests to the NBitcoin and bitcoin-php libraries. Library updates were performed using a combination of internal resources as well as through collaboration with Delta Engine. Leveraging outsourced partners enables DCG to support additional libraries and ensure they are updated in a timely fashion when major upgrades occur.

1. X11 JavaScript Hashing Library:
2. DCG outsourced the creation of “X11-Hash-JS” which provides an essential hashing function to “dashcore-lib”. This NodeJS / JavaScript platform has since grown to support numerous integrations via Insight API and has also provided foundational elements of Dash Evolution.

Should this funding proposal pass, we plan on deploying the funds in the following way:
1) Continued Agile transformation: Rollout of agile software development best practices throughout Dash Core Group is almost complete. Some remaining tasks include

• Public demos
• Improvements in timeline estimation processes
• Introduction of metrics and reports for Scrum and Kanban teams, which helps identify issues early and measure process gains
• Review of cross-functional teams (Management Team, Growth Team, Value Team)

The next step in Agile transformation is to create a robust support organization and prepare it for Evolution launch. This includes the creation of Incident and Problem Management processes, setup of support structures (3 levels of support lines), necessary trainings, coaching and joint cooperation of delivery and support structures. DCG also wants to use the experience of our external consultant in process development to improve internal processes within DCG.

2) Service Desk Outsourcing: Professional support organizations are typically constructed with 3 lines of support:

• 1st Line Support (Service Desk) to collect as much information and diagnostics about the incidents as possible, and to resolve basic issues on the spot. This is usually done through a call center and/or additional team with multiple language skills (to get as much geographical coverage as possible).
• 2nd Line Support is staff with greater technical skills than those of First-Line. They work on incident diagnosis and resolution.
• 3rd Line Support is usually a group that possesses specific expert-level knowledge required to resolve incidents; e.g. network support, database support, hardware maintenance, etc.

DCG already has 2nd Line Support in place and we are going to leverage a portion of our developer’s time for 3rd level efforts. However, DCG has no intention of building a huge support organization with dozens of people in call-centers and service lines. Instead, DCG will outsource 1st Line Support during Q4’19 and will use external companies’ experience and resources to provide professional Service Desk to our users globally. This needs to be prepared and launched prior to the rollout of Evolution. If this proposal passes, a portion of the funds will be used to pay for preparations for outsourcing and 3 months of expenses associated with outsourcing the 1st line of support.

3) Capabilities / Tech Brochures: This will streamline the way business development communicates our core value propositions, with a set of documents aimed at different audiences such as exchanges or payment processors. Automatic InstantSend, ChainLocks as well as Data Contracts have all been identified as requiring a complete collateral material refresh and will be included in this project.

4) BTCPay Server / InstantSend: This initiative will bring InstantSend detection to the open-source “BTCPay Server” payment processing server. This solution is fully backwards compatible with BitPay and offers a production-ready solution for larger merchants who’d like to control their own infrastructure. BTCPay Server is an increasingly popular solution with many of the merchants we support. This project will be developed by DeltaEngine.

5) DCG Payroll Management Tool: This project will streamline internal DCG operations. We’ve identified that significant time-savings can be attained by creating a simple payroll management tool which is integrated with BitGo. This project is being developed by Allied Block and though it’s been designed specifically for Dash Core Group purposes, we plan to fully open-source the finished product so that it can be re-used elsewhere in the network. This project will streamline the DCG payroll process and reduce the time to pay our contractors on a monthly basis.

6) Dash Core v0.14.x / PHP + .NET Library Work: This broadly scoped project will be a continuation of the .NET and PHP development work described above. Basic support for Special Transactions has been introduced to these platforms and this work will allow for more advanced functions to be performed. These functions include the creation and validation of the various Special Transaction types.

7) Dash Core v1.0.x / PHP + .NET Library Work: This is again a continuation of previously mentioned work. The aim with setting up these enhancements is to provide support for the creation of “State Transitions” which is another application of Special Transactions.

8) Implementing Internal Security Process: This initiative relates to security infrastructure for Dash Core Group and would not exceed $1,000 / month.

If you have any questions, please direct them to @glennaustin in this dashcentral post to ensure we are notified of your request.

Requested funding is as follows for the May 1st budget cycle:
· 568 Dash for outsourcing expenses ($76,000 USD @ $134 per Dash)
·    5 Dash proposal reimbursement
Total: 573 Dash

Note: Any unused budget will be applied toward other outsourcing expenses.