Pattern for Agile Organizations

Read this text to see the idea of sociocracy as a form of organizational design. This is a way for organizations to transcend the traditional approach to organizational change. While the model is primarily applied to software organizations, it can be used by other organizations that want to be sure that information flows to and from the appropriate parties and ensure that experts can participate in the decisions that affect them. The text considers governance, teams, and collaboration internally and externally. The graphics make the complexity of the linkages easy to understand as the author presents consent decision-making, double linking, and governance in iterations.

The Patterns

Meeting Formats

Retrospective

Dedicate time to reflect on past experience, learn, and decide how to improve work process.

  • output: changes to work process, new tasks, on-the-fly agreements, and drivers requiring an agreement
  • facilitated meeting (~1hr)
  • regular intervals (1-4 weeks)
  • adapt to situation and context
Output of a retrospective


Five Phases of a Retrospective Meeting

  1. Set the stage
  2. Gather data
  3. Generate insights
  4. Decide what to do
  5. Close the retrospective

Governance Meeting

Teams meet at regular intervals to decide what to do to achieve objectives, and to set constraints on how and when things will be done.

A governance meeting is usually:

  • facilitated
  • prepared in advance
  • timeboxed for a duration of 90-120 minutes
  • scheduled every 2-4 weeks

A typical governance meeting includes:

  • opening: check in with each other and attune to the objective of the meeting
  • administrative matters
    • check for consent to the last meeting's minutes
    • agree on a date for the next meeting
    • check for any last-minute agenda items and for consent to the agenda
  • agenda items
  • meeting evaluation: reflect on your interactions, celebrate successes and share suggestions for improvement
  • closing: check in with each other before you leave the meeting
Phases of a governance meeting



Typical agenda items include:

  • any short reports
  • evaluation of existing agreements due review
  • selecting people to roles
  • new drivers requiring decisions to be made, including:
    • forming proposals
    • making agreements
    • designing domains and deciding how to account for them (e.g. new roles, circles, teams or open teams)

Daily Standup

Meet daily to organize work, facilitate learning and improve your productivity and effectiveness.

  • timeboxed (usually 15 minutes)
  • held daily at the same time
  • the team gathers around a visible project management board/tool to:
    • organize daily work
    • address impediments/blocks
    • adapt existing agreements or create new agreements on the spot


Planning And Review Meetings

People meet at regular intervals (1-4 weeks) in timeboxed meetings to plan and review work.

Planning meeting: select and estimate work items for the next iteration.

Review meeting: review completed work items and decide on re-work and changes for the next iteration.


Coordination Meeting

Meet on a regular basis (usually weekly) for reporting on and coordinating work across domains.

  • facilitate the meeting (timebox dialogue and use rounds where valuable)
  • when useful, compile an agenda before the meeting and share it with attendees in advance
    • include details of any prerequisites that can help attendees to prepare
    • further agenda items may come up when hearing status reports

Agenda items:

  • cross domain synchronization and alignment
  • prioritization and distribution of work
  • responding to impediments