Table of Contents

Changes 2024-04-18

General Changes

Glossary

  • removed “need” from glossary

Renamed Patterns:

Added Patterns: (all with a brief summary only for now)

Removed Patterns:

  • removed Delegate Influence

Changes 2024-04-05

Changes 2024-02-08

Changes 2022-04-26

Changes 2022-04-05

Changes 2022-02-04

Changes 2022-01-27

  • added Reasoned Decision-Making
  • updated pattern categories:
    • new category Evolving Organizations
    • renamed Co-Creation and Evolution to Sense-Making and Decision-Making
    • renamed Focused Interactions to Meeting Formats
    • renamed Enablers of Collaboration to Enablers of Co-Creation
    • and moved some patterns around
  • Aligned spelling of decision-making throughout the guide
  • revised summary of Resolve Objections
  • revised text of Driver Mapping (step 7)

Changes 2021-09-22

  • fixed a link on the pattern map and added links to the principles
  • fixed some typos, minor revisions to the text

Changes 2021-09-03

Changes 2021-08-15

Changes 2021-06-18

  • added a dedicated chapter for each of the Seven Principles
  • revised the ten principles of the Common Sense Framework
  • updated section about governance in the introduction
    • added more text to explain how governance can be distributed throughout the organization
    • more examples for governance decisions
  • corrected a few typos
  • several small revisions

Changes 2021-05-15

  • Navigate via Tension: added more explanation about passing on drivers to another domain
  • Clarify and Develop Domains: more explanation about refining the elements of a domain description, more information about metrics, monitoring and evaluation, added template illustration,

Changes 2021-03-15

  • updated the Seven Principles

Changes 2021-02-19

  • fixed several broken links on the online version
  • corrected a few typos

Changes 2021-02-11

  • Driver Mapping: added explanation about applications of the pattern, and detailed instructions for each step of the format

Changes 2021-02-06

Changes 2021-02-03

Changes 2021-01-12

  • Renamed Patterns:
    • renamed Clarify Domains to Clarify and Develop Domains
    • renamed Develop Strategy to Clarify and Develop Strategy
  • Clarify and Develop Domains: revised text, added more details and explanations about domain descriptions
  • Peer Review: added more details about what should be reviewed
  • Peer Feedback: revised the text and added more details
  • Breaking Agreements: added summary
  • added glossary entry for “metric”
  • revised glossary entry for “governance”
  • Describe Organizational Drivers: revised text
  • Introduction:
    • added more details to the section about Domains and delegation
    • removed illustration in the section about patterns and listed the pattern groups in the text
  • Appendix:
    • added a disclaimer
    • added more information about the authors

Changes 2020-05-08

  • revised all illustrations for a more consistent style and increased readability
  • revised introduction: more explanation about patterns and core concepts
  • updated glossary: revised explanation of Delegator, Delegatee, Role and Pattern, added Role Keeper

Changes 2020-04-29

Changes 2019-12-22

  • added new introduction text
  • added “social technology” to glossary
  • website now has separate pages for “Introduction” and “Concepts and Principles”
  • ePub now looks much better

Changes 2019-11-29

  • Principle of Transparency: revised description to clarify that valuable information needs to be recorded, and then shared with everyone in the organization
  • Principle of Empiricism: clarified that only those assumptions one relies on need to be tested

Changes 2019-06-27

  • Objection: further refined definition of objection, and updated the glossary term for objection accordingly
  • replaced “action” with activity in a few places where it made more sense
  • fixed a few typos

Changes 2019-05-03

Changes 2019-03-08

General Changes

  • expanded the introduction with more information about S3 and the history of sociocracy that was previously only available on the main S3 website
  • updated section about governance in the introduction
  • added captions to all illustrations
  • renamed pattern group “Enablers of Co-Creation” to “Enablers of Collaboration”
  • removed slide deck version and improved layout and formatting of pdf and ePub version
  • website version: added clickable pattern map for simpler navigation, added glossary overlays to many patterns

Glossary:

Illustrations:

  • updated templates for domain description and role description
  • updated illustrations for Linking and Double-Linking

Changes to Patterns:

Changes 2018-08-17

General Changes

  • added and revised the brief summary for many of the patterns
  • removed bullet points in favor of full sentences in many patterns
  • lots of small improvements to grammar and language
  • included the URL to the web version of the practical guide

Glossary:

  • updated: account for (v.), concern, deliverable, governance, objection, operations, primary driver, principle, role, self-organization, semi-autonomy, subdriver, values
  • added: constituent, coordination, delegation, driver statement, evolve (v.), flow of value, helping team and open domain
  • removed: peer driver

Changes to Introduction

  • added the driver for creating Sociocracy 3.0
  • The Seven Principles:
    • The Principle of Empiricism: removed reference to “falsification”
    • The Principle of Consent is now explained more clearly as “Raise, seek-out and resolve objections to decisions and actions”
  • Governance, Semi-Autonomy and Self-Organization: we refined the definitions of Governance, Operations, and Self-Organization, removed any reference to “coordination”, and clarified the distinction between governance and operations
  • Drivers and Domains: we clarified how domains can be understood in relation to organizational drivers

Changes to Patterns:

Renamed Patterns:

  • Evaluate Agreements to Evaluate and Evolve Agreements
  • Intended Outcome to Clarify Intended Outcome
  • Open S3 Adoption to Open Space for Change
  • Contracting and Accountability to Contract For Successful Collaboration

Added New Patterns:

Changes 2018-03-21

  • renamed pattern Describe Drivers to Describe Organizational Drivers
  • Describe Organizational Drivers: explained four aspects of a driver: current situation, effect of the situation on the organization, need of the organization in relation to this situation, and impact of attending to need
  • added need to glossary

Changes 2017-11-16

  • small corrections
  • aligned glossary entries for Circle and Role to pattern text
  • Development Plan: clarification of responsibilities
  • Role: clarified evolution of strategy

Changes 2017-11-10

  • various small clarifications and corrections
  • Circle: clarified relationship between circle and domain
  • Role: improved description
  • Rounds: improved description
  • moved Open Domain, Helping Team and Open Systems to category “Building Organizations”
  • added several terms to the glossary

Changes 2017-10-21

  • added Liliana David to authors
  • dropped the term “framework” (replaced with “practical guide”)
  • updated order of patterns
  • added an index of all the patterns
  • added a glossary
  • added acknowledgments
  • various small clarifications and corrections to text and illustrations
  • updated templates for agreement and development plan

Changes to Introduction

  • added “what’s in it for me?”
  • added definitions for governance, self-organization, semi-autonomy, operations to introduction
  • clarified domains and their relationship to drivers
  • fleshed out core concepts
  • made all principles actionable

Changes to Patterns:

  • Artful Participation: improved description
  • Agreement: clarified that the concept of agreements is applicable to people in roles
  • Clarify Domains: improved description
  • Circle: updated definition of “circle”, improved description
  • Driver: updated definition of “driver”
  • Development Plan: improved description, updated template
  • Develop Strategy: updated definition of “strategy”, improved description
  • Double-Linked Hierarchy: new illustration
  • Evaluate Agreements: aligned questions to peer review
  • Governance Backlog: improved description
  • Logbook: added details about governance to personal logbook
  • Objections: clarified qualifying objections
  • Peer Review: improved description
  • Respond to Organizational Driver: integrated information about qualifying drivers
  • Role: clarified role keeper may maintain a governance backlog, introduced the term “role keeper” for a person in a role
  • Proposal Forming: added criteria for selecting tuners, added step for prioritizing considerations, small clarifications
  • Resolve Objections: updated illustration to better reflect the process

Renamed Patterns:

  • Backbone Organization to Service Organization
  • Effectiveness Review to Peer Review
  • Strategy to Develop Strategy
  • Domain Description to Clarify Domains
  • Describing Deliverables to Describe Deliverables

Added Patterns:

  • Delegate Influence
  • Describe Drivers
  • Open Domain

Removed Patterns

  • Coordination Circle
  • Nested Domains
  • Qualify Driver