2026-01-26

This update brings substantial changes to the foundations of S3, including several revisions that affect many concepts, patterns, and glossary terms, as well as significant changes to several patterns.

Changes to Key Concepts

  • Introduction: Added an introduction to the section that briefly outlines all key concepts and their relationships.
  • Added Model for Purposeful Action: We consolidated the work that began with the introduction of Requirements (2022) into a single, coherent model, which is foundational for understanding Sociocracy 3.0 in its current form. It introduces Purpose and Interventions as explicit concepts and integrates them consistently with Drivers and Requirements.
  • Drivers and Requirements: Refined descriptions to make their roles, differences, and overlaps more explicit:
    • Driver: Current conditions (instead of “current situation”) that lead to an effect of relevance to the organization.
    • Requirement: Enabling conditions (instead of “need”) expected to lead to intended outcomes (instead of “anticipated impact”).
  • Governance and Operations: Revised and extended the chapter, and added a section about distributing governance throughout the organization.
  • Renamed the concept of “agreement” to Policy and integrated it into the chapter about Governance and Operations. “Agreement” remains in use throughout the guide as a general term.
  • Added examples where possible to support understanding and correct interpretation.
  • Added the concept of Complexity.

Changes to Principles

  • Principle of Equivalence: Addressed the balance between distributed authority and effective governance in complex organizations.

Glossary Updated

Changes to Patterns

Renamed and Moved Patterns

Removed Pattern

  • Clarify Intended Outcomes (now integrated into the concept Requirement)

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

2024-04-05

2024-02-08

2022-04-26

2022-04-05

2022-02-04

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)

2017 - 2021

2021-09-22

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

2021-09-03

2021-08-15

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

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,

2021-03-15

  • updated the Seven Principles

2021-02-19

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

2021-02-11

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

2021-02-06

2021-02-03

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

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

2020-04-29

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

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

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

2019-05-03

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:

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:

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

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

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

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