A number of specific, verifiable properties of the conditions and/or outcomes of a requirement that, when taken together, indicate the requirement is considered fulfilled.
Accountability (principle)
Respond when something is needed, do what you agreed to do, and accept your share of responsibility for the course of the organization, so that what needs doing gets done, nothing is overlooked, and everyone does what they can to contribute toward the effectiveness and integrity of the organization.
Alignment
The process of aligning the actions of all parts of an organization with the organization's objectives.
Attend to (v.)
to take responsibility for something.
Backlog
A list of (often prioritized) uncompleted work items (typically a deliverable, requirement or a driver) that need to be addressed.
Check-In
A brief disclosure where you share something about what's up for you and how you are, revealing thoughts, feelings, distractions, or needs.
Chosen Values
A set of principles that a team (or an organization) has chosen to collectively adopt to guide their behavior in the context of their collaboration.
Circle
A self-governing and semi-autonomous team of equivalent people who collaborate to attend to a domain.
Complexity
An environment where unknowns are unknown, cause and effect can only be understood in retrospect, and actions lead to unpredictable changes. [Snowden and Boone]
Concern
An assumption that cannot (for now at least) be backed up by reasoning or enough evidence to qualify as an objection to those who are considering it.
Consent (principle)
Raise, seek out and resolve objections to proposals, policies and activities, to reduce the potential for decisions leading to undesirable consequences and to discover worthwhile ways to improve.
Constituent
A group (e.g., a circle, team, department, branch, project, or organization) that delegates authority to a representative to act on their behalf in other teams or organizations.
Constraint
A limitation or restriction that controls or limits what someone can do or what can happen. It can be a requirement to fulfill, a rule to follow, or a boundary on actions, behaviors, or outcomes.
Continuous Improvement (principle)
Regularly review the outcomes of your actions, then make incremental improvements to what you do and how you do it based on what you learn, so that you can adapt to changes when necessary, and maintain or improve effectiveness over time.
Coordination
The process of enabling individuals or teams to collaborate effectively across different domains to achieve shared objectives.
Current conditions
(In the context of organizational drivers) Current conditions are present, observable circumstances that are causing — or could plausibly cause — effects relevant to the organization's purpose.}}
Delegatee
An individual or group accepting responsibility for a domain delegated to them, becoming a role keeper or a team.
Delegation
The grant of authority by one party (the delegator) to another (the delegatee) to attend to a domain (i.e. to do certain things or to make certain decisions), for which the delegator maintains overall accountability.
Delegator
An individual or group delegating responsibility for a domain to other(s).
Deliverable
A product or service provided provided in the context of an intervention. Products include components and materials.
Domain
A distinct area of responsibility and authority within an organization.
Driver
A person's or a group's motive for responding to a specific situation.
Effectiveness (principle)
Devote time only to what brings you closer towards achieving your organization's overall objectives, so that you can make the best use of your limited time, energy, and resources.
Empiricism (principle)
Test all assumptions you rely on through experiments and continuous revision, so that you learn fast, make sense of things, and navigate complexity as effectively as you can.
Enabling Conditions
Conditions considered necessary to establish for achieving or maintaining intended outcomes (in the context of a requirement).
Equivalence (principle)
Involve people in making and evolving decisions that affect them, to increase engagement and accountability, and utilize the distributed intelligence to achieve and evolve your objectives.
Evolve (v.)
to develop gradually.
Flow of Value
Deliverables traveling through an organization towards customers or other stakeholders.
Governance
The sum of activities involved in setting objectives and making and evolving decisions (policies) that guide people toward achieving those objectives, for the entire organization or specific people within it.
Governance Backlog
A visible, prioritized list of items relating to the governance of a domain.
Helping Team
A team of equivalent people with the mandate to execute on a specific set of requirements.
Intended Outcome
Specific, observable results you aim to achieve in relation to a driver.
Intervention
The specific steps you take and/or the constraints you put in place to fulfill a purpose.
Key Responsibilities
The work and decision-making considered essential in achieving a domain’s purpose.
Logbook
A (digital) system to store all information relevant to running an organization.
Metric
A quantifiable measure used to track and assess progress, evaluate outcomes, and determine success.
Objection
An argument – relating to a proposal, existing decision, or activity being conducted by one or more members of the organization – that reveals consequences or risks that are preferably avoided for the organization or that demonstrates worthwhile ways to improve.
Objective
A specific result (or goal) that a person, team, or organization wants to achieve. In the context of S3, objectives refer to achieving intended outcomes, establishing desired conditions, and responding adequately to organizational drivers, all with the overarching aim of fulfilling the organization’s purpose.
Open Team
A group of people who are invited to contribute to the work and governance done in a domain when they can.
Operations
Doing the work and organizing day-to-day activities within the constraints defined through governance.
Operations Backlog
A visible list of (typically prioritized) uncompleted work items (deliverables).
Organization
A group of people collaborating toward a common purpose by delivering products and services that meet the needs or desires of the customers they serve.
Organizational Driver
A situation where the organization's members have a motive to respond because they anticipate that doing so is beneficial or necessary for fulfilling the organization’s purpose. (by helping generate value, eliminate waste, or avoid undesirable risks or consequences). Drivers are often expressed as current conditions that lead to current or anticipated effects that are relevant to the organization.
Overall Domain
The domain that defines the organization's purpose, overall strategy, business model(s), and other standard constraints.
Pattern
A process, practice or guideline that serves as a template for successfully responding to a specific kind of challenge or opportunity.
Policy
An intervention that is created and evolved through governance; a process, procedure, protocol, plan, strategy, or guideline.
Primary Driver
The primary driver for a domain is the main driver that people who attend to that domain respond to.
Principle
A basic idea or rule that guides behavior, or explains or controls how something happens or works.
Purpose
The reason why something is done, used, or created; a guiding motivation that directs actions, decisions, and resources toward achieving a valuable outcome.
Requirement
A state considered valuable to establish or maintain in order to address a specific driver. Requirements are often expressed as intended outcome(s), and enabling condition(s) considered necessary to establish for achieving or maintaining those outcomes.
Role
A domain that is delegated to an individual, who then becomes the role keeper.
Role Keeper
An individual taking responsibility for a role.
Self-Governance
People governing themselves within the constraints of a domain.
Self-Organization
Any activity or process through which people organize work. Self-organization happens within the constraints of a domain, but without the direct influence of external agents. In any organization or team, self-organization co-exists with external influence (e.g. external objections or governance decisions that affect the domain).
Semi-Autonomy
The autonomy of people to decide for themselves how to create value, limited by the constraints of their domain and by objections brought by the delegator, representatives, or others.
Social Technology
Any process, technique, method, skill or any other approach that people can use to influence social systems – organizations, societies, communities, etc. – to support achieving shared objectives and guide meaningful interaction and exchange.
Sociocracy
An approach for organizing together where people affected by decisions can influence them on the basis of reasons to do so.
Sociocratic Circle-Organisation Method (SCM)
An egalitarian governance method for organizations based on a sociocratic mindset, developed in the Netherlands by Gerard Endenburg.
Standard Constraint
A constraint that affects several domains (e.g., all sales teams, an entire branch, platform, or department) or even all domains of the organization (e.g., company-wide strategy, a business model, or an organization-wide rule).
Strategy
A high-level approach for how people will fulfill the purpose of a domain (within the constraints of that domain).
Subdomain
A domain that is fully contained within another domain.
Subdriver
A subdriver arises as a consequence of responding to another driver (the superdriver) and is essential for effectively responding to the superdriver.
Superdomain
A domain that fully contains another domain.
Superdriver
see Subdriver.
Team
A group of people collaborating toward fulfilling a shared purpose. Typically, a team is part of an organization, or it is formed as a collaboration of several organizations.
Tension
A personal experience, a symptom of dissonance between an individual's perception of a situation and their expectations or preferences.
Time box
A fixed period of time spent focused on a specific activity (which is not necessarily finished by the end of the time box).
Transparency (principle)
Record all information that is valuable for the organization and make it accessible to everyone in the organization, unless there is a reason for confidentiality, so that everyone has the information they need to understand how to do their work in a way that contributes most effectively to the whole.
Tuners
One or more people who use the information and ideas collected in Proposal Forming to design a coherent proposal (not a final decision).
Value
The importance, worth, or usefulness of something for fulfilling a purpose. Also: "a valued principle that guides behavior" (mostly used as plural "values", e.g. "organizational values").
Values
Valued principles that guide behavior. Not to be confused with "value" (singular) in the context of a driver.
Waste
Any activity, output, or use of resources that does not contribute — directly or indirectly — to fulfilling a specific purpose."
