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Sociocracy 3.0
What it is.
Sociocracy is a system of patterns roles and circles.
In sociocracy 3.0 there are about 70 differnt patterns in use and more are discovered and constructed over time. This patterns are ways to conduct meetings, formalize comunication and care for the decision body so that it flow naturally and to maximize both beauty and effectivnes in decision creation/forming and in manging the organisations tree of already made decisions.
In truth an organisation is an body of decisions that have sedimented to the organisations documents and legal structure and this tree is best alive and constantly changing after the organisations changing needs and aims.
Traditionally organisations have been run with an top down approach where power is invested in a few people and gained trough ownership or hiring practises or by voting.
Sociocrasy is totally different from top down management and even democracy in that it work decentraliced.
In sociocracy we construct roles and circles dynamically after our organisation's needs and it's done trough initiative of the people in the organisation. People are free to participate in circles as them selfs or by filling roles in the circles after their own intrest. Importent is that every circle has full authority over it's domain ant that ther is no "main" domain or other "top" structure exept the yearly member meeting.
Different circles have in turn a variety of ways to interact with each other and share information trough representants and other information flow.
One principle is that anyone that will be effected by a decision shall know that the decision is comming up on an agenda and where in beforhand so that they can engage if they feel a need. This engagment can happen trough participation in the circle where the decision are being made or trough providing an missing viewpoint or idea or concern in beforhand trough a media like a forum or an issue tracker or why not, like we plan, trough git.
The decisions that then have been made shall also be shared with all whom they may concern. This is an amount of information and I guess that we will solve this trough some kind of federation like rss or categorized bloggs or both so everyone can deside themselvs what they are interested to be informed about. And the document will be in the git system for documentation and submitted as commits.
Sociocracy 3.0 came with a new revolutionizing concept, The DRIVER.
The driver is a separation between what drives the need for making a decision and the solution to SATISFY that DRIVER. We often get invested in a solution to the point we seame like married to it, it might be because We our self got the idea or there is something underlying posibility in it that attract us to it. An solution to a driver may not always satisfy the driver thou. One might think a solution will work to achive that what it was constructed for but often an solution are not the best or even good. Because of this and the importance for an organisation to not end up with a stale, stiff and dumb decision tree full of poorly workin solutions to problems that might already moved on and have changed because of changing environment or even initial missjudgment of what the actual driver might have been, it is importent that decisions constantly get reviewed and evaluated for how good they satisfy their driver. As well as the drivers are reviewed for their actuality. This reviews are done regularly and in a timed manner against messurment criteria setup at the time of the decision. Checks. Also they are done constantly by the organisations members that are the actual living soul of the organisation that are naturally driven to look after the organisations aims and wellbeing.
Because this agility and natural dynamicity in the decision tree, decisions does not need to be monolitic or be done to serve forever. They can be amended or reconstructed at a later point. They will be. This have given rise to a saying..
Good enough for now and safe enough to try.
This is a thing of beauty.
Meetings are generaly facilitated by an at the beginning of the meeting chosen "facilitator". This role is done by all participants in the circles and the practise is to circulate this role so that everyone get used to facilitate meetings.
It is the facilitators role to run the agenda and keep track of the time as well as running the rounds and give speek turns.
Meetings typically go in rounds. What rounds are run depend of the situation and the nature of the meeting. But a first round can be a hello run or one that tells about how one feel. Then the facilitator ask if someone are up for being the secretary and keep the meeting log. Then the facilitator read the agenda and ask if anyone has anything to add to the agenda. If all is quiet the facilitator goes on to the first point. If the subject is a charged subject the facilitator, FC from now on, maybe run a collection run where everybody get a turn to tell about what they feel and think about the subject.. loosely. Then the FC sumerice a bit and goes on to collect ideas on how the driver might be defined. If that is an easy one FC might go over to sugestions and ideas for a solution to satisfy the driver. Again after one or two runns FC might sumerice and make a conclusion from the collected material and ask is everybody is ok with the conclusion.. If all say bingo FC might ask if there is any sugestions on whom would be be a good person in the group to construct a suggestion for a decision on a solution for satisfying the driver for the next meeting. Here the actuall person with the most relevant skills for the task are choosen. And are by the FC given the task. FC is also giving the talking turns. Often the order of the first round is the order of talkinng turns troughout the meeting. FC might ask if somebody want to start. Asking for a talking turn is done by saying "pip" and after that turn order is fairly kept by FC and given in order of incomming "pips"
An saying or principe is that: if you dont have anything real relevant to add the best contribution is to be quiet.
If one agree with a speeker and want to empase it one can say bingo. It is ususlly a lot of "pip" and "bingo" on engaging subjects.. and : I piped FIRST! Or is it "mip" in english?
At the end of the meeting after the agenda is gone trough, FC ask around for a good time for next meeting and again clarify tasks that has been given and when results are expected and by whom. After the meeting the secretary and, on "board meetings", the chairman often set up calender and agree about time for read trough of the meeting protocol that, after they gone trough it, is sent to the "ratifier" or protocol checker for signing off.
In between, when a bit of tiredness have crept in, one use a pattern called hmm.. anyway one play around a little with funn games or sing a song or something like it.
Bi weekly meetings usually take between 1 and 2 hours. Very fast and effective. Very agile. After the meeting the secretary and chairman often send out a written reminder about tasks one are given and when results are expected and by whoom.
We have used trello boards but as we used google docs and calender and trello it became a bit fragmented. We will now try with selfhosted gitea for documents and "openproject" as project managment software. texts can also be published trough blog posts and/or sent by mail to less engaged members. but rss feed on blog combined with git will probably work fine.
Larger calls for member meetings and invitation to add to the meeting agenda as well as publication of the agenda will be sent by mail. All in directive stipulated timely manner.
This all might have overlapped a bit with the "board work" protocol but in essence is how we have run circle and board meetings in sociocracy. Since we started sociocracy we have not ones voted, just added.