This document discusses enabling company-wide agility in a dynamic world. It proposes combining Agile, Sociocracy, Beyond Budgeting, and Open Space methods. The agenda includes defining an agile company, diving into each stream and their alignment, applicability to participants' contexts, and planning next steps. Challenges companies face include volatile conditions, lack of theory, size, people issues, and technological changes. The document explores how each method stream translates core values like self-organization, transparency, constant customer focus, and continuous learning to the company-wide level. It provides an overview of how the methods align in an approach called "Bossa Nova" and suggests resources for further reading.

1. Enabling Company-Wide Agility
in a DYNAMIC WORLD
Jutta Eckstein, @juttaeckstein
Jutta@JEckstein.com
http://JEckstein.com
John Buck
John.Buck@SociocracyConsulting.com
http://SociocracyConsulting.com

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3. LEARNING OUTCOMES
● Understand what it means to be agile as a
company.
● Know the methods that need to be combined to
transform a whole company : Agile, Sociocracy,
Beyond Budgeting, and Open Space.
● Know how to get started in changing your
company to be agile regardless of your position
in the company
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4. OVERALL AGENDA (10:00AM - 6:00PM)
• Setting the Stage
• Definition of an agile company
• Diving into the different streams and their
alignment
● Agile principles
● Sociocracy
● Beyond Budgeting
● Open Space
• Applicability in participant’s own context
● Planning your next steps
• Reflection, summary & wrap-up
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5. CHALLENGES COMPANIES ARE FACING
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6. CHALLENGES
•Companies face volatile, uncertain, complex,
and ambiguous (VUCA) conditions
●Lack of Theory
●Size
●People
●Digital Revolution
●Biological Revolution
●Collision of Values
• Difficulties with company-wide Agility
●What are the basic principles?
●What does it mean to be Agile in HR, legal, sales?
●Is control of corporations by shareholders still appropriate?
●Should the structure be hierarchy, matrix, network,
something else? 6

7. UPDATE ON CHALLENGES
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8. How does the Agile Manifesto translate
to company-wide Agility?
Manifesto Values:
• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
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9. How does the Agile Manifesto translate
to company-wide Agility?
Manifesto Values:
• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
Translates to:
• Self-organization
• Transparency
• Constant customer focus
• Continuous learning
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10. CONVERGING STREAMS
• Agile
• Sociocracy
• Beyond Budgeting
• Open Space
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11. WHAT OTHER STREAMS OF DEVELOPMENT EXIST?
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● Egalitarian methods
○ Agile
○ Beta Codex
○ Beyond Budgeting
○ Circle Forward
○ Deep Democracy
○ Holacracy
○ Sociocracy
○ Sociocracy 3.0
○ World Blu
○ Exponential Organizations
● Specific
implementations
○ Damenhur
○ Gore
○ Mondragon
○ Northern Tomato
○ Semco
○ Spotify
● Philosophies
○ Senge - The Necessary
Revolution
○ Spiral Dynamics (includes
teal organizations)
○ Theory U
● Learnings from
facilitation techniques
○ Open Space
○ World Cafe

12. SOCIOCRACY
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13. HIERARCHIES…
IT-Department
Marketing & Banking
Operations Department
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14. CIRCULAR
HIERARCHIES
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15. OPEN SPACE
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16. ORIGINS OF BEYOND BUDGETING
•Developed by CFOs
•Caused by two-fold
experiences
●Request for too much money
●Request for not enough money
•Developed several principles
and recommendations

17. DEFINITION
•Budgeting
●Generic for command & control management
•Beyond Budgeting
●Beyond command & control
●Toward a management model that is more
empowered and adaptive

18. MORE CONCRETE: MAIN PRINCIPLE
•Good target has to be ambitious
•Forecast / estimation is for closing gap to goal
•Forcing a target and a forecast into one number
is almost guaranteed to result in:
●either a bad target or
●a bad forecast

19. MORE CONCRETE: RECOMMENDATION
•Budgets need to be more flexible
●Rolling budget
●Event-based budget

21. ADAPTED COMPANY-WIDE VALUES
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22. SELF-ORGANIZATION
• Use accountable cross-functional teams
● At different levels of abstraction
● With a common aim that
● Govern through shared values not through rules
• That
● Select themselves
● Follow their passion
● Are responsible for whole story
● And hold retrospectives
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23. TRANSPARENCY
Create transparency for all involved in two directions:
• Provide information
● On progress and delivery related to common aim
• Lower barriers to information needed for
● Making informed decisions
● Self-regulation, innovation, and learning
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24. CONSTANT CUSTOMER FOCUS
Focus wide on every aspect of the company:
• Product & Process
● Common aim
● MVP
● User Stories & personas
● Value stream analysis
● Feedback on each production step
• Structure & Strategy
● Includes owners (shareholders)
● Value centers & support service teams
● Rolling or event-based budgeting
• Individual contributions / people
● Passion guides contribution
● Relative individual objectives not fixed ones
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25. CONTINUOUS LEARNING
• Always
● Learning/contributing to other’s learning guides all work
• Get Feedback,
● Retrospectives
● Role improvement reviews with peer feedback
● Separate individual objectives from bonuses
• And Adapt
● Your plans as you develop
• Development = learning (training), teaching, researching in
interaction with your aim
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26. BOSSA NOVA: OVERVIEW
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ValueStream Beyond Budgeting Open Space Sociocracy Agile
Self-
Organization
Govern thru shared values
not rules
Accountable teams for
common goal
Self-Selected teams
Individuals follow
their passion
Common aim
Equivalence
Levels of abstraction
Retrospectives
Cross-functional
teams
Transparency
Open info for self-
regulation, innovation,
learning
All information is
accessible by
interested people
No insurmountable
barriers to getting
needed info
Progress &
delivery
Constant
Customer
Focus
Value centers & support
service teams
Rolling/event budgets
Relative not fixed
individual objectives
Customer focus is
always combined
with passion
Common aim
Feedback on each
production step
Include owners/
shareholders
MVP
User stories &
personas
Value stream
analysis
Continuous
Learning
Indiv objectives not tied to
bonuses
Holistic perf evaluation
Learn & contribute
to learning of others
guides all work
Development =
learning, teaching,
research ⇔ aim
Adapt plans per
feedback
Retrospectives

27. BOSSA NOVA IN YOUR CONTEXT
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28. BIBLIOGRAPHY & SUGGESTED READING
• http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-teams-sociocratic-solution
• http://www.infoq.com/articles/planning-controlling-complex-projects-beyond-
budgetting
• Beyond Budgeting homepage: http://bbrt.org
• Bogsnes, Bogsnes: Implementing Beyond Budgeting. Unlocking the Performance
Potential. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Buck, John & Villines, Sharon: We the People. Consenting to a Deeper Democracy.
Washington, D.C.: Sociocracy.info
• See how Valve is using Open Space (handbook for employees):
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/Valve_ Handbook_ LowRes.pdf
• Whitehurst, John: The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance.
Harvard Business Review Press.
• http://www.agilefluency.org
• Owen, Harrison: Open Space Technology. A User’s Guide. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers
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29. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Jutta Eckstein, @juttaeckstein
Jutta@JEckstein.com
http://JEckstein.com
John Buck
John.Buck@SociocracyConsulting.com
http://SociocracyConsulting.com
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