Agile Parliament

One of the EnterprisePatterns in the upcoming OpenAgilePatternLanguage - an initiative in AgileTng.

• OpenSpaces are good for opening a conversation, but if the conversation doesn’t land they’re perceived as ineffective. They’re great at showing people that there’s alignment on ideas, but they don’t achieve alignment on decisions.
• IterationRetrospectives are great for tribal decision making, but they don't scale past a big scrum.
• Management Hierarchies generate a whole ManagementAntiPatternRoadMap - they're not collaborative and frequently use power to obstruct collaboration.
• For several centuries the IroquoisConfederacy used a CondolenceCouncil protocol that worked quite a lot like this ... and it was their only method of national governance ...

Therefore,

The AgileParliament is an OpenSpace rejiggered to enable large-scale collaborative decision-making.

• The parliament will have 3 rounds. In each round:
  • Instead of just a conference backlog, a 6 column kanban for forging AgileTreaty(s):
    • Tribal learnings that should be leveraged by the broader community (Smiley face)
    • Challenges a tribe can’t solve for itself and its management isn’t solving for it (Delta symbol)
    • Proposals for treaties that would affect more tribes than just one (Question mark)
    • Proposals that have gained the unanimous consent of a session and are ready for parliamentary review (Exclamation mark)
    • Proposals that have passed review and are ready for tribal ratification (Circle) – initially empty.
    • Proposals that have been unanimously ratified by all represented tribes (U for Unanimous).
  • Tribal reps explain their respective item in turn and dots are used to amalgamate and prioritize items per an open space.
  • There’s an initial round of sessions as per usual for an open space. The LawOfTwoFeet? enables everyone to contribute on everything.
  • Unlike an OpenSpace, each session is trying to either create or refine a specific output: a treaty proposal:
    • Smiley face sessions try to come up with a treaty about how the community can capitalize on a specific tribal learning.
    • Delta symbol sessions try to come up with a treaty about how the community can organize to solve a specific tribe’s problem.
    • Question mark sessions review a specific treaty proposal and try to find a way to refactor it and all the passed treaties into a consistent whole.
  • Unanimity in each session is required before a treaty proposal is defined as “ready for review” - moved into the Exclamation mark column.
  • It’s perfectly legit for session participants to agree on conditions and trade-offs that must be satisfied before a treaty could be passed.
• At the end of each round there’s a discussion-free review
  • All that round’s “ready” proposals are read out.
  • Any conference participant can move a Exclamation mark proposal back into the Question mark column, but by doing so that participant undertakes to run a new session on it in the next round to try to sort out whatever is worrying them.
  • Proposals that are not moved back into the Question mark column by any participant are regarded as passed and moved into the Circle column.
• This is the key unanimity step. At the end of the parliament, the respective treaties affect no one. A passed treaty must still be ratified by every tribe – it’s presented at each next tribal retro to be considered for ratification. Only treaties that are unanimously adopted by all members of all tribes at their respective retros (signatures may be necessary – digital or handwritten is fine …) are enacted by the parliament. These treaties are moved into the Unanimous column at the start of the next Open Parliament.
• Tribes that decide to block a passed treaty do so by turning up at the next Open Parliament and moving it back to the Question column. The next parliament deals with a questioned treaty as it would any ordinary treaty proposal.
• Treaties enacted by means of an AgileParliament may only be cancelled by the same means. This is to say that a treaty once enacted remains so until the parliament unanimously agrees to alter or cancel it. Which would be a healthy way to prevent TheFiveMonkeys.
  • The exception to this would be exigent conditions under control of people the Iroquois referred to as War Chiefs - whom I guess we call managers.

I'm parking this here until the AgileTng site is ready for content. Feedback very welcome! -- PeterMerel.

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CategoryAgileTng CategoryOpenAgile