 So, welcome to this session. So, it is, well, first of all, my name is Jutta Eckstein and I came from Germany all the way to here and it's always a great pleasure to be here. I'm going to talk about my latest book which is the company-wide agility with beyond budgeting, open space and sociocracy. So, it's a lot of stuff putting together in this session. I want to focus on what open space and sociocracy can do for business agility. The point is, if you think about business agility being something for your whole organization, then it's not about doing more of the same. So, not doing what you know from agile and doing all of it like having more daily stand-ups or all cheer us or whatever, it is looking outside the box and looking at what's needed for real business agility. And so, really outside the box that means that's what we did, looking at what's really out there and there's a lot of stuff out there. Some came out of agile, others is like separate streams where stuff has been developed and who don't necessarily know for each other. And so, we kind of explored what's there and what could be used for business agility. And what, to us, sounded the thing that the best combination is exactly those beyond budgeting, open space, sociocracy and agile. And the acronym for the first letter, so B, and then OS for open space, as for sociocracy and the agile agile just gets together for the bossa nova. And the bossa nova actually may be just for that background too, it's all the Bs and it means it's a fusion of samba and chess. So, it's a kind of music and as a fusion, our bossa nova is a fusion as well because it's a mix of these different streams. And bossa nova is also an intuitive band and like a dancer, but business agility requires organizations or in order to do that, what you need as an organization is like dancers adapt to your surroundings which for dancers, the music and the people who are also on the dance floor but also with your dance, you have influence on the musicians. And that's the same thing actually for bossa nova or for the future. Well, and the last meaning of bossa nova means a new trend. So, now here I want to talk about the two areas, open space and telephysiocracy. So, first of all, who knows about open space? So, open space actually comes from a facilitation it was a facilitation technique and the thing that's involved here to know a company based on the bossa nova which means one can invite it to bring up anything that that person thinks is important and so it's a possibility to address any kind of staff that's critical, that's something new that's an innovation, that's an idea. However, it's not only bringing staff up just for the fun of it this passion of following what you think it's involved is always found by the responsibility and the responsibility in an open space setting so as a facilitation technique would be like the overall theme or topic applying it in an organization it is the overall strategy, the vision so it's not everyone can just do anything it is like it should support the organization then what's coming with the passion is as well that you have the responsibility to learn and help others to learn which goes all the back to what you maybe seen in the rest opening you said the law of completion that we want to apply here at the conference which is you go somewhere else whenever you don't learn anything anymore or if you can't contribute to others learning and that's an open space principle so that's exactly that thing that also goes through and open space is also based on empowerment which means really just so they can't have anyone so it's not you don't have to do the position then sociocracy is maybe something a few of people have heard about so by definition it's ruled by the socios which means by people who know each other as partners which is related to the difference to democracy so democracy is ruled by demos where demos in three is demand so the people don't have a partnership they are not related to each other so that's the huge difference however it's kind of an example of it and it is designed for organizations and the key thing is that the feedback is built in the structure so we will look at this what the key is another key thing is that so surface-to-interview so every voice gets heard now I want to dive into some of the details about the key so first of all about making decisions because the way we are making decisions no matter on the level of decision-making but on the decision of decision-making we have a team of us because we are working on the same product together what the key is is that there is a reason for it first of all maybe a question to you what kind of decision-making randomization just by random you can roll a dice and debate and then probably coming to a closure maybe some consensus for example right which is off the top down like orthopedic decision consent and consent is actually the thing that I want to explain here because of part of social security so there are different kinds of how you can make a decision and the thing is not every kind of decision-making is good for every decision so you need to look at what's most appropriate for making a decision in your context so also the thing that I'm suggesting now is not necessarily the one you want to do all the time so probably the two ends that you are seeing very often is like orthopedic decision are very quick in making the decision but often they take longer for implementation because the iron is missing and consensus decisions are the ones that typically take a very long time to make but the buy-in is there so the implementation is there and then there are some things in between like a democratic decision this isn't where the problem is that minority voices are lost and overlooked so now what I want to look at is what has brought up already is consensus decision so a decision by consent is well it sounds a bit similar to consensus but it's not it means that we decide based on acceptance and not based on agreement so consensus decision the typical question are we all capable of that decision we also have to be with that versus whole consent we are asking can we all live with that decision so is it our range of color to go with that which is a huge difference because if you open up a whole new field if the public is not really in agreement with like everything but I can tolerate a lot so the thing is we are asking if there is any paramount of objection and if somebody has an objection then that objection that's also different than in a consensus way is then really owned by the whole group making that decision which means when you say you would have an objection and then I think like how can I pull him over that would be more the consensus way so I try to argue with you and convince you that well I find it much better in a consent way it would be oh great Shane is having an objection probably we have overlooked something and we need to find out how to solve that objection and make our decision much better so that's the idea of that so that the objection is then owned by everyone a few more kind of tips to that so one thing is which always goes with consent decision if it's good enough for now safe enough to try which goes a little bit with the trials we heard from Linda and the good enough for now safe enough to try is also often helped moving forward and now a thing that helps there at least I think is putting a time stamp to a decision saying well good enough for now for maybe the next three months and then we look at the decision again and maybe we have to revisit it and make it a good decision make the next trial so these are things that are helping really a lot to move on and to get the buy-in from everyone the way this is also working is that we really want to hear from everyone and that's for me one thing that I learned as well when I learned about social security it actually often used the some voting so I'm with it or I'm in favor or I'm with it whatever the majority says or I object I realize just making that signal is at least for me something completely different than if I have verbalized and say I consent or I have more talking more of commitment and it might be just me and it's not for everyone like that but signal something is just more I would say disconnected from the person then going round and up so that's the content decision this can be used in all kinds of way so you can start even if you are not looking at this this utility the big thing you can look and use content decisions in your teams and if you have a policy to decide upon in your retrospective for them that's one way of using it but it can go up all to the form level where you make decisions based on consent so it's something you can put up everywhere and so I kind of disagree with what you said Shane so you can make small steps also so surpracy doesn't have to be like rolled out okay another thing from so surpracy talks about roles and hierarchies and I want to stop electing people who are focused on tasks whenever you have the need for somebody taking over the responsibility for something so surpracy provides a way of doing that and it starts with everyone in that group that person should do something or it could be like a representative in that group or taking whatever kind of over some responsibility we first start with verifying what's the responsibility then we ask everyone in that group to make a suggestion for of course we think to fulfill that role and we write it down writing it down it's kind of what you're probably planning for sometimes it's often better to make up your own mind then kind of going with a majority or some four leaders in your group so first make up your mind write it down and this is then connected so I write down in this way for example my future nominate Tom for that role that we are looking for everyone is doing that we are collecting those little suggestions and then we have our list of proposals then we go around and everyone is saying ok what's the rationale so why did I nominate Tom for that role maybe I have seen Tom doing something like this in the past therefore I think he'll be qualified for that kind of role and so we go around and everyone explains why Tom by Ben, Ellen after we've heard that we do another round and we just call the change round asking everyone in that group now that you have heard the rationale for all the different suggestions do you want to stay with your suggestions or do you want to change your mind and suggest somebody else so as we see in that change round well some people have their nominations they change their mind and suggest somebody else and now one thing happens which was also kind of weird for me at the beginning so what I needed to learn is here in sociocracy it's very clear that we say it's the facilitator then going around and saying okay I've heard all of what has been suggested and based on that I suggest we nominate for example Ellen to take over that workbook so it's kind of an autocratic decision if you will which for me felt weird because as a facilitator I learned well I said I'm not in your drink so here it's very clear and you're suggesting that for what's happening now is you're doing it in a round of concept so does anyone have a problem again of completion is that Ellen is taking up that role in this put it up for now to say enough enable the next three minutes please provide a consent on that so that's a way of electrical functions and tasks and this is kind of what we gone through now with my all the will and what I can do so how do you use this so one one way is what I just said well anytime when you want to have role of function be taken by a given person and it could be really kind of thing so it could be for example if you think on the team level people who go to a given community of practice for example who will represent the team as in the aspects true in our community or even you might think of electric scrum master this way so it could be like anything you anyone who thinks like okay get more power probably support of the group and if you use that thing you will be surprised I really bet that you will be surprised at what kind of change or differences makes a big difference in like there are people nominated for the boarder they would never have voted for something but hearing from the group like people think well they are really qualified then they are also proud that they can step ahead which they normally could so if you find out about people that you wouldn't hand on to those people and also it brings much better together because it's like supporting each other people to function and ask where I'm coming to right now which is not sure if you remember at the beginning I said so so because we built this structure and I want to go into that and if you look at hierarchy the way it typically is done is kind of like that so we have a top down thing there are people appointed who are like the managers of the next level and so they are if you further it the problem with that then it really does that come down and that's how the information flows that's how the decisions go and the problem is the way back up and we see this and even we have a term called that what we mean organization is going to talk about little things and say they are in the same position and same position marks exactly the thing that they have been appointed top down meaning they have to transfer the message that has been decided above them or maybe they will talk about but they have to do that but somehow they are also responsible for their crew for their team and for calling back up but sometimes this is conflicting and so then that middle manager well is in that sandwich and takes a decision which side the person is representing more and so what sociocracy says is well maybe we need to separate those concerns the top down and the bottom up which would mean well we have from every level in the hierarchy somebody who is elected as representative to the high level higher up and in that level higher up whenever we make a decision we make it on consent which means everyone in that group has the same say so even if I am a representative from the bottom up I can object to something if it is possible that is what is called the double linking and of course there is a thing where I go a bit more with what she said well maybe it is only in a big change if you really want to do this with the whole hierarchy but even there you can start somewhere well it starts with how you connect like several teams if you are having a large project so that could be done done in a doubling way kind of bringing together another thing is that you use double linking well just starting it and this is what I sometimes do if a manager says well for this meeting I really would need Doris to come along and explain that stuff by peers so and then we say okay maybe it would be a good idea if you always bring Doris along or whoever we think would be a good idea representative of our team so kind of sneak it in and hoping that it builds up and spreads out to the whole hierarchy that is good actually to have another voice in there then invitation for innovation so now we are talking a bit more about open space or what open space can provide we have heard Linda today talking about failures is maybe not not a good idea and I like the way she phrased it the problem with failures are that often they are not as really often and as Linda said there is no such thing as failure because you always do something and if you do however the thing that I'm seeing in organization is that well at the top they will need something like a culture where we fail path and where we learn from failure and that's really great but then they are not acting it's kind of the lip service they are providing and the only way that this will really be implemented in organization is by really living up to it from the top so a trial is what about if management at best top management is doing like regularly kind of retrospective this could be a real perspective or just a kind of and saying okay in the last two weeks these were the failures we made and these were the things we learned from it so just pointing out the failures of course is kind of weird but what are our learning and by doing this it helps everyone to understand well on the one hand we are all fallible playable in all do something wrong but on the other hand the really top thing we will all be able to learn something so really taking later if you start that from the top then you can fill that in then and another thing is well having emerging teams that can follow their path and you might have heard about self-selecting teams where you have something going on like a new product and you ask well you say we need these skills and who wants to work in which team and help that product that's already kind of open space because you are allowing people to follow their path outside the responsibility of the product because you want to build that product that's one way maybe softer way even to introduce open space is just for having open space they see your company to learn about it and actually this is something that very helpful do because of that as soon as people learn about the principles of open space for example what I see happening immediately as regular it could be boring that people do it during those open space and they politely ask say well I see that I can't contribute here anything more the media going into a vacation I'm not really in and so I think I would help the organization in a better way if I go to another place for example on the stuff I'm working so taking that principle and using it in all kinds of ways if there's a way of if you really want to do it then the thing is more really inviting everyone in the company to come up with ideas for open products that's for example how gore is doing it so the outdoor equipment company or Valve is doing it is a games company so anyone can suggest a product and the key thing is well if that person finds enough people meaning there are enough people to say well that's a cool idea I'm really passionate about going with it and help you building that product it's a go so there is no other kind of management that should be built by product of art it's only finding enough people to have the passion around that if there are not enough passionate people well we will not do it so that's really taking open space for innovation in your company by all the ideas that are there in your organization already and these those however as I said that's probably the kind of the highest that was you can go with one thing or another thing which goes with open space you see this big thing I want to share that story from ING actually last year here at the conference there was the CTO and provided keynote and what they do and I think he didn't talk about this thing but what they do now in their board meetings so where the board of directors this meeting they had put away the table so they don't have that table anymore in their room and what they said just putting away the table changed their conversation and it changed completely so now they are either sitting in a circle or they are having a stand up meeting this way they communicate differently that if they are hiding behind the table and it's another on the other hand moving it from the other helps you instrumental and again you might think of moving the table in our book what we do is we provide a lot of what we call probes as Linda is saying we are not scientists but what we are doing with the probe is we are providing the context for the probe we are providing a hypothesis what you think you will where you will get when you implement that probe and then we come up with more or several experiments you can try where we also say okay that's how you can measure it so a pre-measure and a post-special so it's a bit more scientific than what we often wouldn't say the experiments I'm not saying we are coming to be how it started today so as we have from Shane if we doing this agility what's absolutely in our focus is the customer and probably you can talk to almost any kind of organization even if it's not doing this they will say of course it has to result in our focus what else but not always is it that people live up to it they do it in a different way and so one thing where the fun probe that we call our performance evaluations really reflect the customer focus or as I now label it do you really mean it is that well often other values are rewarded and not the values where you focus on the customer now what our hypothesis is well if customer focus is really at the core of performance evaluation then customer section will improve and so we create a pre-measure for that what's the customer satisfaction right now and then we make a post-measure and the experiment that we came up with well if you have different units and a unit could be 18 versus another team or 8 departments where 12 departments so you define the size for that too and you invite one experimental unit meaning also that they know what's going on and ask them to write their own performance evaluation criteria which should focus on what are on their work and should reflect customer and so having that focus so what do you do with this first of all well it's based on invitation then this is how I will measure your performance right so now everyone comes up with this is how we think this will help us to get better in satisfying the customer and so you do that and then you make a post-measure and well if customer satisfaction doesn't improve or maybe it even get worse okay you know something maybe you need to have a plus mind in the book we provide a lot of jokes where you can make little trials, little experiments and well somehow more at the higher level like really the management level some can be really tried everywhere and the way we are doing it is again so we have the background so you can reflect if this background fits also your situation then you compare the probes that are there if this is where you want to go and what you want to do about it and then if yes still you try that experiment and see again well test your situation but we also suggest that you then recall from your experiment because you want everyone to know that you are also coming so that's kind of the cycle the ambition and what you really think also this is actually great but it's following that book as the rest of the experience it's really keep on developing and so what I hope that you have seen what you can do when you combine open space and cell surface is on the one hand using content decision for getting this full buy in and if you have full buy in you can implement all kind of change I said it at the beginning but I think I did reply it it doesn't mean that you make every decision what it needs is more on the one hand policy decision most often you do high content and on the other hand you can also try it on content that that's so technical deciding if we use this framework or that framework we ask you because we know you know that's that you will explore it and you will so high content we decide to want to do it that's fine too then the double linking is the thing for empowering teams and individuals and building feedback in the hierarchy and with that on the one hand you can start where you are with the hierarchy which most organizations have but you also make the hierarchy actual because feedback is hard then the third thing is that you can use this election for people to function and pass which allows you to quickly find new leaders if you need different kinds of leadership skills so things are changing and at first maybe it was me being in the lead for something but now we need something else and I'm not the one who have that skill so maybe we elect Yamia for doing it the first thing is inviting everyone that they can follow their path and embrace ideas and this allows us to continue to see innovation and you don't want to miss the knowledge and maybe I can be just funny I heard saying that so often this morning people kept surprised and I had it already in my slide it's really the thing and people kept surprised because something goes with open space because you really should be open for all ideas by anyone that knows is there a microphone coming or do you give an example because I skipped that completely and it came up I would think about it a bit later that I thought well now it's great so I'm really glad you're asking that so one thing that I missed is so as a facilitator for example I'm making a suggestion proposal and we have the consent round and saying is there is a good enough mouse I have to try with Ellen and then the last person we are asking is then Ellen so the person we nominated and I didn't say that so it's not that we are going round in the same whatever order it's going round in any kind of order the last person we ask is Ellen and there's the one reason that that person knows the support the person is having that's often a strong thing already and then the other thing is after knowing that the support is there and then Ellen might say well I object Ellen can say the same thing as everyone else consenting or objecting and my objection is and very often I have seen that several times that then an objection but by having the support of everyone it was very easy to kind of get over that objection aren't resolving it so it might be that at least that's a typical thing that I have heard well I actually really don't have the time because I have this and that and that going on and now taking on this responsibility I really don't know how so what is the support of the truth but then it is a thing that people say like oh I really love you with this one and maybe that one is done already and so they are helping together and freeing up the time and it can also kind of do all the work in your news whatever it is so the truth is found strong of together with that so the objections are resolved however it might still be the case that the person has so I object which means the facilitator will do another question yeah thank you for the question this is the question so you mean like what could be a very first step in slew again well of course the classic answer should be buy my book and read it so I have to do some science teaching so really you can start at any level and as I said before you could be using consent in a meeting and I did this without talking even about sociopathy so people of whom I'm working with not necessarily know what we are using here we just found a way which helps us to get critical to the decision actually having said that what I found as well coming up with decisions like I said is a great tool also for billpool sometimes I feel it even work better in a billpool setting so where we all are remote and are connected then in another one it's more likely that people are disciplined enough that they go ground and not everyone is shouting and now I want to say something but they are more like a head to the ground so starting with the consent decision is something that is kind of introducing the principles of open space is another thing that I think is it doesn't really work much and then again looking at different tropes the key thing I believe for both is kind of what they said coming up with hypothesis what do you think do you want to change or how should the world look different after you have done that experiment then measure what's the situation right now in this respect do the experiment and do those measure if it has changed or not and it can be a field again we have I don't know the number but we have like a bunch of so for the top down that is at the moment I have the feeling the change like that because people are talking about the book they are talking about digitalization and how every company gets digital and is a software company also doesn't know yet and in software we are using agile a lot but instead it spreads over the company and companies are desperate to do something about that digitalization being automated and being able to impact but still they need to they need to know what are they offering and so here I am again closing and nominating that's also a very good question you are allowed to nominate yourself and even as a facilitator I am allowed to nominate myself however everyone else if I nominate myself as a facilitator or not I have to try to figure out why I think I am really disqualified for that which is fine because I really like the person who said hi this is just out of curiosity do you have any kind of statistic which says the consent based decision making is better than the other kinds of decision making like random or debate that's a good question so you are asking about evidence and probably scientific evidence actually I don't which doesn't necessarily mean it's not out there but I am not aware of it the only thing that I can tell you is that I found when I was using it and I am using it a lot that it's really helping on the one hand getting the buy-in and on the other hand also that well you hear really everyone's voice you hear from people you not often hear about and so it seems the decisions are better however saying better that actually reminds me on something else well I said already good enough now, safe enough to try several times it's not about making the best decision neither for whatever we are deciding upon or finding the best person for that role that's not what it is we want to move on because we don't have the time and we will only know if it's the best decision after it's implemented the other thing it just should keep us rolling and move forward