Agendashift as framework

These pages describe Agendashift – the wholehearted engagement model – as an open framework for continuous, outcome-oriented transformation.

Agendashift is primarily for agents of strategic change, and it can be used with or without an explicit Lean-Agile agenda. In the Lean-Agile case it is intended neither as a replacement for the likes of Scrum, Kanban, or SAFe, nor as a way to choose between them. We’re not against such frameworks; as pluralists, we celebrate them as demonstrations of what’s possible and as sources of patterns that can be combined in interesting and innovative ways. What we’re against is their imposition – so contradictory as to invite failure.

We want to help you avoid yet another failed or utterly disappointing implementation, and we don’t pretend to be neutral. Outcome-orientation is not a neutral stance. Our commitment to participation and our opposition to imposition aren’t neutral either. If some of Agendashift’s principled approach to strategy and change rubs off in other areas too, we’d be delighted. Perhaps yours can be a wholehearted organisation too!

The framework’s top level elements are its generative patterns, the agenda for change, and its core activities (below). Running through those, a golden thread: [the language of outcomes]. Supporting them: five principles, and our many models, sources, and inspirations.

Two key generative patterns

1. Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes (IdOO)
2. Right-to-Left Strategy Deployment

Understand those two patterns, how they relate to each other, and how they challenge the status quo, and you’re a long way towards understanding both how Agendashift works and why it exists.

The agenda for change

From the forthcoming 2nd edition of Agendashift (2021):

[The] agenda for change doesn’t start with a solution idea or a “target state” design. It is made principally of outcomes and the relationships between outcomes, and it is created, developed, and maintained through participation. It’s an expression of shared understanding and strategy that unfolds and evolves as the organisation learns.

See also:

• Engagement model
• Theory of change (en.wikipedia.org)

Core activities

The core activities provide teachable and repeatable demonstrations of the patterns, using some of our favourite tools. NB: Other structures and tool choices are encouraged!

Agendashift™ is copyright © 2015-2021 Positive Incline Ltd. All rights reserved. The page Agendashift as framework by Mike Burrows of Positive Incline Ltd is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

Source text maintained at github.com/asplake/agendashift-open/tree/master/framework.md (github.com)

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