Agendashift as framework

These pages describe Agendashift – the wholehearted engagement model upon which Leading with Outcomes is built – as an open framework for continuous, outcome-oriented transformation.

Its top level elements are its strategies, generative patterns, and the agenda for change. Of somewhat less importance are the core activities that package up many of the tools and exercises for which Agendashift is known. Through all of those run a golden thread, the language of outcomes.

Principles

In the form of three questions, three leadership principles and meta strategies – strategies for getting better at the kinds of strategy that tend to drive transformation:

As text:

1. What if we put agreement on outcomes before solutions?
2. How do we keep bringing outcomes to the foreground?
3. Where – and where else – should we be engaging?

Each of those represents a possible starting point:

1. Authentic agreement on meaningful outcomes – the right people in the room, outcomes articulated in the participants’ own words and organised coherently into strategy
2. Paying attention to the role of outcomes in the organisation's everyday and longer-cadence feedback opportunities; developing containers for innovation and learning
3. Recognising the range of scales and scopes (existing or potential) in which such conversations could happen – identifying which challenges to engage on and who to invite, ready to celebrate their successes¹

¹ See Engage, Invite, Celebrate: Leading “wholeheartedly” for innovation (blog.agendashift.com)

Generative patterns

Supporting the strategies, three generative patterns – non-prescriptive, repeatable, and recognisable structures into which a range of conversational and organisational tools can easily be inserted:

1. Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes (IdOO)
2. Meaning, Measure, Method
3. Right-to-Left Strategy Deployment (or simply Right to Left)

The agenda for change

From the 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 and experimentation. It’s an expression of shared understanding and strategy that unfolds and evolves as the organisation learns.

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Copyright © 2015-2025 Agendashift Ltd (formerly Positive Incline Ltd). All rights reserved. The page Agendashift as framework by Mike Burrows of Agendashift 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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Page sources for Agendashift as framework

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Related

• Agendashift as framework
  • Agendashift’s generative patterns
  • Agendashift's five core activities
  • Models, sources, and inspirations
• About Agendashift
  • Our mission: Wholehearted
  • Agendashift Assessments and Free 14-day trial
  • Events calendar – training and other events
  • Subscribe
• Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy:
  • Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
  • Inside-out Strategy: On the same page, with purpose
  • Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale
  • Outside-in Strategy: Positioned for success
  • Leading with Outcomes: Authorised Facilitator and Trainer Programmes
• The books:
  • Organizing Conversations: Preparing Groups to Take on Adaptive Challenges (May 2024)
  • Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation (2nd edition 2021)
  • Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile (2019)
• Resources
• The Agendashift blog (blog.agendashift.com)
  • Monthly roundups
  • Classic posts
• Agendashift communities on Slack and LinkedIn