Agendashift as framework
These pages describe Agendashift – the wholehearted engagement model – as an open framework for continuous, outcome-oriented transformation. Its top level elements are its strategies, generative patterns, the agenda for change, and core activities. Through those run a golden thread, the language of outcomes.
Strategies
Leadership principles and meta strategies – strategies for getting better at the kinds of strategy that tend to drive transformation:
As text:
- Keep asking the agreement on outcomes question:
What if we put agreement on outcomes before solutions?
Our prefered starting point (of several) is authentic agreement on meaningful outcomes – the right people in the room, outcomes articulated in the participants’ own words and organised coherently into strategy.
To keep outcomes in the foreground, we teach some straightforward ways to improve existing feedback opportunities or to add them where they are lacking. This too is a potential starting point.
As for where to do strategy, the opportunities are typically plentiful and easy to recognise. Where it’s needed, explicitly inside-out and/or outside-in forms of strategy may be appropriate, the former beginning with the internal experience and capability of the scope in question, the latter starting with its external relationships.
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:
- Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes (IdOO)
- Meaning before metric, measure before method (2MBM)
- Right-to-Left Strategy Deployment
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. It’s an expression of shared understanding and strategy that unfolds and evolves as the organisation learns.
See also:
- 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!
Related pages:
- Outcome-oriented
- Engagement model
- Wholehearted
- Models, sources, and inspirations
- Five principles (mainly of historical value now)
Agendashift™ is copyright © 2015-2022 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/.

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Related
- Agendashift Academy
- Agendashift as framework
- Agendashift's five core activities
- Models, sources, and inspirations
- Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and continuous transformation (2nd edition 2021)
- Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile (2019, audiobook 2020)
Meet us online
- Subscribe (1-3 emails per month)
- Read our blog: blog.agendashift.com
- Join Agendashift on Slack
- Join our LinkedIn group: Agendashift
- Follow us on Twitter: @agendashift
About us
Agendashift™ is brought to you by Positive Incline Ltd, UK-based specialists in Lean, Agile, strategy, and change. Founder Mike Burrows came to prominence in the Lean-Agile community as the orginator of Kanban’s values model, out of which came his first book, Kanban from the Inside (2014). His more recent books Agendashift (2nd edition 2021) and Right to Left (2019, audiobook 2020) bring a resolutely needs-based and outcome-oriented perspective to change, transformation, and the Lean-Agile landscape as a whole, contributing meanwhile a number of popular tools, games, and other resources. He works as a consultant, facilitator, and trainer, and as a keynote speaker at events public and private around the world.
Agendashift™ is copyright © 2015-2022 Positive Incline Ltd. All rights reserved. Privacy, security, and usage policies