In 2024 we made two significant updates to the Practical Guide: we introduced Requirement as a core concept distinct from the Driver, and we revised how organizational development – especially organizational structure – is presented in the guide. Those changes distill the essence of years of supporting organizations in applying S3 patterns and principles, and from watching organizations meet challenges and leverage opportunities. In this post, I’ll briefly sum up what has changed around Drivers and Requirements, and point you to the relevant bits in the guide. I’ll follow up with another post about Organizational Structure soon.
Requirements
We found that distinguishing between a driver (a situation that is relevant for the organization to respond to) and the associated requirement (the need considered necessary to fulfill to respond to a driver adequately) makes it easier for people to get clear about the situation first, and then make a decision about the scope and direction of an adequate response, before getting into the details. (See Drivers and Requirements for a more detailed description of drivers and requirements).
Since Drivers are a core concept in S3, separating the Requirement from the Driver was not done by simply adding an explanation of Requirements to the core concepts (see Drivers and Requirements), we also revised several patterns and glossary entries throughout the guide, and updated the recommended patterns in the Common Sense Framework. Here’s a list of the most significant changes:
New Pattern
We added the new pattern Determine Requirements that describes how to figure out and agree on an appropriate requirement.
Revised Patterns
(in alphabetical order)
- Backlog and Governance Backlog
- Clarify and Develop Domains
- Consent Decision Making
- Describe Organizational Drivers:
- Driver Mapping
- Governance Meeting
- Navigate via Tension
- Proposal Forming
- Resolve Objections (along with a revised description of the concept Objection)
- Respond to Organizational Drivers
Changes to the Glossary
Of course we added a new entry in the glossary for Requirement, and we revised several existing entries, either to refer to a Requirement, or with a description that no longer contains a reference to the Driver.