The Holacracy Framework
The Holacracy framework is codified in the Holacracy Constitution. It was initially created in 2009 and has been evolving over the years to the current version. It includes 5 modules that are ideally adopted together but can also be implemented separately.
Module 1 (or “Article 1”) is the foundational module laying out the encoding of the organizational structure. All other modules rely on definitions and mechanisms from module 1 so it must be adopted in order to adopt any other modules.
The 5 modules of the Holacracy constitution cover the following areas:
Organizational Structure
Defines an explicit standard format for encoding roles and rules of the organization, as well as basic responsibilities for anyone in a role.
Business value:
- Consistency of role and rules encoding, greater visibility and transparency on who is doing what.
- More explicit accountability.
- Flexibility of roles allows for better talent allocation, both for the organization’s and for people’s sake.
Rules of Cooperation
Defines foundational duties that all partners can expect from each other. Includes duties of transparency, processing requests, and prioritization.
Business value:
- Clarity of expectations on how we transact about work allows for better peer to peer transactions without relying on managers to communicate and mediate.
- Reduces frictions caused by different expectations.
- Increased transparency, less room for information silos and political games.
Tactical Meetings
Defines a “tactical meeting” process for regular operational meetings in each team.
Business value:
- Highly efficient meetings to triage issues that all team members can rely on.
- Cuts through long “tangential” conversations without clear decisions.
- Prevents anyone from dominating the meeting to the detriment of the team.
Distributed Authority
Defines foundational authorities and constraints that people have in their roles. Leaning towards autonomy and innovation.
Business value:
- Unleashes people’s autonomy to take action and innovate without prior approval.
- More operational speed.
- Lays out mechanisms to protect the organization from people’s autonomy going out of control.
Decentralized Governance Process
Establishes a decentralized governance process within every team. Anyone can propose improvements to the organizational structure within their scope of work.
Business value:
- Delegates governance process from managers to every team member, greatly increasing every team’s capacity to adapt and reducing burden on managers.
- Bakes in guard rails to prevent anyone from abusing the governance process with ego-driven needs.
- Considerably increases the organization’s capacity to evolve to its environment at a much faster pace.
- Empowers people to address their own issues instead of relying on managers or complaining.