Throughout this journey certain principles guide our work. Emergence is built into every stage. Reality testing ensures that governance works in practice, not just theory. We will be having fun along the way, seeing what works, what doesn't, what needs tweaking, getting stuff out there and IF we get this right, it is a terrific story in its own right. Doing this kind of work is at the heart of creating membership.
We take a Common Law approach, focusing on minimum viable principles rather than exhaustive rules, emphasizing who decides rather than trying to pre-decide everything. That principle of Subsidiarity runs through all our thinking. Decisions should be made at the level as close to the action and stake holder interests as possible and no closer.
And at every stage we apply the Tripod of Work: tasking (clear outputs required), trusting (real authority given to those doing the work), and tending (multiple review cycles to ensure nothing is lost and everything connects).
Each Fellow's work becomes three-part: the design work (constitutional and operational thinking), the building work (making it tangible with the Heart of Gold team), and the testing work (stress through drama and scenarios). This is not sequential. It is iterative. We build something, we test it, we learn, we redesign, we build again. Douglas liked the evolutionary approach!
- Subsidiarity and the Tripod of Work
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Throughout this journey, Seven Principles guide our work.
1. Emergence is built into every stage - we explicitly task each Fellow with discovering what's missing from our scoping, acknowledging that we cannot see the full territory from where we stand now.
2. Reality testing ensures that governance works in practice, not just theory. The Heart of Gold workstream provides continuous reality checks to the constitutional Fellows.
3. We take a Common Law Approach (Hitchhiker Lore), focusing on minimum viable principles rather than exhaustive rules, emphasizing who decides rather than trying to pre-decide everything.
4. Subsidiarity runs through all our thinking - decisions should be made at the most appropriate level, with the Constitution setting framework rather than dictating detailed operations.
And at every stage, we apply the Tripod of Work: - Tasking (clear outputs required) - Trusting (real authority given to those doing the work) - Tending (multiple review cycles to ensure nothing is lost and everything connects).