Article 2: Rules of Cooperation

2.1 Duty of Transparency

As a Partner, you have the duty to provide transparency to Role Leads in the Organization upon their request, as follows:

  1. Projects & Next-Actions: You must share any Projects and Next-Actions you are tracking for the Organization.
  2. Relative Priority: You must share your judgment of the relative priority of any of your Projects or Next-Actions vs. anything else competing for your attention.
  3. Projections: You must provide a projection of when you expect to complete any of your Projects or Next-Actions. A rough estimate is enough, considering your current context and priorities. Detailed analysis or planning is not required, and this projection is not a commitment in any way. Unless Governance says otherwise, you have no duty to track the projection or follow-up with the recipient if it changes.
  4. Checklist Items: You must verify completion of any recurring actions that you perform for your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization. If requested, you must continue to share these verifications regularly, until you believe they are no longer useful.
  5. Metrics: You must share any metrics you collect in your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization. If requested, you must continue to share these metrics regularly, until you determine they are no longer useful.
  6. Progress Updates: You must share a summary of progress you've made in your Roles or towards any of your Projects since the last update you shared. If requested, you must continue to share these updates regularly, until you determine they are no longer useful.
  7. Other Information: You must share any other information that's readily available to you and won't cause harm to share.

2.2 Duty of Processing

As a Partner, you have the duty to promptly process messages and requests from Role Leads in the Organization, as follows:

  1. Requests to Clarify: Others may ask you to clarify the next steps for any of your Projects or for any Accountability of your Roles. You must then determine and communicate a Next-Action to move it forward, if there are any you could take. If there are not, you must instead share what you’re waiting for before you can take a Next-Action.
  2. Requests for Projects & Next-Actions: Others may ask you to take on a specific Next-Action or Project. You must accept and track it if you believe it would make sense to work towards in one of your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization, at least in the absence of competing priorities. If you don't, then you must either explain your reasoning, or suggest something else you believe will meet the requester’s goal instead.
  3. Requests to Impact Domain: Others may ask to impact a Domain controlled by one of your Roles. You must allow the impact if you see no reason it will reduce your capacity to enact your Role's Purpose or Accountabilities. If you do see such a reason, you must explain it to the requester.

2.3 Duty of Prioritization

As a Partner, you have a duty to prioritize your attention in alignment with the following:

  1. Processing: You must generally prioritize processing inbound messages to your Roles from other Role Leads over executing your own Next-Actions. However, you may delay processing messages until you can batch process at a convenient time, as long as your processing is still prompt. Processing includes engaging in any duties in this Article, and then sharing how you processed the message upon request. Processing does not include executing upon any Next-Actions or Projects you capture.
  2. Meetings: You must prioritize attending any meeting defined in this Constitution over executing your own Next-Actions, but only when another Partner explicitly requests this prioritization for a specific meeting. You may still decline the request if you already have plans scheduled over the meeting time.
  3. Circle Priorities: When choosing what to work on in a Role, you must consider any official Strategies or relative prioritizations of that Role, of any Circle holding that Role, and of any Super-Circle thereof. You must then treat these official priorities as more important to the Organization than your own individual priorities or your own judgment of the Organization's priorities. Official priorities of a Circle are those defined by a Circle Lead, or by any other Roles or processes with the authority to resolve priority conflicts and define Strategies for that Circle.