Define guiding principles that help your team make consistent choices. Use this at the start of a system or when refreshing direction. Principles should be short, memorable, and sometimes deliberately bold to create tension. For example: Consistency over speed or Accessibility is non-negotiable. They anchor decisions, reduce debates, and give your system and it's contributors a shared language for what good looks like.
Crafting System Principles
How to
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Choose who to involve
Reviewing your Influence Map, bring people who can shape the system. This could be your team, cross-discipline partners, or stakeholders.
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Frame the direction
Use a System Vision workshop or Leadership Alignment to seed ideas.
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Generate ideas
Ask participants to write words or phrases the system should stand for.
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Cluster and spot tensions
Group similar ideas into themes and highlight overlaps or contradictions.
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Narrow down
Vote to select 3-5 principles that feel bold yet balanced.
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Refine, publish, and socialise
Turn them into short, memorable statements. Share them in docs, reviews, and workshops so they stick.
Test clarity: Ask AI to apply your principles to edge cases and generate example scenarios. This reveals which principles are too vague.