AO Method User Manual

The AO Method User Manual is a concise, practice‑oriented guide for building truly agile organizations by treating agility as a property of the whole social system, not just teams or frameworks.

Product description (E‑book platform)

Title: The AO Method User Manual

Subtitle: A practical guide to understanding and applying Agile Organizations principles

The AO Method User Manual introduces a powerful yet accessible way to design and grow Agile Organizations, based on the work of Pierre E. Neis and the book “The New Normal – AO Concepts and Patterns of 21st Century Agile Organizations.” Instead of adding yet another framework, AO helps you see your company as a living social system—where structure, culture, leadership, and governance together create (or block) agility.

This eBook is written for leaders, HR, Agile Coaches, organizational designers, consultants, scholars, and students who want to move beyond team‑level agile and build organization‑wide adaptability. It is also the foundational handbook for AO workshops and masterclasses, giving participants a shared vocabulary and set of tools they can apply immediately.

What you’ll learn

• The core AO hypothesis: why agility is how your organization behaves, not which framework it uses.
• The critical distinction “structure is not organization” and how to work with both: formal design vs real interactions and decision flows.
• The five AO transition phases from structure‑dominated “machine” to fully agile learning organism, with guidance on where you are now and what realistic progress looks like.
• ​
• The five work areas (Platform, Plexus, Programs, Projects, Swarms) and how to rebalance them so work can actually flow.
• How teams operate as internal start‑ups: owning problems, pitching for funding, and learning through small, safe‑to‑try experiments.
• How Plexus acts as an internal venture capital governance layer, managing a portfolio of internal ventures with agile, lean‑portfolio logic instead of heavy bureaucracy.
• AO’s “distilled agile” mindset in ten operational principles you can apply daily—around value, transparency, coherence, innovation, mastery, and communication.
• ​

Practical tools included

The manual is highly actionable and includes:

• AO Canvas for mapping transition phase, experiences, work areas, and structure vs organization gaps.
• Discovery question set (“What is your agile?”, “How does work actually flow?”, etc.) to run assessments and meaningful conversations.
• ​
• Structure vs organization mapping exercise to reveal hidden dynamics and informal networks.
• Transition roadmap template to design phased, realistic change instead of big‑bang reorgs.
• Experiment design template for 4–6 week AO experiments.
• Case‑based explanation of Plexus governance with an internal “Green SME Lending” venture story you can reuse in training and leadership sessions.

Who this eBook is for

• Executives & COOs who want strategic agility and coherent governance without suffocating teams.
• Agile Coaches & consultants seeking a whole‑system complement to Scrum, SAFe, LeSS, or Team Topologies.
• HR & People leaders redesigning careers, incentives, and learning for internal entrepreneurship.
• Org designers & transformation leads working on operating models, portfolio governance, and cross‑functional collaboration.
• Scholars & students interested in systemic, human‑centric approaches to agile organizations.

Why this eBook is different

Most agile literature focuses on teams, ceremonies, or scaling frameworks. This manual focuses on the organization itself: how it behaves, evolves, and stays viable under uncertainty. It combines systemic thinking, human‑centric design, internal start‑up logic, and venture‑style governance into one coherent, practical model.

Use it as:

• A self‑study guide to rethink your organization’s agility.
• A reference book for your transformation or coaching practice.
• A pre‑reading and workbook backbone for AO workshops and masterclasses.

Version: 1.0 – February 2026