Once a value system is described clearly, the next question is practical:
How do we improve value delivery in a repeatable way - without breaking the system?
Æilus answers this using two building blocks that work together:
- Practices - reusable patterns of work that produce and deliver value.
- Domains - contexts of quality and constraints that shape how value is interpreted and what “acceptable delivery” means.
Practices: reusable patterns with explicit interfaces
A practice is a structured way of doing work that can be reused across transformers and systems.
Examples (illustrative):
- estimating work effort,
- evaluating value of hypotheses or features,
- planning and prioritization cycles,
- review and validation routines,
- incident and change management routines,
- feedback and retrospective loops.
The critical requirement in Æilus is that practices have explicit inputs and outputs.
Practices are composable only when their interfaces are clear.
This prevents a common failure mode: combining “best practices” that do not connect, producing local activity but no system-level improvement.
Practice portfolios: practices are chosen, not assumed
Æilus treats practices as a portfolio.
Value transformer owners select, adapt, and evolve practices based on system behavior:
- where value is actually realized,
- where resistance grows,
- where anti-value accumulates,
- where participation conditions are at risk.
A practice is not “good” in the abstract.
It is good only relative to:
- the value system it operates in,
- the actors it serves,
- the constraints it must respect.
Domains: quality contexts that shape value interpretation
In real systems, value is never “pure.”
It always has a context: speed, reliability, safety, continuity, trust, compliance, and other constraints that define how value is interpreted.
Æilus calls these contexts Domains.
A domain provides:
- a set of quality properties that matter in the system (e.g., performance, availability, security),
- policies (constraints) that practices must satisfy,
- signals that indicate when system stability is at risk.
Domains are not “extra requirements.”
Domains describe the conditions under which value remains valid for the receiver.
Domains prevent “value that breaks the system”
Many organizations increase delivery speed and output - and then lose stability, trust, or reliability.
In Æilus terms, this means:
- planned value increased,
- but realized value did not match,
- because the domain constraints were violated,
- and anti-value accumulated.
Domains exist to keep interventions honest:
- improvements must not violate participation conditions,
- system stability must not be sacrificed for local gains,
- value must remain realizable under real operating conditions.
How practices and domains work together
Practices define how work is done.
Domains define what constraints must be respected for the result to remain valuable.
In a stable Æilus implementation:
- practices are selected to improve realized value and reduce resistance,
- domains define the policies that prevent hidden anti-value,
- and both are evaluated by observing system dynamics over time.
Why a research institute is needed
Practices and domains can be described formally, reused, improved, and compared.
But this requires long-term accumulation of knowledge:
- which practices work in which types of systems,
- how practices must be adapted without breaking their design,
- how domain policies influence value realization,
- which combinations are compatible and which are destructive.
This is why Æilus includes a dedicated research layer:
The Æilus Value Research Institute (ÆVRI) exists to accumulate, validate, and curate practices and domains as reusable knowledge.
Next: The Æilus Value Research Institute (ÆVRI) - why it exists and what it produces.