Yes it does sound very similar to that. From the way I understand it, sociocracy is one of the named forms of group governance.
The issue I’ve felt is the re-use of words like “consensus” and “compromise” to processes that approach things differently. In the world of giving consent it’s not about “finding the middle ground” (a different description of compromise) but to hear every voice that wants to be express themselves regarding a topic, incorporating their requests when/ when/ how it is possible and/or feasible - or alternatively stating how they are incompatible to the defined goal.
A “voting” in the end can take the form of the “is this good enough question”.
It actually lends itself well to the idea of SIGs as a SIGs team can make the proposals, hear people and their concerns, refine based on feedback and put the final proposal to a vote.
The next question is how to build a SIG, IMO an easy way is to be open to everybody that cares enough to put time and effort into finding a resolution. Other possibilities might involve intentional inclusion of subject matter experts (SME) - which could be helpful for this scenario - and/or having SME available for consultation if the SIG is in need of knowledge/ guidance/ support.
If done well and consistent, there is little room and incentive for power structures, it asks people though to behave consistently well-intentioned.
By now I feel I start summarizing the book I linked in my comment above, so I’ll stop here cause the book does a much better job of describing it than me.
Yeah I get you, the real impact is in the experience though. The feeling of coming away from a productive meeting with well intentioned people that was a pleasure to attend, didnt feel like work at all but still got all the results required sounds like a conondrum in the world of hierarchies and power games.
In my experience it’s not important to get it right (most likely the details will be ever evolving anyways), but to start with something good enough and learn along the way.
A social devops if you like 