It’s All About Flow

OK, please forgive me, but I’m going to geek out for bit here on some Thermodynamics of Emotion stuff. Furthermore, I’m going to try and draw an analogy between a law of thermodynamics and the business world. So, hold on to your hats, here we go… 

In the Design of Nature, Bejan states the Constructal Law as:

“For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the currents that flow through it.” -Bejan, Adrian. Design in Nature

This is to say that for any living system there is a design or landscape that must change over time such that the flow through the system improves. The design can be anything as primitive as the branching of streams, the vascularity of the arteries and veins in your body, or perhaps the process that you use to do work at the office.

In business, process is the design that we use to structure the way work flows through our organizations. As such, the process is not arbitrary, but intentional. If it improves the flow of work, then it’s a useful process, if it degrades the flow of work, then it’s not. By improving the flow of work, we mean that it must configure the landscape or domain such that the work flows more easily (read with less resistance) through the system. That also implies that the access to that work is improved (it takes less energy to find it).

According to Constructal Law, processes that allow work to remain hidden interfere with flow. Processes that constrain work so that it’s flow can’t change or evolve also interfere with flow. Given these assumptions, old-school, plan-driven methods with rigidly defined processes are counter to healthy flow and are less likely to succeed than processes that are dynamic and enable transparency of work in the organization.

In fact, to carry this one step further. What we are currently witnessing in the last two to three decades is the evolution of processes in the business world. Rigid, plan driven processes are dying off, as the Constructal Law would predict, in the face of new dynamic processes like agile. Any process, even somewhat imperfect, that improves flow and transparency of work in the system is going to be more successful (more efficient conversion of energy to work) than a more rigid process.

Of course, agile too will one day be replaced by a process that successfully enables better flow. What that next process is remains to be seen.

#thermoemo #physics #Agile #thermodynamicsofemotion #Process