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Thinking in systems

A business is a systemA business is easier to read when you stop listing its tasks and start watching what builds up, what moves, and how long things take to move. This part introduces five plain ideas from systems thinking: stocks (what accumulates), flows (the rates that fill or drain them), delay (the gap between a cause and what you see), feedback loops (results that circle back and change what happens next) and cadence (the rhythm at which recurring work happens).Seeing what holds you backMost of what slows a business down is not visible on a normal day. Work waits between steps.Systems dynamics applied to businessA business changes through a few patterns: things that feed on themselves, things that push back, waits that make both overshoot, and limits that stop growth. This part applies stocks, flows, delay and feedback to two small businesses: referrals and the morning rush at a bakery, and rework, steel lead time and a bottleneck at a fabrication shop.

Working with the map

Two clocks: work and waitingEvery job in your business runs on two clocks: the hours someone works on it, and the time it takes from start to finish. The gap between them is waiting, and waiting is what customers feel and task lists hide.Ceremonies: what the rhythm costsA ceremony is a gathering that comes back on a rhythm: the morning huddle, the Wednesday order review, the month-end look at the numbers, the yearly planning day. Each one is small on the day it happens and large over a year, because the rhythm accumulates.ChunkingA chunk is a group of things you treat as one thing, so you can think about the group instead of every piece. Chess players, climbers and everyone planning a week do it all the time.Discipline and disciplined processA process written on a wall is a hope. A process that is repeated, on a rhythm, by the same people, in roughly the same way, is something you can look at, discuss and change.Adding up: cost, working hours and elapsed timeWhen you map a process you end up with figures on many blocks: hours of work, costs, durations, waits. It is natural to add them all up, but they do not all add the same way.

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Make your first canvas useful.

Map a process, add the people and figures, then read what it asks of your business. Find the steps here, or get help with a specific problem.

Understand the thinking behind the map.

Learn explores the business questions: where work waits, how demands add up and what a shared picture makes visible. These how-to guides explain the controls.

  • The case for a map

    Why a shared picture beats a feeling, and how a map lets you choose on something visible.

  • Thinking in systems

    Piles, rates, waits and loops, in plain words, with a bakery and a steel shop.

  • Working with the map

    How big a block should be, what adds up and what does not, and what a rhythm costs.

  • Planning ahead

    A plan beside the books, rough numbers on purpose, and selling as a chain.

  • Reference

    The words used in the guide, each with where it shows up in the app.

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