Every organization needs tooling to overcome VUCA; volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

So, what do you have in your toolbox?

This post begins the more in-depth discussion around the Triple Helix of Flow in The Flow System (TFS). Accordingly, the strands are Complexity Thinking, Distributed Leadership, and Team Science. Consequently, Flow is achieved when the strands are integrated.

Each strand deals with areas that impact an organization’s social system. Consequently, TFS equips people with tools to improve person-to-person and group-to-group engagement. As well, it transforms social boundaries and constraints to achieve value flow.

The first strand is Complexity Thinking:

When addressing complex environments, the following questions need to be asked:

• What state is the current environment at?
• How much variability is in the current environment?

When the environment is a complex environment that includes high variability and uncertainty, one must utilize tools and techniques that are designed or complex environment rather than for complicated or simple environment and problems. Although the goal of complexity thinking is to move complex problems into the complicated domain, where we already have proven tools and techniques for addressing complicated problems, we still need a different set of tools and techniques to begin the transition phase. Complexity thinking involves two steps:

• understanding the characteristics of complex systems; and
• having a worldview or perspective that systems, entities, and events are complex adaptive systems (CASs).

Turner, John R.; Thurlow, Nigel & Rivera, Brian. The Flow System: The Evolution of Agile and Lean Thinking in an Age of Complexity, book, 2020; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1725755/m1/70/?q=32: accessed February 4, 2023), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu

Tooling to overcome complexity

The tools included in complexity thinking build understanding around:

• Complex Adaptive Systems
• The Cynefin Framework
• Sensemaking
• Weak Signal Detection
• Network Analysis
• Storytelling and Narratives
• Empirical Process Control
• Constraint Management
• Prototypes
• The Boyd Cycle also known as OODA loop
• Scrum: The Toyota Way

In following posts will take a look at the tools. Independently, each one is useful and can be used to assist in countering complexity. Combined, they are a part of an organizational tool box.

Reference to TFS —

_{©2019 Professor John Turner, Nigel Thurlow, Brian Rivera. The Flow System™ is offered for license under the Attribution license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ By utilizing this Site and any information presented you acknowledge and agree that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of the Attribution license of Creative Commons. The Flow System™, The DNA of Organizations™, and The Triple Helix of Flow™ are all trademarks of the copyright holders.}

The Triple Helix is Complexity Thinking, Distributed Leadership, and Team Science. Imagine DNA strands and how they bond together to create bones, fluids, organs, tissues, and more in the human body. Similar outcomes happen when combining the components of the Triple Helix.

The connection here is intentional. Taken one by one, the strands would not effectively address volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Combined, they equip an enterprise to navigate challenging waters.

As a Sailor, I was faced with situations which The Flow System (TFS) was designed to address. When a submarine is behaving abnormally, many of the tools defined in the system are useful. Addressing changes in a responsive and responsible way are at the heart of TFS.

Triple Helix – Definition

From the TFS guide:

Triple Helix – System of Understanding

TFS is similar to W. Edwards Deming’s “System of Profound Knowledge”. No one person can know everything needed to adapt a company to VUCA. Deming understood the concept, and TFS expands it.

It brings together tools which are used to help the people inside the enterprise.

The benefits will be an organization that is capable of adapting to environmental variations to meet the demands of the customer in today’s complex environment.

The following pages describe what TFS is and is not.

Reference to TFS —

_{©2019 Professor John Turner, Nigel Thurlow, Brian Rivera. The Flow System™ is offered for license under the Attribution license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ By utilizing this Site and any information presented you acknowledge and agree that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of the Attribution license of Creative Commons. The Flow System™, The DNA of Organizations™, and The Triple Helix of Flow™ are all trademarks of the copyright holders.}

The flow of value to customers is of upmost importance. When a business gets that wrong, the consequences are brutal.

Everything about product and service development begins and end with the customer. When factors influence outcomes, flow gets disrupted. Throughout 2020, 2021, 2023, and now going into 2023, we’ve seen how organizations can get their operations turned upside down.

Which brings up the question of what enables and support the flow of value? Since flow is a concept that cuts across every area of life, there are many examples of how flow is enabled while transforming the concept of value.

Hydroelectric power has changed our lives in measurable ways. Rivers flow within the constraints of their banks. Henry Ford’s company created ways to harness the power resident in the water.

By repurposing mills along rivers, Ford and company enabled the Ford Motor Company to grow quickly. As well, Ford built generators and plants in areas that showed economic promise while not being considered highly prosperous.

Flow of Value to the Customer

In the previous post, we explored being Customer 1st. Every organization is responsible to flow value to its customers. If it doesn’t deliver value, it will cease to exist.

The Flow System (TFS) is designed to assist organizations adapt when value flow is disrupted. Think of TFS like a river. A river will flow toward a lower resistance path, and it will overwhelm a path once it is over capacity.

To avoid catastrophic outcomes, like river floods, we build countermeasures to harness its power. The same applies to TFS as it equips companies, and not-for-profits alike, to take a hold of situations with the right tools.

The force and volume of the river is controls by different approaches, and business can act similarly. By using Complexity Thinking, Distributed Leadership, and Team Science, any enterprise can deal with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).

To quote from “The Flow System: The Evolution of Agile and Lean Thinking in an Age o Complexity”

Only when FLOW is achieved, by connecting all three components [Complexity Thinking, Distributed Leadership, Team Science] of TFS, can customer value be maximized. When these three components are not connected, bottlenecks are formed that contribute to the loss of information, knowledge transfer, or incorrect information exchanges, resulting in defects and delays. These bottlenecks hinder customer value rather than increase customer value. TFS provide maximum value to the customer in times of complexity and ambiguity.

Page 28 – Bold items added for clarity

Reference to TFS —

_{©2019 Professor John Turner, Nigel Thurlow, Brian Rivera. The Flow System™ is offered for license under the Attribution license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ By utilizing this Site and any information presented you acknowledge and agree that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of the Attribution license of Creative Commons. The Flow System™, The DNA of Organizations™, and The Triple Helix of Flow™ are all trademarks of the copyright holders.}

The customer comes first (Customer 1^st).

It’s a simple concept, but businesses often forget the sentence above. It comes from trying to put products and services in the market to beat the competition. At times, the market growth focus frustrates the customer. But why?

Simply, the business isn’t listening to the customer.

People have a need to be engaged. We want to be heard. Without the sense of connection to a product or service, we are not moved to buy what the company is selling.

In The Flow System (TFS), the outcome for Customer 1_st are simple:

• High Quality
• Lowest Cost
• Shortest Lead-Time

Given TFS builds on the Toyota Way and Toyota Production System (TPS), these points should not be surprising.

In a sense, TFS places the customer as both the starting point and ending point for all creative work. If you consider the number of products developed and manufactured each year, how many of those products get sold?

Millions upon millions based on measurement. The more important question is, how many products DO NOT get sold? As well, how many products get sold at a steep discount or a loss?

Stay Focused On Customer 1^st

By now, you might be wonder, “Why does this matter?”

The first answer is “waste”. We should be seeking to avoid creating wasteful products and services.

Science tells us that energy is indestructible. However, time is not. Once time is spent, it can’t be recovered.

As a result, staying connected to the people who would and do buy products and services becomes top priority. This link can help avoid creating wasteful products and services.

Are you familiar with the Microsoft Zune? It was designed to compete with Apple’s iPod (which is discontinued as with over 20 years in production).

It took approximate five years for the Zune to enter and leave the market. I wonder how many units were manufacture, but never sold.

We don’t know what discussions lead to creating the Zune. Further, we don’t have a full picture of how much time Microsoft invested in talking to potential customers.

What we do know is Apple’s product had a long, successful run in the market. The ratio is 4 to 1 between both products, the iPod and the Zune.

If the concept of “Customer 1st” had been followed, then the outcome of the competition might have been different.

TFS – Customer 1^st

Toyota Way 2020 / Toyota Code of Conduct | Vision & Philosophy | Company | Toyota Motor Corporation Official Global Website

Toyota Production System | Vision & Philosophy | Company | Toyota Motor Corporation Official Global Website

Reference to TFS —

_{©2019 Professor John Turner, Nigel Thurlow, Brian Rivera. The Flow System™ is offered for license under the Attribution license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ By utilizing this Site and any information presented you acknowledge and agree that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of the Attribution license of Creative Commons. The Flow System™, The DNA of Organizations™, and The Triple Helix of Flow™ are all trademarks of the copyright holders.}

Frictionless flow, what a great concept! Businesses desire it, customers crave it, and people love it. Achieving it is more difficult than any of us can imagine.

Context helps sets up any post. In the prior post, The Flow System (TFS) was introduced.

Specifically, this post will cover the definition of TFS and origin story. First, the definition:

The Flow System™ enables business growth by eliminating non-value-added activities by fostering an environment for innovation and the rapid delivery of value and shortening the time to market.

The Flow System™ is a holistic FLOW based approach to delivering Customer 1st Value. It is built on a foundation of The Toyota Production System, also known as TPS and LEAN, plus a new triple helix structure known as the DNA of Organizations™.

The Flow System™ provides an understanding of different methods, patterns, practices, and techniques that enable organizations or institutions to achieve their desired outcomes.

Definition of The Flow System

Also, here is TFS history:

The Flow System™ has evolved from the emergence of product delivery in non-linear environments, also known as complex environments or complexity. It has expanded upon the work done between 1948 and 1975 on the Toyota Production System (TPS is also known as Lean), and the Toyota Way, first published in 2001 by Toyota. The Flow System™ is the evolution of lean thinking that we call flow thinking.

The Toyota Production System has become a model for organizations to achieve manufacturing excellence at the highest level of quality that is achievable. The Toyota Production System has as its primary focus the Customer. The Toyota Production System is built upon the pillars of Jidoka and Just in Time. Jidoka includes having the ability to stop a machine or process if and when a problem occurs. Just in Time includes the elimination of waste by removing non-value-added activities.

The foundation for the Toyota Production System is Standardization, establishing repeatable and predictable processes, and Kaizen, the philosophy of continuous improvement. The Toyota Production System has become the reference system when approaching linear and repeatable manufacturing. However, it is limited when dealing with ambiguous problems, highly variable processes, non-linearity, and unpredictability, all features of complexity.

The Toyota Way 2001 clarifies the values and business methods that all employees should embrace. Represented as the Guiding Principles of Toyota, the Toyota Way is depicted by the pillars of Continuous Improvement and Respect for People.

Toyota is never completely satisfied with where they are and are continuously working to improve their practices by advancing new ideas and empowering its workforce. Toyota respects its employees, shareholders, and stakeholders, and believe talented individuals and good teamwork create their success. Fulfilling its role as the backbone of an organization, an organization’s culture must evolve amid an ever-changing business environment.

The creators of The Flow System™ recognized that existing tools and frameworks could not holistically address complexity as organizations are not optimized to function in volatile and ambiguous environments. They also recognized that complexity thinking is different from lean thinking, and that new approaches and understanding are called for.

The creators of The Flow System™ acknowledge all the great minds that have created the thinking we follow today (too many to mention here) and have preserved the Toyota Production System and The Toyota Way as the inspiration and foundation of The Flow System™.

A Brief History of The Flow System

What Is Frictionless Flow?

Think of the best workday you ever experienced. You started a task and finished it. Possibly, you started and completed several tasks in one day. How did that feel?

Certainly, having a meeting where most actions were taken by team members, not assigned. Discussion was objective and focused on the work at hand, not perceived, individual action.

As well as any work time that is uninterrupted can create flow. Being immersed in work, completely focused on finishing tasks, gives a sense of limitless possibility.

Finally, conversations around product or service design can be frictionless. When the client or customer is describing how they want to feel about the product or service, it is an opportunity to discover why the sense matters. Building emotion into the design and follow-on work fosters momentum.

Reference to TFS —

_{©2019 Professor John Turner, Nigel Thurlow, Brian Rivera. The Flow System™ is offered for license under the Attribution license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ By utilizing this Site and any information presented you acknowledge and agree that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of the Attribution license of Creative Commons. The Flow System™, The DNA of Organizations™, and The Triple Helix of Flow™ are all trademarks of the copyright holders.}

Let me start with this, The Flow System, or TFS, is not another framework or methodology. It is a toolbox that enables companies and organizations to address challenges at the lowest level practical.

Fixing a struggling company is not easy, but it is not impossible either. Often, an organization needs better tools. Tools are useful in a particular context, which explains why a tool may create value in one instance. Differently, the same tool could cause damage.

For this series, we’ll be referring to the Flow Guide (https://flowguides.org). It is the starting point to help build an understanding of TFS. I want to credit Brian Rivera, John Turner, and Nigel Thurlow for their work in building the system.

This purpose statement explains TFS better than anything I could write:

Achieving a state of flow occurs when organizations/institutions produce outcomes in which their constraints (e.g., structure, processes, environmental effects) are shaped in a way that enable employees to concentrate on their own interactions among one another and the customer. Flow ultimately results in employees concentrating on the act of doing rather than combatting or succumbing to organizational friction.

---

Many project management methods and agile frameworks concentrate on taskwork and the illusion of planning with no regard to how an organization is structured to support these activities. Organizations/institutions utilize teams but fall short in developing teamwork skills and fail to restructure leadership to maximize the benefits that can be obtained from the utilization of teams. These shortcomings introduce additional constraints and barriers that prevent organizations/institutions from achieving a state of flow.

---

The Flow System™ provides a re-imagined system for organizations to understand complexity, embrace teamwork, and autonomous team-based leadership structures.

The Purpose of The Flow System

What The Flow System Is Not

TFS is not a replacement for other methodologies or frameworks. It may highlight a weakness in how the use of a process is suboptimal or, worse, failing. At that point, choices are on the table.

As well, TFS won’t “fix” certain organizational behavior. It can move people toward different ways of work if the business is willing to change.

Additionally, TFS can’t save a company from failing products or services. It is up to the employees to decide to use the tools provided by TFS. They can help resolve those issues.

For my kick-off posts on TFS, click on this link – Agile Value #4 – Embrace Change Like Life Depends On It and this link – Plunge Into The Flow To Find Insight.

Getting into the flow is purposeful. My thoughts on the concept of flow are evolving. I’m glad that it is now discussed in the product and service development space.

The discussion has not achieved clarity. Much like Agile as a philosophy, it has become less clear and more polarized.

In 2023, I will write a post series covering “Flow”. The series will be like my series on Scrum values and Agile values.

Consider this as the cinema trailer. “Coming to social media near you and only on www.timdickey.com!”

Let me be clear, there is a difference between personal and business flow. Personal experience informs business result. Do you want to know why?

Because people are involved!

Without people, you can have motion. But then, flow has a different meaning. Recognizing the difference is part of how organizations and individuals can generate a sense of momentum.

Into the flow

Rather than weigh in on a side of the concept, I’m going to write about tools that enable the flow. For this reason, tools must be used based on context, not preference.

Context-specific tool use is important as a flow enabler.

Essentially, misusing tools can cause more harm than good. I present each tool for context-specific employment.

You might be thinking, “What is context-specific?”

Simply, you use a tool as designed, not the way you want to.

My goal is, as we dive into the series, it will cause several responses.

• First, personal reflection.
• Second, organizational questions.
• Third, insightful conversation.

If the series does not challenge you, then you know more than I do. Given my appetite for learning, I will gladly entertain conversations on this topic.

I know people who are smarter on this subject, so I expect this journey will be challenging.

To begin, keep your mind open. Next, come learn alongside me and reason together. Finally, enjoy the discussion we have during 2023.