Structure follows flow

Jon Husband made an interesting comment on Facebook November 5, 2015 (see below). What I find interesting is that Jon Husband suggests “fluidity of structure”. Husband writes that structure “depends … upon the nature of work, … the pertinent flows of information and motivations and skills … etc.” In other words, that structure follows flow.

I think an example of when structure follows flow can be found in Mike Rother’s book Toyota Kata, where processes and practices are viewed as an outcome of people’s thinking and behavior. Another approach is to define processes and then make people follow them. This is called process discipline, and is an example of when structure guides flow, or flow follows structure.

Related post:
Book Review: Toyota Kata by Mike Rother