Boundless

8Continuity: Process Flow | Circulation | Mindset and Language

Speed is the new currency of business. You have to be able to respond at the speed of your customer's needs. But you can't be fast if you're not designed to move in the first place. And you can't be designed to move if you prioritize structure and stability over responsiveness and anticipation. To achieve and maintain speed, organizations need to reprioritize and reimagine themselves as continuous flows. This is not obvious and it is not easy. In this chapter we provide real-world examples as well as new models and language to help this reimagining.

Process Flow

In Chapter 7 we discussed the importance and benefits of supporting individuals in their flow and reducing the friction, waiting, and waste associated with common customer experiences. We saw how Open Road Tolling, Amazon Go, and others do this, actualizing three immeasurable benefits: cost savings for themselves, better experiences for their employees, and better experiences for their customers. As we argue in the introduction to this book, despite the very many differences to be found in Boundless companies, they all share this double or triple whammy impact: they and their customers enjoy win-win or non-zero-sum returns.

In this chapter we want to focus on how companies can change their development and production processes in order to be more responsive to customers' ever-increasing and changing demands for their products. We believe that changing ...