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Organizational Gaps — From A to B

Organizations — and societies — often have a need to move things from A to B. That “thing” can be a person commuting by train, a fish maturing into an adult salmon, or a student progressing through the education system. In all cases, there is an intended progression through time and space.

1) Many parties shape the same flow​

To move from A to B, many organizations and sub‑units contribute to the overall process: operators, regulators, suppliers, IT, finance, and more. Each has a legitimate role, but few see the whole.

2) Local optimization over the years​

Over time, each party builds its own processes, governance, data definitions, and IT systems to achieve local objectives and informational needs. These are rational responses — but they drift apart.

3) The fundamental flow gets lost​

The shared A→B flow is gradually replaced by local targets and handovers. The result is:

  • Suboptimization: teams hit their KPIs while the end‑to‑end outcome suffers.
  • Firefighting: issues surface at interfaces rather than being prevented upstream.
  • Conflicts & friction: misaligned incentives, opaque responsibilities, and slow decisions.
  • Change fatigue: hard to realize benefits from initiatives without an end‑to‑end lens.

4) Why it matters​

When the core flow is not visible, organizations struggle to answer basic questions: Where are we now? What blocks progress? Which interventions actually improve outcomes? Without shared visibility, transformation efforts stall or create only local wins.

5) Making the flow visible again​

Closing organizational gaps starts with restoring the A→B perspective:

  • Map the flow: make the end‑to‑end path and dependencies explicit, across units.
  • Align language and data: establish shared definitions for key entities and events.
  • Connect information: link systems and signals so cause‑and‑effect becomes observable.
  • Govern for outcomes: steer on flow performance, not only silo KPIs.
  • Create feedback loops: learn from real‑world performance to continuously improve.

When the fundamental flow is visible, organizations make better decisions, reduce friction, and unlock system‑level improvements — not just local gains.

6) Field observations and examples​

  • The fundamental A→B flow is often not represented in any shared system — especially when multiple organizations are involved. For example, transport authorities may not know with high certainty where trains are or their current speeds; hospitals may not have a live picture of where staff and patients are.

7) How we model reality to close the gaps​

We build digital representations of the real world that capture these progressions so there is one coherent model that:

  1. Looks like the real world (entities, events, locations, relationships)
  2. Captures behavior (if a train moves in reality, the model reflects that movement)
  3. Is connected to the real world, ideally in near‑real time, and retains history for analysis and forecasting