How to Use It
Start with the changes. Identify two to five coherent lines of change. More than five, and the network becomes harder to hold in one view. If you have more, some of them are probably subsequences that belong inside a single set of changes.
For each set of changes, write the first beat and the last beat. The first beat names the problem or opportunity that justifies this line of change. The last beat describes the state the changes are trying to reach. These form the container.
Fill in the middle of each set of changes. Read it straight through. Apply the position test. Split and merge beats until each one does exactly one job and earns the next.
Now connect the changes. Walk through each beat and ask: Does this beat depend on a beat in another set of changes having landed? If yes, name the gate. Be specific about which beat in which set, and articulate why the dependency exists.
For each beat, articulate the condition (what must be true on the ground for this beat to work) and the signal (how you will know it has landed). If you cannot articulate the signal, the beat is too vague.
Read the whole network. Follow each set of changes. Follow the gates across them. Look for circular dependencies (changes A waits on B waits on C waits on A). Look for orphaned changes (no gates in or out, which might be fine or might indicate a missing connection). Look for gate-heavy changes that are really sub-sequences of another set.
Run it. As beats land (signals arrive) or stall (signals do not arrive), update the network. Re-sequence, rework, or dissolve as needed. The network is a hypothesis under test, not a plan under execution.
The test
The Beat Network does not make change easier. It makes the logic of change visible and testable. It replaces the false confidence of the programme plan with the productive discomfort of hypotheses, conditions, and signals. It replaces hidden dependencies with named gates. It replaces the question "are we on track?" with the better question "has this beat landed, and if not, what does that tell us?"
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.