PROCESS

Here is How to Build

Design

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Before and after

A process cut into clean parts is not yet a process. The parts have to be placed: each set in its position in the whole, with something before it and something after it. Clean parts in the wrong places still make a broken process, because a part that runs before what it needs is ready, or after what it should have fed, fails no matter how well it was cut. So once the parts are drawn, the next question is where each one sits.

The answer is not habit, history, or the order in which someone first drew the parts. It is need. A part sits after everything it needs and before everything that needs it. Every part depends on something being true before it can do its work: a payment settled, a record created, a decision made. And other parts depend on it in turn. Those dependencies, and nothing else, decide the order. A process whose order follows its dependencies runs without waiting or rework; a process whose order follows custom carries every old mistake in its sequence, repeated each time it runs.

So the test for any part's position is a pair of questions. What must already be true for this part to do its work? And what cannot happen until this part has done it? The first places the part after its inputs; the second places it before its dependents. Ask both, of every part, and the order of the process stops being a matter of opinion. A part placed before what it needs will wait, guess, or work on something unfinished. A part placed after something that needs it will leave that dependent stalled. Place each part where both questions are answered, and the sequence holds.

The highest possible standard is to place every part by need rather than habit: after everything it depends on and before everything that depends on it, so the order of the process follows its real dependencies and no part runs before its inputs exist or after its dependents needed it.

Key Takeaway: A process cut into clean parts is not yet a process; the parts must be placed, and clean parts in the wrong places still make a broken process. The order is not habit, history, or the order the parts were first drawn: it is need. A part sits after everything it needs and before everything that needs it, and those dependencies alone decide the sequence. The test for any part is two questions: what must already be true for it to work, and what cannot happen until it has? A part placed before its inputs waits or guesses; a part placed after its dependents leaves them stalled.

Place each part by need, not habit: after everything it depends on, and before everything that depends on it.

MarvinPro · PROCESS · Here is How to Build · Design · Sub · Discipline 4: Place · Section: Before and after

MarvinPro | October 2026

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In line or side by side

Not every part has to wait for every other. Where one part needs another, they sit in line: the second begins when the first is done. But where two parts need nothing from each other, they do not have to sit in line at all. They can sit side by side and run at the same time, each doing its own work, the process moving on when both are finished. Placing is not only deciding the order of the parts; it is deciding which parts have an order between them and which do not.

There are two ways to get this wrong, and they mirror each other. The first is forcing independent parts into a line: one waits for the other to finish when it never needed anything from it. The process becomes slower than its work, carrying waiting that serves no purpose, often because the parts were first written down as a list and the list was taken for a sequence. The second is placing dependent parts side by side: one runs before what it needs is ready, and either fails, guesses, or produces work that has to be redone once its input finally arrives. The first wastes time; the second breaks things.

So the rule is simple: place parts in line only where there is a real dependency between them, and let them sit side by side wherever there is none. To find out which, ask of any two parts whether either needs anything the other produces. If one does, they sit in line, in the order the need dictates. If neither does, the line between them is an assumption, and removing it costs nothing and returns the time the process was spending on waiting it never needed.

The highest possible standard is to place parts in line only where one truly needs what the other produces, and side by side wherever neither does, so the process neither waits for what it never needed nor runs ahead of what it does need.

Key Takeaway: Not every part has to wait for every other. Parts that need each other sit in line; parts that need nothing from each other can sit side by side and run at the same time. Two mirror failures: forcing independent parts into a line (waiting that serves no purpose, often because a list was taken for a sequence), and placing dependent parts side by side (one runs before its input is ready and fails or causes rework). The first wastes time; the second breaks things. So ask of any two parts whether either needs what the other produces: if so, in line; if not, side by side.

Place parts in line only where one needs what the other produces, and side by side where neither does.

MarvinPro · PROCESS · Here is How to Build · Design · Sub · Discipline 4: Place · Section: In line or side by side

MarvinPro | October 2026

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How deep

A part does not only sit before or after other parts; it also sits at a depth. A sub-process can contain sub-processes of its own, so every part lives at some level: at the top of the process, beside its main parts, or inside one of them, or deeper still. Placing a part well means placing it at the level where its work belongs, not wherever it happened to be drawn.

Again there are two ways to get it wrong. A part raised too high sits at the top level beside the process's main parts when it is really a detail of one of them. The top of the process then fills with pieces that belong below, and the main shape of the work, the few large parts that tell you what the process does, is lost among them. A part buried too deep sits inside one part when several parts need it, or when it matters to the whole. It becomes hard to find, hard to reach from the parts that depend on it, and easy to forget when the part around it changes. One failure clutters the top; the other hides what should be visible.

So the test for depth is to ask what the part's work serves. If it serves only one larger part, it belongs inside that part. If it serves the process as a whole, or several parts equally, it belongs at the level where all of them can reach it. And nest only as deep as the work requires: every level added is one more layer a reader must open to find something. A process placed at the right depths shows its main shape at the top and its detail exactly where the detail belongs.

The highest possible standard is to place every part at the depth its work belongs: inside the larger part it serves, or at the level where everything that needs it can reach it, nesting no deeper than the work requires, so the top of the process shows its main shape and the detail sits where it is used.

Key Takeaway: A part also sits at a depth: at the top beside the main parts, or inside one of them, or deeper. Two failures: raised too high, a detail sits beside the main parts and clutters the top until the process's main shape is lost; buried too deep, a part that several parts need, or that matters to the whole, hides inside one of them, hard to find and easy to break. The test is what the part's work serves: one larger part, so it goes inside it; the whole or several parts, so it sits where all can reach it. Nest only as deep as the work requires.

Place each part at the depth its work belongs, and nest no deeper than the work requires.

MarvinPro · PROCESS · Here is How to Build · Design · Sub · Discipline 4: Place · Section: How deep

MarvinPro | October 2026

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A real example

Return to activate and place its parts by need. Settling the payment comes first, because opening an account for a subscription that has not been paid would create an account that may have to be undone. Opening the account comes next, because the entitlement has to be recorded against something. Recording the entitlement comes last, because it needs the account to exist. Each part sits after what it needs and before what needs it; the order is not a habit but a chain of real dependencies, and asking the two questions of each part produces it.

Now see a misplacement. Suppose the account were opened in parallel with settling the payment, to save time. When a payment fails, an account now exists for a customer who never paid, and someone has to find it and close it, every time. The saving was an illusion: opening the account needed a settled payment, so the two were never independent, and placing them side by side turned a dependency into recurring cleanup work. The fix is to place them back in line, in the order the need dictates. Compare delivery: making the software available and sending the customer their login details need nothing from each other, so there is no reason to queue one behind the other. Placed side by side, they finish sooner, and nothing breaks.

And see the depths. Settling the payment sits inside activate, not beside it at the top of the core, because it serves activation and nothing else; raised to the top, it would sit next to subscribe, activate, deliver, and verify as if it were a main stage of the business, and the core's shape would blur. Handling a decline sits inside settling the payment, one level deeper again, because it serves settling and nothing else. Each part is at the level its work belongs. Placed this way, activation reads as a map: you can find any part, see what it needs, what needs it, what runs beside it, and what it sits inside.

Activation's parts are placed by need: settle, then open, then record, in line because each needs the one before; side by side where nothing depends; and each nested at the level its work belongs.

MarvinPro · PROCESS · Here is How to Build · Design · Sub · Discipline 4: Place · A real example

MarvinPro | October 2026

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Place

A process cut into clean parts is not yet a process; the parts must be placed, and clean parts in the wrong places still make a broken process. The order is decided by need, not habit, history, or the order the parts were first drawn: a part sits after everything it needs and before everything that needs it. Ask two questions of every part (what must already be true for it to work, and what cannot happen until it has), and the sequence stops being a matter of opinion.

Not every part has to wait for every other. Parts that need each other sit in line; parts that need nothing from each other can sit side by side and run at the same time. Forcing independent parts into a line wastes time on waiting that serves no purpose; placing dependent parts side by side breaks things, because one runs before its input is ready. So place in line only where one part needs what the other produces, and side by side wherever neither does.

And every part sits at a depth. Raised too high, a detail sits beside the main parts and clutters the top until the process's main shape is lost; buried too deep, a part that several parts need hides inside one of them, hard to find and easy to break. So place each part by what its work serves: inside the larger part it serves alone, or at the level where everything that needs it can reach it. Nest only as deep as the work requires.

So the discipline is this: place every part by its dependencies, in line where there is a real need and side by side where there is none, and at the depth its work belongs. Placed this way, the parts stop being a pile and become a map: anyone can find a part and see what feeds it, what it feeds, what runs alongside it, and what it sits inside. That map is what lets the parts be given their functions and joined at their seams, the work of the disciplines that follow.

Place every part by need: in line where one needs the other, side by side where neither does, at the depth its work belongs, so the parts read as a map and not a pile.

MarvinPro · PROCESS · Here is How to Build · Design · Sub · Discipline 4: Place · Chapter Outcome

MarvinPro | October 2026

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