Mastering Complexity

17

Topological Order

Topology, a branch of geometry, deals with properties of connected graphs. Topology describes how the physical arrangement of connections also links nodes logically—how they depend on each other.

•  Whenever an element is encountered, all its predecessor elements on which it depends have already been encountered earlier, we have topological order.

Topological order implies the situation or process being modeled is logically sequential—its causes precede their effects. No graph arcs go backward from later elements to earlier elements (see Figure 17.1).

•  Are most business processes intrinsically sequential? Generally, this is not the case.

•  Once we realize any process can be represented as a square DSM spreadsheet, ...