Work as Imagined vs Work as Done — An Operational Diagnostic

What this simulation shows

Erik Hollnagel’s distinction between Work as Imagined and Work as Done is one of the most useful ideas available to anyone building operational software, and Porridge is an unexpectedly precise illustration of it.

Work as Imagined is the organisation described in process maps, org charts, policy manuals and standard operating procedures. Every activity has an owner, every decision follows a prescribed workflow, every exception has an approved escalation path. Mr Mackay runs Slade Prison this way, and he is not wrong to: complexity has to be simplified before it can be managed.

Work as Done is the organisation that exists on a wet Tuesday when three people are absent, a supplier has failed to deliver, and a major customer has changed their requirements. It is the accumulated adaptations, shortcuts, conversations and judgement calls that let work continue despite reality refusing to follow the documentation. Fletcher understands this prison better than the people enforcing its rules — though it is worth noting his expertise mostly serves Fletcher. Work as Done is not automatically noble just because it is human.

And then there is Harry Grout, who shows what happens when the informal layer matures into a parallel institution. When the formal system leaves a vacuum, something fills it, and that something answers to its own logic.

This diagnostic works out which of them is actually running your operation.

How to use it

Answer the four questions honestly rather than aspirationally — the diagnostic is only useful if you describe the organisation you have:

• How your SOPs are created and treated
• How an unexpected operational crisis gets handled
• What happens when a shadow spreadsheet or unofficial workaround is discovered
• Who really holds influence in day-to-day operations

Then press Calculate Archetype. The third question is the one that discriminates most sharply. An organisation that treats a discovered workaround as a compliance breach is telling you it manages Work as Imagined. One that asks why experienced people keep adapting the process the same way is doing systems thinking, whether it uses the phrase or not.

Retake it for a second team or department. The archetype frequently differs inside one company, which is itself a finding.

What to take away

Transformation programmes disappoint most often because they automate Work as Imagined. The process gets mapped, the workflow gets digitised, the platform gets deployed — and nobody discovered the unofficial spreadsheet everyone relied on, or the experienced administrator who quietly resolved every exception. Remove those without understanding why they existed and the organisation gets less effective, regardless of what the platform cost.

Every workaround is telling you something. If experienced staff consistently bypass an approval stage, the approval stage may no longer reflect the business. The adaptation is usually the symptom, not the problem.

Back to Simulations