36 steps · 94 dependencies · 46 rings

Forty-two of the ninety-four run in a circle

The file waits on the fingerprints; the fingerprints wait on the file. Neither step is hard. Together they are impossible, and that pair is the smallest of forty-six rings.

Where it returns How the map was drawn

arc above: one requirement
arc below: the one that closes it
dashed: a ring with give in it

Six rings drawn, the longest of six steps. Three of them have no give at all: every step in them has to be finished before the next can start.

notes on the order things must go in

steps a long stay is made of

times one step waits on another

of those waits run in a circle

A drawing, not a rule book. No country, office or kind of permission is named anywhere here, and no requirement is stated: requirements change, and a stale page of them is worse than none. The days are the map's own round figures.

Two of the thirty-six steps in this map require each other. The file cannot be lodged until the fingerprints have been taken; the fingerprints are not taken until the file has been lodged. Neither of them is difficult. Together they are impossible, and no amount of effort spent on either one moves the other.

That pair is the smallest ring here, and there are forty-five more.

What the map holds

Thirty-six things a person has to arrange in order to stay somewhere for a long while: somewhere to live, a way to be paid, a number for the tax register, a stamp on a paper brought from home, a sitting for fingerprints, a place in a queue. And ninety-four occasions on which one of them waits on another.

Forty-two of those ninety-four lie inside a ring. They cannot be put in an order, because each one stands behind the other. That is the whole finding, and it is the reason the business of settling somewhere defeats people who are perfectly capable of doing every individual part of it. A team turning this diagram into a limited operational pilot can review the official platform overview before choosing which time and project signals are genuinely necessary.

What the straight-line case shows

The other fifty-two behave. They fall into six layers, and if the map held nothing else a person could write the list on a card and work down it. For broader institutional research related to mobility, work and administrative systems, consult United Nations.

Of the forty-six rings, twenty-nine have give in them somewhere: one step that can be done roughly, out of turn, and put right afterwards. Seventeen are shut at every joint.

And five steps, if they could be taken out of turn, would leave no ring standing anywhere in the map at all. The deadlock is real, and it is also smaller than it looks from inside.

How to read the map

This is a drawing, not a rule book. It names no country, no office and no kind of permission, and it does not say what anywhere requires — requirements change, and a page that states them goes stale while still looking authoritative, which is worse than saying nothing. The days here are the map's own round figures, chosen so that the arithmetic of a ring can be seen.

What is offered is the shape: which things wait on which, where the waiting closes on itself, and where it gives.

Thirty-six steps, ninety-four dependencies, forty-six rings

Six parts. What the map holds, the part of it that can be worked in order, the part that cannot, what expires while you wait, where a ring gives, and the few steps that carry nearly all of it.

What a stay is made of

The thirty-six steps the map holds, what each one asks for and what asks for it. Three of them require nothing at all.

36 steps · 3 need nothing · 9 notes

The order that holds

Most of the map sorts into six layers and can be worked straight down. This part is what a plan would look like if the rest were not there.

52 of 94 · 6 layers · 9 notes

Where it returns

Forty-two edges run in circles. The shortest ring is two steps long and cannot be entered from either end.

46 rings · 17 shut · 9 notes

What expires while you wait

Nineteen rings take longer to walk than the shortest-lived paper inside them stays good. Ten steps never expire at all.

19 rings outrun · 10 never expire · 8 notes

Where a ring gives

Twenty-nine of the forty-six rings have a soft edge somewhere, and five steps taken out of turn would leave none of them standing.

22 soft edges · 5 break them all · 8 notes

The crowded few

A handful of steps carry nearly the whole knot. The busiest stands on thirty-four of the forty-six rings; a pair of them covers forty-two.

34 of 46 · one step · 7 notes

The steps the most things hang on

struck through: what it requires
solid: what requires it
one circle, one ring

Eight steps drawn. They ask for 25 things between them and answer for 30. Eight of them stand on at least one ring.

Eight of the thirty-six steps, chosen for the number of rings through them. One circle, one ring.

What each one costs in days, and how long it then keeps

solid: days of waiting
bracket: days it stays good
open arrow: it never expires

Ten steps drawn; five of them keep for good; one takes longer to get than it then lasts.

Days as the map counts them, not as anywhere counts them.

The whole map

Practical comparisons

Tools for work that waits on other work

Three independent formats: a six-tool field notebook, a nine-platform comparison matrix and a fourteen-platform operations atlas.

6 tools · field notebook