Gravity Grains

The Frame

Every Hourglass exists within a frame. The frame is the structural boundary that defines the scope, mandate, and structural conditions under which a body of work will move. Frames allow an institution to hold many hourglasses at once, each representing a distinct project, program, or initiative with its own governance expectations and structural realities.

Frames are evaluated using the Minimum Surface Cost Model (MSCM), which examines seven structural surfaces: Governance, Organizational, Abstraction, Disciplinary, Commitment, Infrastructure, and Value. The MSCM does not assess execution quality; it characterizes the drag and leverage present in the frame so that Agents can compare frames, understand how motion will behave, and determine whether a frame is structurally justified.

The frame establishes the conditions into which the Hourglass is placed. Once a frame is understood and accepted, the Hourglass describes how work will move within it, from Situation through Resolution, into Foundation, and onward to Delivery, Operations, and Legacy.

Situation

Situation is the observational surface of the architecture. It represents the reality felt by this project within this organization. Situation is a dynamic field of information that must be interpreted with discipline. It includes the organization’s value alignment, value creation, value delivery, value capture, and value retention activities, as well as the external forces that shape them.

Situation is informed by governance structures such as boards, committees, offices, domains, agencies, and regulatory bodies. These vantage points provide the raw material from which structured intent will emerge. The purpose of Situation is not to prescribe action, but to establish the conditions under which action must occur.

PROGRAM

PROGRAM transforms situational awareness into structured intent. It clarifies why the work exists, what it must achieve, and the conditions under which it will be governed. PROGRAM includes Purpose, Requirements, Objectives, Growth, Refinement, Access, and Monitoring. These components ensure that organizational energy is aligned, inspectable, and capable of evolving as new information emerges.

PROGRAM is not a project plan. It is the orchestration layer that establishes the rails upon which missions will move. It provides the clarity necessary for the organization to act with coherence across time, domains, and coalitions.

PAIN

PAIN surfaces the constraints, dependencies, and resource tensions that shape the work. It is not a negative condition, but a diagnostic crucible that reveals the systemic realities the PROGRAM must navigate. PAIN reveals the systemic realities that must be navigated for the PROGRAM to succeed. It includes the motions of Procure, Acquire, Innovate, and Navigate, supported by the recognition of constraints, dependencies, results, and talent.

PAIN ensures that leaders confront friction directly and metabolize it into clarity. It acknowledges that all meaningful work encounters resistance, and that resilience is built through disciplined engagement with that resistance.

COACH

COACH provides the cultural and communicative guidance necessary to sustain alignment. It includes Classification, Organization, Accountability, Communication, and Heuristics. These components ensure that the work is supported by shared language, clear expectations, and disciplined stewardship.

COACH is where the human dimension of the architecture becomes explicit. It reinforces the behaviors and cultural patterns that allow the Team to operate with integrity and cohesion. It is not a soft-skill layer; it is a structural requirement for institutional resilience.

VELOCITY

VELOCITY is the lens through which the shaped missions from PAIN and the shaped cultural conditions from COACH meet the reality of the people who must carry the work. It includes Value, Expedite, Latency, Order, Capacity, Interval, Tolerance, and Yearning. VELOCITY does not measure speed. It records the structural truth of the Team.

VELOCITY confronts the reality of whether the Team, as currently formed, can carry the mission safely and coherently. It is a forward‑looking assessment of readiness. This candid moment is essential. It ensures that the Team enters Foundation with clarity, trust, and shared understanding.

Resolution

Resolution is the point at which motion has been shaped and leadership has defined the Team composition required to enter Foundation with confidence. It represents the conclusion of the upper arc of the Hourglass where the observation of Situation has been processed into missions and the types of skills necessary to approach them.

Resolution ensures that decisions are not reactive but grounded in structural understanding. It prepares the work for its entry into Foundation, where intent becomes the raw material for interpretation.

Foundation

Foundation is the lower plate of the architecture. It is where the shaped missions join any previously shaped missions and new Team members are integrated with any existing Team members. It represents both the collection of what remains to be done and the collective portfolio of the Team that will carry that work.

Foundation represents every possible way that a Team could choose to move forward across a spectrum of missions. It must establish the conditions under which the organization can think clearly before it acts. Within Foundation, the Team positions itself around the Pillars and prepares to make its self-organization visible through the BEAMs.

Pillars

Pillars are the thinking surfaces that transform missions into coherent, feasible, and inspectable iterations of work. They do not represent teams or departments, nor do they perform execution. Instead, they provide the structured transformations required for the organization to understand what it intends to do before any action begins.

Each Pillar expresses a distinct transformation. Together, they allow the Team to interpret meaning, group missions into motion, give iterations form, resolve feasibility, define correctness, and prepare for release. Pillars operate concurrently and recursively, providing the shared language the Team uses to think together before it acts.

BEAMs

BEAMs are the alignment surfaces of the hourglass. They are where the Team seats responsibility, reveals how it has self‑organized, and makes its intended path of execution transparent before work begins. A BEAM is not a meeting; it is the architectural unit that the meetings express.

Each BEAM operationalizes one of the Pillars, providing a dedicated surface for interpreting the work through that transformation. Together, the BEAMs stabilize multi‑mission load, prevent drift, and ensure that the Team’s decisions can be inspected, compared, and understood across time. They make the Team’s thinking visible before the work enters Execution.

Execution

Execution is where iterations enter active delivery. The architecture does not prescribe a methodology; it provides the structural context within which methodologies, waterfall, agile, hybrid, or ad hoc, can operate without fragmenting the organization. Execution is anchored by the iterations shaped through the Pillars and made transparent through the BEAMs.

Execution is bounded by two bookends. The left book captures what was intended to change. The right book captures acceptance of what has changed. These bookends ensure that execution remains disciplined, inspectable, and aligned with the mission that entered Foundation without prescribing how the work unfolds between them.

Delivery

Delivery represents the products, services, experiences, knowledge, and capital that emerge from Execution. It is the tangible expression of the missions that entered Foundation and the point at which their collective value becomes observable to those who depend on it.

Delivery reflects the immediate outcomes produced by Execution and shaped by the interpretive work of the Pillars and BEAMs. These outcomes form the basis upon which Operations will support, sustain, and refine the work.

Operations

Operations represents the environment that supports, sustains, and refines the outcomes produced in Delivery. It is the daily motion of the organization, where services are maintained, systems are monitored, and the work is stabilized so that it can continue to serve those who depend on it. Operations ensures that the value created in Delivery remains reliable, accessible, and aligned with the mission that produced it.

Within Operations, the Team engages in the motions of safety, training, support, administration, maintenance, and recovery. These motions absorb the consequences of change, address emergent needs, and preserve the continuity of the organization’s commitments. Operations is not a passive state; it is an active environment that processes the ongoing demands of the business while preparing the work for its eventual transition into legacy.

Legacy

Legacy is the upper plate of the architecture. It represents the long-term identity, continuity, and institutional memory that emerge from the organization’s work. It is the accumulation of missions delivered, operations sustained, and commitments honored over time. Legacy is not a single outcome; it is the enduring record of how the organization has chosen to act, adapt, and uphold its purpose.

Within Legacy, the organization reflects on what has been learned, what has been preserved, and what must be carried forward. These reflections inform future missions, strengthen cultural coherence, and ensure that the institution evolves without losing its structural integrity. Legacy is the environment in which consequence becomes knowledge and knowledge becomes guidance for the next turn of the hourglass.