The Heap Check Protocol
An Emergent Systems Thinking Protocol: Developing the capacity to distinguish between groups that require system logic and groups that require something simpler.
What this is for: Developing the capacity to accurately read whether a group of people is operating as a system — with genuine interdependence and shared purpose — or as a heap, a collection of individuals working in parallel toward a loose common aim. Applying system logic to a heap creates friction without benefit. Applying heap logic to a system leaves its potential unrealised.
When to use: Before designing how a group will work together. When a team feels forced or artificial despite good intentions. When collaboration efforts produce overhead without integration. When meetings function as serial status reports rather than generative exchange. When the same “team” keeps failing to cohere despite repeated attempts.
The goal: To accurately name the group’s nature so that the approach — the practices, the meeting structures, the expectations — matches what the group actually is rather than what it is assumed to be.
The foundation.
Ervin Laszlo draws a precise distinction between wholes and heaps. A whole has properties irreducible to its parts — change one element and the nature of the thing changes. A heap is additive. Adding or removing a component makes a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. The heap’s essential character does not shift.
Most groups contain both dynamics at different moments, around different work. A team that must synthesise insights across roles to produce a shared deliverable is operating as a system. The same team, each completing discrete tasks that aggregate into a report, is operating as a heap. Neither is better. They are structurally different and require different approaches.
The primer establishes a definition of system that makes the distinction operational: a system is a collection of individuals whose parts or functions are interdependently committed to achieving the aim of the system. Interdependence is the test. Not shared space, shared goals, or shared manager — interdependence. Does a change in one part’s function directly impact another part’s ability to perform its function? If yes, system logic applies. If no, heap logic applies.
Forcing system logic onto a heap — deep integration, collaborative deliverables, joint ownership — creates performance overhead without the compounding benefit that genuine interdependence produces. The group learns to perform teamness rather than work as a team.
The moves.
1. Test for interdependence.
Ask: to achieve our aim, do our functions genuinely depend on each other? Not “do we work in the same area” or “do we share a goal” — but does a change in what one part does directly affect what another part can do?
If a developer changes the API, does the frontend engineer’s work break or shift? If a researcher surfaces a new insight, does the strategist’s direction need to recalibrate? If yes — interdependence is present. If parts can complete their contributions without the others’ work affecting their own, interdependence is absent.
What happens: The first signal about the group’s actual nature arrives. Genuine interdependence is felt before it is articulated — parts that depend on each other know it because they have experienced the impact of a change upstream.
2. Test for coherent organisation around purpose.
Ask: are we organised as a coherent whole toward a specific purpose, or are we grouped for convenience — same manager, same budget, same label?
A coherent whole is shaped by its purpose. The way parts relate, communicate, and hand off work reflects what they are collectively trying to produce. A group of convenience shares administrative proximity but not structural integration.
What happens: The difference between being on a team and being a team becomes perceptible. Many groups have never asked this question. The asking itself is informative — a genuinely coherent whole can answer it easily; a heap often cannot.
3. Name what you find — without judgment.
If the check reveals a heap: say so. “It seems we are a heap — a collection of contributions toward a common aim rather than an integrated whole.” This is not a failure. It is accurate. Design accordingly: clear individual domains, lightweight coordination, minimal integrative meetings.
If the check reveals a system: proceed with approaches that honour genuine interdependence — practices that surface what each part is producing so others can adjust, structures that make the interdependence visible and workable.
If it is unclear: treat as a provisional heap with a review milestone. Early work is often parallel and becomes interdependent later. Do not pre-load system complexity onto work that has not yet required it.
What happens: The group receives permission to work in the way its actual structure requires. A heap given permission to be a heap stops performing integration it does not need. A system given language for its interdependence can design its work to honour it.
4. Release the assumption that group equals system.
The most persistent obstacle to accurate group diagnosis is the assumption that any named team is a system and should behave like one. This assumption is so embedded in organisational language that questioning it feels subversive.
Practice questioning it. For every group you work with or belong to, hold the Heap Check as a standing question rather than a one-time assessment. Groups shift between heap and system dynamics depending on what the work requires at any given time.
What happens: The capacity to read group structure accurately develops as a habit rather than a diagnostic technique. The practitioner stops being surprised when “teams” fail to cohere and starts asking what the structure actually requires instead.
The internal calibration.
Before applying the Heap Check:
Am I assuming this group is a system because it has been called a team?
Am I prepared to name a heap accurately even if that is not what the group wants to hear?
Am I holding this as a genuine question or as a way to confirm something I have already decided?
The discipline.
The Heap Check is not about lowering expectations. It is about accurate diagnosis. A heap that knows it is a heap can work with efficiency and clarity. A heap that has been told it should operate as a system will spend its energy performing integration that produces no benefit. Name what is actually there. Design from truth rather than from aspiration.
If this protocol is part of the practice you are building, the paid protocols go further — developing the capacity to work with what the system shows you once the diagnosis is clear.
🎧 Thank you for reading.
An Emergent Systems Thinking Protocol. © 2025 Victor Nuñez / LABKOM Co. Ltd. Thailand. All rights reserved.
Further Reading
Laszlo, Ervin. The Systems View of the World. George Braziller, 1972.
Wageman, Ruth, et al. Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes to Make Them Great. Harvard Business Review Press, 2008.