A Manifesto for the Platform Organization// State of Platforms in 2024// Strategies and Structure in Portfolio Innovation// Platform Design Bootcamp

Dear readers,

Welcome back to our Boundaryless Dispatch. A fortnightly update where we connect the?trends?we spot, the?patterns?we identify,?and research threads from our backstage.

This dispatch is also available as the opening of our official newsletter The Rules of the Platform Game where you can also find 10-ish curated reads, videos, and podcasts with comments that you should really not miss every two weeks.

Subscribe to the full newsletter if you also want to access the curated links list in an organized way, and other perks. You can also receive our curated links daily by joining our public telegram group!

We’re excited to share our "Manifesto for the Platform Organization" with you this week.

We've been inspired by manifestos that have had a transformative impact on business and organization. How can we not think of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and its legacy on software development or the Cluetrain Manifesto and its impact on how we think about marketing in the Internet age? Similarly, we distilled essential beliefs and principles for entrepreneurs and organizational designers, hoping to capture what it takes to reshape organizational structures to maximize entrepreneurial potential and adaptiveness to the challenges of the 21st century.

Why This Manifesto Matters

Manifestos cut through the clutter to highlight what makes a difference. With the Platform Organization Manifesto, we aim to clarify and champion the beliefs and principles underpinning the creation of dynamic, future-ready organizations that can face rapid change and empower teams and individuals to generate positive change through great products and services at scale.

Building on a Solid Foundation

If you’ve been with us a while, you’ll remember our "Key Principles of Platform Design" or our “Patterns of Platformization.” This new manifesto is another step in the same line, a natural evolution, drawing from five years of hands-on experience and learning with companies transitioning towards more agile, enabling, and adaptable organizing frameworks. It’s not just theory; it’s practice, refined through real-world application and feedback. Besides the 4 beliefs that, in our experience, you need to embark on the journey, we’ve laid out 11 key principles. Each is a tool for reflection and action that can be used to navigate design and execution challenges: we use them often when facing key questions in the transformation projects we do with customers and when we build complex ecosystemic collaborations with business partners. These principles challenge us to empower every team member, rethink resource allocation, and continuously adapt our rules to stay relevant and effective.

Join our 1-Day course for Executives and Builders at TheNTWK Summit in Barcelona in May

• Learn how to define products and services to solve the needs of your customers and partners, how to find the gaps in the current portfolio, and how to define which projects to invest in.

• Get practical templates on how to document and communicate the product/service strategy that caters to all the stakeholder groups.
• Understand what it takes to create results and execute the strategy effectively.
• Learn how to define the capabilities, organizational and teaming structures, and collaboration and decision-making mechanisms that bring results and adhere to set boundaries, while enabling flexibility and maximum team-level autonomy.

TheNTWKSummit is a unique gathering that explores the synergies between digital platforms, business ecosystems, and sustainable innovation.? Join the Conference and the Training:?upon purchasing the Portfolio Deep Dive Tickets you'll receive a code that provides an equivalent of a 15% discount on both tickets.

Enroll Now

From the Field to the Forefront

Our journey since 2019 has reinforced a crucial lesson: transforming into a platform organization isn’t just about adopting new tools or technologies.

Our manifesto has a strong resonance with our long-standing commitment to building open and adaptable systems. In these systems, empowerment coexists with accountability and self-determination beyond disempowering self-management transformations that are not premised on entrepreneurship and skin in the game. ?

Join Us on This Journey

We’re excited to see how you and your partners will use this manifesto. Use it to spark reflections on your organization's readiness for 21st-century market changes.

Use this manifesto to trigger discussions, inspire change, and - perhaps most importantly - shape a future where your organization is adaptable and empowering to its people and teams.

Let’s explore these ideas together and continue to expand the limits of what our organizations can achieve.

Will you sign the Platform Organization Manifesto?

Read: A Manifesto for the Platform Organization

Introduction

In today’s networked and ever-changing economy, traditional organizational models are increasingly supplanted by more fluid, dynamic, and participatory structures. The platform organization stands out as a model of resilience and innovation, leveraging deeply integrated ecosystems to drive growth and adaptability.

This manifesto outlines four foundational beliefs and eleven design principles for organizations wanting to adopt a platform organization model. This model is crucial for any organization aiming to harness the full potential of its human capital and technological capabilities.

As a company or institution that wants to embark on a journey to become a Platform Organization, you must be culturally aligned with the four beliefs that should be widely shared and adopted as common ideas. These beliefs need to be things that the organization’s leaders believe profoundly and that the workforce is enthusiastic about.

The eleven design principles can be used as guiding questions and provocations as you embark on your organizational evolution. This question, "Are we complying with the principle in our current organizational design?” will encourage you towards a more ambitious evolution.

Read the rest of the article on our blog to learn more about the Platform Organization Manifesto.

Platform Design Certification Bootcamp

We just opened subscriptions to our 13th cohort for the Platform Design Certification Bootcamp (Fully online - 6 sessions plus one optional).

The Bootcamp will help you?develop the mastery?needed?to apply platform thinking to any project, context, or challenge. It’s designed for?founders, execs,?design leaders,?consultants,?and?entrepreneurs.

Enroll Now with a Discounted (-15%) Early Bird!

?????Podcast

The State of Platforms in 2024 with Kelly Sarabyn and Scott Brinker

In this?episode, we have Kelly Sarabyn and Scott Brinker from HubSpot , who take us through their latest report on the State of Platforms in 2024.?

HubSpot has always considered industry education as central to developing its business and brand, and - in combination with some of its partners - released this great report earlier this year. The report profoundly covers how firms now adopt platform strategies to thrive in a digital economy ranging from app ecosystems to services marketplaces. Having spearheaded this, Kelly and Scott shared some insider information with us.

During the conversation, they highlight the evolution of platforms, from mere technical infrastructures to complex ecosystems, and then further delve into how understanding the intricacies of platform models is crucial for tech companies and all businesses looking to leverage the interconnected nature of modern markets.

Key highlights:

• Deep Dive into B2B SaaS Platforms by analyzing the top 50 SaaS companies’ adoption of platform business models.
• Integration as a critical strategy for enhancing user experience and the platform's value proposition.
• Industries that have fallen short in their platform game, and where their future is headed.
• The challenges with outsourcing integration, and why the quality of integration makes or breaks your product’s market fit.
• The platform industry as a continuously evolving ecosystem, and its implications on business.
• How companies need to adapt their structure to support platform models.
• Analysis of the broader implications of platform strategies on society and ethical considerations in platform management.
• The potential of using ecosystems as a distribution strategy, and why even non-tech companies should consider integrating digital services into their offerings.

>> Check it out! <<

>>?Subscribe for the upcoming episodes here??<<

Work with us

Boundaryless provides on-demand consulting services with an iterative and outcome-based approach. We iterate fast and produce results quickly. We work with organizations of all kinds, from Fortune 500 to small startups, and even the UN!

For?startup or project teams, we help with:

• ecosystem mapping?and?value chain analysis
• product/platform strategy?and?experience design
• assessing?growth problems, designing?growth models, defining?growth tactics?for launch and liquidity
• set-up of?validation?items for?validation sprints

For?larger companies?that are a bit more mature, we also work on:

• overall portfolio strategies
• team structures?(product/growth/engineering)
• setting up?multiple-unit structures,?distributing P&L, and more for an entrepreneurial organization setup

Are you facing these and other challenges? Let's discuss how we can help:

Book a 30-minute no frills FREE consultation call