Interactions define needed work exchanges to design purposeful meetings.
Core Question: What do we need to talk about for work to move forward?
Most organizations start their interaction design backwards: "We need a standup." But meetings are just containers. The real question is which interactions actually need to happen at which points in the workflow. Interactions answer this — and they don't even require formal meetings. They can happen informally, bilaterally, or asynchronously.
The fundamental shift: Interactions determine meetings — not the other way around. When you identify which interactions your workflow actually needs, you can design meetings that serve those needs purposefully. A 15-minute Daily Standup, seen through this lens, actually contains 3–4 distinct Interactions: prioritize orders, identify blockers, surface dependencies, confirm next steps.
Details
The Verb-Noun Relationship
Every Interaction is described as an action: a verb paired with an object — "Prioritize orders", "Identify blockers", "Clarify requirements", "Make priority decisions." This action-oriented naming forces clarity about purpose and outcome. Compare this with vague names like "Standup" or "Refinement" — those describe format, not what actually happens. Good Interaction names make the purpose immediately visible.
Types of Interactions
Sync Interactions keep work flowing:
- "Prioritize orders" (5 min), "Share blockers" (3 min), "Confirm next steps" (1 min)
Focus Interactions set direction:
- "Identify top 3 priorities" (5 min), "Establish WIP limits" (5 min)
Understand Interactions create shared clarity:
- "Clarify requirements" (20 min), "Identify dependencies" (10 min)
Decide Interactions move work past decision points:
- "Make priority decisions", "Approve work", "Resolve blockers"
Improve Interactions make the system better:
- "Collect feedback on process" (15 min), "Define improvements" (20 min)
Smells — When to Look Closer
- Starting with meeting formats instead of needed interactions — "We need a standup" before asking what it should accomplish
- Naming Interactions by format ("Standup") instead of by action ("Prioritize orders") — the name hides the purpose
- Too coarse-grained: "Have a meeting" — unclear what will happen, hard to improve
- Too fine-grained: scripting individual sentences — loses context, causes paralysis
Related Patterns
- Meeting Container bundles multiple Interactions into purposeful meetings
- Board → Interactions shows how to derive needed Interactions from the board
- Meeting → Interactions helps decompose existing meetings into their actual Interactions
Your play!
If you want to use this in your worksystems-design sessions, here is all the material you need.
More about this
These patterns are part of the Flight Levels thinking and design model. If you want to learn more, take the Kick start path to Flight Levels Now!