About Performance Development Network
We build winning teams
PDN is built on a methodology with a published intellectual framework -- The Flow System -- combining Lean Thinking, Complexity Thinking, Distributed Leadership, and Team Science into a single integrated system. We partner with HR leaders and L&D professionals to turn that framework into measurable organisational performance.
Our story
A system, not a set of slides
Performance Development Network exists to put one integrated framework — The Flow System — into the hands of the teams that need it. Set out in two published books, the system brings together Lean Thinking, Complexity Thinking, Distributed Leadership, and Team Science: disciplines that most training teaches in isolation, but that only work when they work together.
It didn't come from a marketing deck. The Flow System was built by practitioners and researchers who had led transformation inside large organisations and studied why teams succeed or stall in complex, uncertain work. That combination — real delivery experience plus peer-reviewed research — is what PDN turns into training, coaching, and consulting.
We keep the research visible. Our reference site science-teams.com and ongoing syntheses of the team, leadership, and complexity literature are the evidence base beneath everything we deliver.
The people behind it
Authors of the framework
Dr. John R. Turner
Co-creator, The Flow System
John is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University, where he chairs the EHRD program in the Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development. Co-creator of The Flow System and co-author of its books, he has published over 100 articles and book chapters, and co-founded The Flow Consortium and Performance Development Network. His research spans complexity thinking, distributed leadership, decision-making, and team science.
Nigel Thurlow
Co-creator, The Flow System
Nigel is a co-creator of The Flow System and the creator of Scrum The Toyota Way. As the world's first Chief of Agile at Toyota, he led enterprise transformation at scale, and today helps organisations adopt complexity-aware ways of working — bringing the delivery experience that keeps the framework practical.
Industry Affiliates
PDN's training programs are built around evidence-based frameworks developed in collaboration with our industry affiliates. Our curriculum is grounded in The Flow System methodology and distributed through our affiliated publishing imprint, 3 Helix Publishing(TM).
