In polycrystalline NiTi shape-memory alloys, plastic deformation develops essentially only in the martensitic phase. This gives rise to an intriguing modelling situation in which interacting processes must “wait” for one another: one process creates the conditions needed for another to become active. In this talk, I will discuss how this sequential dependence can be captured within a framework based on energy and dissipation. Using a simple toy problem, I will illustrate the distinction between simultaneous and consecutive minimization and highlight the resulting mathematical difficulties, particularly the relationship between stability with respect to individual processes and stability of the coupled system.