PowerMaps

Chapter 15. Wardley Maps, Made Simple

"Normally in military conflicts or even in games like chess we have some means of visualising the landscape through a map, whether it’s the more geographical kind that we are familiar with or an image of the board. These maps are not only visual but context specific (i.e. to the game or battle at hand). A map allows me to see the position of pieces and where they can move to” — Simon Wardley ^⁠1

Many businesses have become ‘Microsoftised’: Powerpoint pushes chosen narratives; Excel provides a comforting illusion of certainty in forecasts; Outlook captures a flood of noise that passes for communication; and Sharepoint becomes a repository of outdated files and broken links masquerading as the organisation’s collective knowledge. Each department has its own preferred program, designed to address their internal challenges. But problems arise when they collaborate with other departments using different Microsoft languages. They struggle to understand each other, resulting in confusion and the bigger picture remaining obscured. Many business today are a modern ‘Tower of Babel’.

Coordination problems plague most organisations, triggering endless meetings to ‘create alignment’. Yet, agendas and minutes drafted in Word often go unread by those who speak a different Microsoft language, leading to unsatisfactory outcomes. As issues continue to escalate, somebody will blame the ‘culture’ — today’s scapegoat for apportioning blame when the real causes can’t be identified. A ‘cultural transformation’ is then launched, one promising to fix your people’s inability to work together. But the ‘change agents’ hired to lead this arrive with their own Microsoft language, adding to the cacophony of noise and confusion.

What organisations need is a common language — one everyone speaks fluently, (even as a second language) — that bridges communication gaps, creates alignment and helps reveal the bigger picture. Wardley Maps^⁠2 are the antidote to the debilitating, chaotic babble of the ‘Microsoftised’ organisation. They enable everyone to see the Landscape clearly (the first of Sun Tzu’s “Five Factors” for delivering victory in competitive situations^⁠3) and understand what’s being considered. Maps are a quick and effective way to bring the collective intelligence of an entire organisation online to address the biggest challenges it faces.

Fig.35: Sun Tzu’s “Five Factors”: #1 See the Landscape Clearly

Finding A North Star

All maps have an anchor^⁠4 providing a consistent sense of direction to help us orientate around a Landscape. Geographical maps have a compass pointing North and on Wardley maps the North Star are user needs. Users aren’t just customers who buy your products or services, they’re those who they’re buying for as well — family and friends for B2C (business to consumer); employees and customers for B2B (business to business). But organisations have other users who with needs that also must be satisfied if you’re going to be successful:

Employees — who use your company to earn wages and develop their careers, in exchange for which they give you the time, knowledge and skills you need to make your products and services.
Suppliers — who use your company to satisfy their own commercial needs, in exchange for which they supply you with raw materials to make, or finished goods you need to deliver products and services.
Shareholders — who use your company to grow their financial portfolios, in exchange for which they provide the financial capital you need to make investments and grow your business.
Government — who use your taxes to re-invest in and create a more vibrant business environment, which helps your find qualified employees, suitable suppliers and attract shareholders.
General public — who often use your brand for their own purposes, (e.g. status) creating value from goodwill or, conversely, object to your brand for some reason, causing disruption.

Users therefore are any stakeholders you need to get onside in order to achieve your business’ aims. Failure to satisfy a set of user needs (e.g. failing to meet shareholders’ expectations, falling to pay government taxes, ignoring public sentiment) can jeopardise your business, no matter how well you meet the needs of paying customers. Therefore, it makes sense to know who all your users are and whose needs you have to satisfy.

Fig.36: Multiple Users

Once you’ve identified your key users, document them (see fig.36) so everyone in your organisation can clearly see who they need to delight. Now you need to understand what these users need and this means ‘taking the users’ perspective’ to learn why they might choose your products or services over your rivals.

If you have direct access to users, talk to them (or rather listen, as no-one likes to be interrogated with questionnaires). You can simply ask them to: ‘Think of something in the last 12 months that delighted or disappointed you about (insert your industry or products/services here). Tell us what happened^⁠5?’ By listening intently you’ll learn which experiences are creating valuable goodwill and which are causing frustration. It’s this that triggers fresh insights into what you should be doing more of (i.e. those things that delight users), less of (those things that disappoint them), or reveal unmet needs you could be the first to satisfy.

Fig.37: Importance of Unmet Needs

Adrian Cockcroft, then VP at AWS presenting at MapCamp London (2019)

If direct access to users isn’t possible, then use customer-facing staff as a proxy. People ‘on the frontline’ often share similar experiences with users and can be an invaluable source of insights. For example, during a project for a bank to discover why they were losing lots of VIP customers, we found frontline employees had very similar views to a small number of VIP customers who participated — both saw the bank as ‘highly-innovative’, but both were deeply frustrated at how the bank’s systems continually ‘dropped the ball’ on the basics, which was causing high VIP customer turn-over. Yet, the bank’s management had been working on the assumption that the fault lay with the frontline staff themselves, who needed better training or replacing. This evidence ‘from the frontline’ clearly showed what was really happening and where the bank should focus.

At this point, someone will bring up Henry Ford or Steve Jobs to argue against listening to users. But Ford never said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” so ignore this objection. While Jobs didn’t ‘just make insanely great products’ — he understood that "People don't want to know about computers; they want to know how computers will help them live better. [So] you've got to start with customer needs and work back towards the technology — not the other way around”. People don’t know what they need until they see it, (an automobile, an iPod) but they’re experts in what they want, (reliable transport, easy access to their own music). Therefore, listening to what delights or disappoints users will give you valuable insights into their deeper desires and signpost where you should be focusing your efforts next.

The PUN Template

What users want tends to be enduring. People want something faster, more reliable, or easier. However, what they need changes as technology evolves. Horses were once reliable and fast, but cars became more so; radio made music accessible, but iPods made it more so. Therefore, start by understanding what users really want and then think about what they might need to satisfy those desires today.

Broadly speaking, there are several ways of learning about what your users’ want:

Quantitative data — analyse past sales data, demographics, user comments online, successful competitor campaigns, or even run focus groups to spot recurring themes about what users want^⁠6.
Qualitative data — work with frontline staff to try and see the world through the eyes of your users, understand what it must be like to walk in their shoes to uncover their fears, frustrations and desires.
Speak directly to users — but note that, while it’s valuable to engage with users, asking “What do you want?” too directly can raise expectations that, if you fail to meet them, can lead to resentment and a loss of business. Therefore, consider using a variation of the question above (under fig.36).

Whatever approach you use, document your findings so they’re visible to everyone in the organisation (see fig.38). This creates a ‘North Star’ that aligns your people around a common purpose — delighting key users.

Fig.38: PUN (Purpose, Users & Needs)

Who are you? Do you represent the entire organisation or a specific team or department.
What do you do? Outline the value-creating activities you perform (for end users or internal users).
Why do you do this? Define your vision, mission, or purpose (for the organisation or just your team).
Who do you do this for? Identify your most critical users first.
What do these users want? Take the users’ perspective to figure out what THEY want and work with knowledgable others to refine this until you agree that you have a reasonable set of assumptions.
What’s in it for them? This is your value proposition — why will users choose you over your rivals (Note: Once you’ve mapped this Landscape you will be able to answer this more convincingly).

Although the PUN should be completed before starting to map, since maps need an anchor i.e. your users) it doesn’t need to be perfect. You can, and should, revise it whenever better information emerges. Therefore, treat this as an exercise in communication and learning — don’t be put off if it takes you longer to complete than expected, but equally, don’t get stuck on it. As long as it enables you to agree who your users are and what they might want, it has served its main purpose — because you’re now ready to start mapping.

Mapping a Value Chain

Mapping works best with a small team of 3-4 people, as this provides enough diversity of perspectives while keeping conversations focused. Ensure someone in your group knows users, operations and the underlying technologies so you can map the entire Value Chain: all the components (controllable assets) you use to create value for end users. You’ll also need with a large whiteboard with different coloured ‘post-its’.

Step 1 — PUN Template

Take your time to finalise the PUN, as this guides the mapping team and will help others later understand what your map is about. Below, we’ve provided an example PUN for a fictitious company — The XYZ Gym.

Fig.39: Completed PUN for ‘The XYZ Gym’

Step 2 — User Needs

Now comes the hard part: You need to take the users’ perspective to try and understand what they think they need in order to get what they want. Be careful not to confuse your business needs with users’ needs though. For example, we may decide that ‘busy adults’ (our users) who want to ‘get fit and healthy’ (see PUN fig.39) need a ‘gym membership’, but this reflects our need to sell something, not necessarily what users think they need as they have other options to consider (e.g. an outdoor pursuit, apps for exercising at home, other gyms). To create value, focus on what target users are looking to pull into their lives, rather than what you’re trying to push on them (we will then figure out, through mapping, how to satisfy those needs better than our rivals can).

After some deeper thinking and thoughtful discussion we’ve decided that ‘busy adults’ need^⁠7:

Convenience — something that fits into their busy lives
Guidance — support in achieving results fast.

These needs are a mixture of the physical and emotional that ultimately drives purchasing behaviour (“I feel I need this”). Whoever satisfies these needs best will likely gain new paying customers.

Fig.40: User Needs

Step 3 — Users Are Looking For

Once you know what users need in order to get what they want, think about the solutions they’re looking for to satisfy those needs. Again, avoid pushing your own solutions because you don’t control how others act. Instead, you have to step into their shoes to try and understand how they experience the world, so you can develop offerings they will find indispensable.

For our XYZ Gym example, our users (busy adults) want to get fit, fast and enjoy the process and for this they need something convenient and some guidance. From their perspective, one solution for something ‘convenience’ is an ‘accessible location’ they can get to easily and ‘long opening hours’ so they can fit training into their hectic schedules.

Fig.41: Solutions to User Needs

Step 4 — Providing Solutions

Now that we know what users are looking for in order to satisfy their needs we, as a player in this industry (see PUN question 3 in fig.39), can focus on how to deliver those solutions more effectively than others:

An accessible location needs to be in a ‘high footfall’ area so we can attract sufficient users.
The location needs to have parking facilities and/or ‘transport links’ to maximise accessibility.
For long opening hours we need to have an ‘agreement with the building owner’.
We also need to think about staff availability as they must work unsocial hours (evenings/weekends).

Fig.42: Providing Solutions

Now we consider what these components need in order for us to deliver them. Here we’re thinking of:

Activities — things we or others must do.
Practices — how these activities are done.
Data — how to measure things.
Knowledge — how to make sense of things.

For example (see fig.43 below):

To secure a location with high footfall we need a site analysis to identify areas where our users are.
The site analysis will need some success criteria so we can compare different locations.
Parking facilities / transport links can also be assessed as part of that ‘site analysis’.
The agreement with the building owner over long opening hours needs a legally-binding contract.
To ensure staff availability we will need some effective recruitment and training.
And to make sure staff work the unsocial hours we need then they will need some good incentives.

Fig.43: What Solutions Need

Note: You may disagree with some of our answers, or have better ones, but that’s what mapping is all about — making assumptions visually explicit, so others can challenge them more easily and, from the constructive discussions that follow, we increase our awareness of the current situation^⁠8.

We now repeat the above process for the other user need we identified: ‘guidance’. Any components needed that have already been added (e.g. ‘contract’) don’t need to be duplicated.

Fig.44: Completing the Value Chain

Busy adults need guidance on the best way to get fit.
They look for a program they can follow.
This requires some kind of equipment.
And busy adults may need a free trial to see if they’re comfortable with the program and equipment.
To get results fast these users may also need a trainer to guide them.
Trainers need the right qualifications (otherwise we won’t recruit them).
And trainers need to be available to fit in with the hectic schedule of busy adults.

This gives us our Value Chain — showing all things needed to create value by meeting users’ needs. We could dive deeper, for example, exploring how those responsible for recruitment need to create job descriptions, advertise vacancies, interview, run assessments, and check references etc.) but for now we’re focused on the wider Landscape, so we’ll keep it all high-level.

Adding Evolution to the Value Chain

Wardley’s major breakthrough is the x-axis, showing the four stages of Evolution that everything we do (activities), how we do it (practices) and what we use (data and knowledge) goes through^⁠9.

Fig.45: Wardley’s Four Stages of Evolution

Activities new to the world are in their genesis stage. New ways of doing things are novel practices. Raw data remains unmodelled and knowledge emerge in the form of concepts.
As components evolve activities are custom-built for individual users. Emerging practices spread to other areas. Data diverges (applied in different directions), while hypotheses form, ready for testing.
Activities have now evolved into products (that can also be rented). Effective approaches are good practices. Data converges on specific problems and knowledge crystallises into testable theories.
Finally, components industrialise. Products become commodities — widely-accepted, but hard to differentiate on. Accepted ways of doing things become known as best practices, but no longer provide a competitive edge as everyone is using them. Data becomes modelled for specific use cases and knowledge, once risky and uncertain, has become universally-accepted.

The driving force behind this evolution of components is supply and demand competition. New components (activities, practices, data or knowledge) either find demand and evolve, or they die. When components in the genesis stage (or novel, unmodelled, or concept) find users they often demand improvements, which force suppliers to custom-build something to met their specific needs better. This is when inventions start to become innovations — by satisfying real user needs in better ways that create new sources of value.

If demand grows, components stabilise into more standardised products that can be bought (or rented) off the shelf. What were once emerging practices in a few pioneering industries now become widely-adopted good practices used across multiple sectors. Data converges on specific problems and knowledge transforms itself from testable hypotheses into widely-accepted theories that become difficult to challenge. This stage of evolution is a good one for suppliers as it’s a growing market of paying users, but it’s also good one for users as there’s a comforting sense of certainty about what they’re buying and, as ever more suppliers enter this more lucrative market, the increased competition provides wider choice and pushes prices down.

Eventually though components industrialise. What was once novel and exciting becomes a commodity — something so common on the market that it’s impossible to differentiate on: Products are indistinguishable; best practices no longer confer a competitive advantage as everyone has adopted them; modelled data can be bought off the shelf and contains few new insights that can be leveraged; and knowledge is now so universally-accepted that it merely encourages derision against those who try to challenge it.

This is the journey of evolution that everything we do and how we do it goes through — whether we want it to or not. Our only choice is whether we recognise this and act accordingly.

The Cheat Sheet

Determining how evolved components are is more art than science, as no universally correct answers exist. Components may be provided as highly-evolved activities in one geography, but if your market lacks their supporting practices, data and knowledge there will be more uncertainty about them and they will be less evolved in your market. This is why mapping is most effective when done by a small, informed but diverse group who can have the deeper conversations needed to increase your awareness of the current situation.

When applying Evolution to your value chain remember to take your market’s perspective — not your own as only focusing on how your organisation perceives components can lead to dangerous misconceptions. For example, you might think you’ve discovered the next big thing, because it’s new to you, but when you take it to market you find this component is already widespread and therefore is not going to generate the value you expected. This is why you take your market’s perspective when considering how evolved components are.

To help apply Evolution to a Value Chain Wardley developed the ‘Cheat Sheet’. This was based on research into over 9,000 publications codifying the language used for describing stages of evolution. We recommend using the Cheat Sheet when mapping for the first time, (see fig.46 for a modified version^⁠10) as it will give your team some common reference points that enable you to agree more easily on how evolved components are.

Fig.46: Modified Cheat Sheet

We’ve used the Cheat Sheet to turn our Value Chain (from fig.44 above) into the draft map below (fig.47).

Fig.47: Draft Map XYZ Gym’s Value Proposition

Below, we explain why we placed each component from our Value Chain into this stage of Evolution by highlighting the most suitable description from the Cheat Sheet^⁠11 (in italics). Some components are a mixture of stages, so we place these close to, but not on the boundary lines between stages of Evolution^⁠12:

We place users at the top of the map, with a reminder of what they want (get fit, fast, and enjoy it)
They need convenience, a commonly-understood norm, so this goes in evolution (stage 4)
Users look for an accessible location, which is a cost of doing business for suppliers (4)
Locations need parking facilities/transport links and users would be shocked by their absence (4)
Accessible locations need to be high footfall areas, as suppliers need high volumes to create value (4)
A site analysis is a best practice everyone is copying to determine where high footfall areas are (4)
Yet, the success criteria this analysis is built on may have new features that provides an advantage (3)
Users also require long opening hours, a widespread practice in the industry (4)
This requires agreement with building owners and failure to secure this would be catastrophic (4)
Best practice for formalising this agreement is with a contract (4)
Long opening hours also need staff availability, another cost of doing business (4)
Staff incentives are usually standardised, which often based on key metrics (4)
Recruitment and training of staff is an expected but not trivial activity (3)
Users also need guidance on their fitness journey and are disappointed if this is not offered (stage 3)
Guidance typically involves a program to follow, an increasingly common practice (3)
Programs need some kind of equipment and the focus is often on their new features (3)
A free trial to test the equipment is a commonly understood norm in the industry (4)
Agreeing availability of equipment and trainers for trials is tricky, but users expect this to be offered (3)
Finally, users expect trainers (with varying levels of expertise) to guide them through programs (3)
Gyms expect their trainers to have qualifications (3)
And gyms need to recruit and train them also — an expected but not trivial practice (3)

You might disagree with where we placed components along the Evolution axis, but that’s a feature of mapping, not a bug. Maps make assumptions explicit, allowing others to challenge them so we can learn — just like using a geographical map to agree on where we are and how we might get to where we want to go.

This is how we develop situational awareness.

So what?

Once you have a map, the first question you might ask is: “So what — what can we do with it?”. The answer is that, with a map, we can start to discuss our Landscape in more detail:

Have we correctly identified user needs?
Are we taking the right steps to meet them?
Are there gaps — missing components, or unmet needs?
Are we managing components appropriately?
What does the map’s overall shape tell us?

The first four questions are for internal discussion with knowledge stakeholders to ensure our map reflects our Landscape well. The final question, however, offers a key insight into any map we look at. In the draft map above (fig.47) we can see that components skew towards the right, revealing the reliance this industry has on commoditised components — those that are a cost of doing business — which makes it difficult for players in this industry to differentiate themselves, except on price, which is good for none of them. This will also make it harder to answer question 6 on the PUN template — “what’s in it for them” (fig.38) — in other words, why would users buy from you instead of rivals. And failure to answer this question leads to failure overall.

However, the map of the landscape for the XYZ gym also shows a complete lack of components on the left hand side of the map, suggesting that there’s currently relatively little innovation happening in the industry and this could be an opportunity for us to create a competitive advantage if we can get this right, perhaps by pioneering new technologies or practices used in other markets to satisfy unmet user needs in ours. We might looking into ‘DNA testing’ to design ‘customised meal plans’ as part of an ‘individualised holistic programs’ better suited to individual genetic profiles that help users get better results on their fitness journey; we could look into using AI to help customise those programs and provide real-time ‘monitoring and feedback’ to help users get faster results; or we could look into using virtual reality (VR) to create workouts in ‘immersive training environments’, like running in different terrains or in famous locations globally, to keep things interesting for busy adults so they keep coming back to our gym.

And this is just the start of the strategic thinking you can do once you have a Wardley Map of your Landsacape.

Fig.48: Map of XYZ Gym’s Current and Potentially Future Value Proposition

¹https://medium.com/wardleymaps/on-being-lost-2ef5f05eb1ec

²There are a lot of resources out there for learning about Wardley Maps, some of which we’ve already highlighted, such as: Wardley’s book https://medium.com/wardleymaps/on-being-lost-2ef5f05eb1ec Wardley’s presentations (this is one of the best) https://vimeo.com/189984496 and we would also recommend watching the videos on our site https://powermaps.net which are a mixture of Wardley’s work (released ‘Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC By-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) and our own.

³See chapter eight — The Eastern Approach to Strategy.

⁴See chapter fourteen — Maps Are Weapons.

⁵This is an example of a prompt question in the SenseMaker tool from The Cynefin Company.

⁶However, beware! Few participants in focus groups answer questions honestly because, as social creatures, we like to be harmonious, often “gifting” answers we think others want to hear or “gaming” the process by giving ‘smart’ answers that make ourselves look good.

⁷From experience we’ve found that focusing on one need at a time is very useful if you’re new to mapping. Get a priority need right first, then map out a second or third need afterwards. For the purposes of demonstration we’re going to focus on two needs.

⁸For a reminder of the importance of situational awareness see chapter eight - The Eastern Approach to Strategy

⁹For the full details on the extensive research that went into developing this axis read: https://medium.com/wardleymaps/finding-a-new-purpose-8c60c9484d3b

¹⁰This is a modified version of Wardley’s cheat sheet that we used with early clients as it’s a bit easer to read and use.

¹¹It’s important to note that in practice, we don’t rely solely on one description to place components within a stage of Evolution. Some components will have descriptions from different stages of that are appropriate and this means there is some complexity that we need to discuss before making a final decision.

Note: If the placement is still unclear after such discussion, consider breaking down the component into its sub-components (e.g., splitting ‘website’ into ‘content’ and ‘hosting’) and placing sub-components in their respective stages.

¹²You need to make a clear decision about which side of the boundary line a component goes, even if this means tallying the number of appropriate descriptions from each stage and choosing the one with the highest count. The map can be adjusted later as more information becomes available.

Placing components on boundary lines simply avoids the hard discussions you need to have to develop situational awareness.

Marcus Guest

2025-01-11 13:31 Out-Think, Out-Move