Wardley Maps, the lost jewel of strategic agility
A Wardley map (by Simon Wardley) is a powerful tool to analyze, from multiple angles, the strategy of your company, division, or product. It enables discussion around a simple artifact that, among other things, helps you to understand whether the current strategy is or not responding to the level of evolution of the market.
First things first, this article is only meant to give you direct access to a series of strangely little-known (or at least until recently) but incredibly powerful resources.
What are Wardley Maps?
A Wardley map is a strategic analysis and visualization artifact, created by swardley (Simon Wardley), a Wardley Map is made of 2 axes and the disposition of a value chain (and their components), the vertical axis is the level of visibility, to the end-user, and a horizontal axis, the evolution line (Genesis, Custom Built, Product / Rental, Commodity / Utility)
It is a map because the arrangement of the elements within the space has an interpretive effect on the components, just as in a geographic map, it is not the same if a component is higher, lower left, or right.
How do you use it?
It can be used from the strategy of a company to a product (and its components). A Wardley Map can help you to have discussions about your current situation and what should be the natural evolution in the future.
You can analyze if the profiles of people are correct to solve the sub-components of your strategy or if the practices you are using are coherent for the evolutionary state of your sub-components.
You will be able to analyze which is the next move that you will have to make or the risks of your current strategy, the challenges to jump to the next stage of evolution, or where you can find resistance or inertia to change.
But the most important thing is that you will be able to rely on an artifact that is simple enough that anyone in your organization will be able to have a conversation about the strategy, without it being technical as a Business Case, as vague as a Vision Statement, or not so much actionable as a SWOT matrix.
OKR’s, Hoshin Kanri, Lean Value Tree, or Impact Mapping are the techniques and tools that I like the most. But Wardley Maps has a power that no other tool has given me. Without a doubt a lost gem.
Below you have a list of resources to start your Wardley Maps’ journey
Resources:
Original Book: https://medium.com/wardleymaps
The Art of War: Link
OODA loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
