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]
Most businesses have been ‘Microsoftised’: Powerpoint slides circulate around the organisation telling compelling narratives that brook no argument; detailed Excel spreadsheets confidently project numbers deep into a future comfortingly devoid of unexpected disruptions; and other programs, like Visio, show how the company’s physical architecture and ‘human capital’ work in theory, if not in practice. While Microsoft’s tools are useful for quickly communicating information inside a department, a problem arises when these departments attempt to communicate with other departments as not everyone is convinced by pretty PowerPoint slides and nor does everyone think detailed Excel spreadsheets tell the whole story. The result is a veritable ‘Tower of Babel’ as each department speaks their own language but struggles to understand others, meaning the bigger picture remains elusive to all.
These coordination problems are rife in most organisations, hence the endless meetings to try and create alignment. But what is discussed in these meetings is captured in yet another Microsoft tool (Word) and not universally read. The problems continue to build up and eventually someone blames the ‘excessive coordination problems’ on “culture” — a catch-all term used when you know something is wrong but don’t know what it is. These widespread coordination problems have fuelled the rise of a ‘cultural transformation’ industry, promising to fix your people’s inability to work together effectively. But the external ‘change agents’ hired to lead these transformations turn up with their own preferred set of Microsoft tools, which adds to the noise, making it even harder for departments to pull together in the same direction.
What organisations need is simply a common language — one all departments speak fluently, even if as a second language. That language for business is Wardley Maps.
At their most basic maps are a visual tool for seeing an unfamiliar space, which helps people discuss in a constructive way how to move through it and is why humans have used maps for millennia. Wardley Maps though are the first real maps for business and offer an antidote to the debilitating and incomprehensible babble of a ‘Microsoftised’ organisation. For rather than insisting all non-finance people learn to create and read spreadsheets, or taking strategic actions based on whoever presents the prettiest powerpoint slides, Wardley Maps enable everyone to clearly see what’s being considered and therefore be able to discuss it in a way that everyone else can understand. In this way Wardley Maps helps bring the collective intelligence of your entire organisation online.
Let’s take a closer look at Wardley Maps[2] and how you use them to gain better awareness of your Landscape. As a reminder, this is the first step in Sun Tzu’s “five factors” for delivering victory in competitive situations.[3]
Fig.33: Maps Help You See Your Landscape More Clearly
Finding Your North Star
Wardley Maps, like all maps, use an anchor so users can orientate themselves (i.e. understand where they are and what’s around them). North is the anchor on geographical maps and on a Wardley Map the anchor is the ‘user need’. Let’s dive into this a bit further.
Users may be customers who buy your products or services, but they can also be the people your customers are buying for — family or friends if you’re a B2C business (business to consumer); or employees, or even your customers’ customers if you’re a B2B business (business to business). Every organisation has multiple users and all these users have needs that must be satisfied if your business is going to be successful.
Here are some typical users:
- Employees — who provide you with the time, knowledge and skills you need to make products and services, in exchange for which they use your company to earn wages and develop their careers
- Suppliers — who provide you with the inputs you need to produce products or services, in exchange for which they use your company to satisfy their own commercial needs
- Shareholders — who provide you with the financial capital you need to make investments or run the business, in exchange for which they use your company to grow their financial portfolios
- Government — who provide access to some of the resources you need to grow your business further, in exchange for which they use your taxes to re-invest in creating a more vibrant business environment
- Public — who may like to associate with your brand (creating goodwill) or, conversely, may choose to object to your working practices and cause you disruption.
Users therefore are any stakeholders you need to get onside in order to achieve your aims. Failure to satisfy a set of user needs (ex, failure to satisfy the growth expectations of shareholders, or falling to pay government taxes) can bring down your whole business, irregardless of how well you’re meeting the needs of customers. Therefore, it makes sense to know all your users — to know whose needs you need to satisfy.
Fig.34: Users of a Business
Once you’ve identified who your users are, the next step is to try and understand what they’re looking for. This requires ‘taking the users’ perspective’ — seeing the world through their eyes — to understand why they choose the products or services they do. If you have direct access to users you can talk to them — or rather listen to them (i.e. don’t turn up with 20 questions as no-one likes being interrogated).[4] What you’re trying to learn is what your users WANT so you can satisfy those desires better than your rivals. This is, for example, one of the great advantages Amazon has had over their rivals — they have a clear and unambiguous view of what their users really WANT: A wide selection of goods, at the lowest prices, delivered quickly[5] and design their organisation to satisfy these desires better than any of their rivals.
At this point someone usually brings up the Henry Ford quote — “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”[6] — to push the idea that we can ignore what users WANT because users don’t know what they’re talking about. Furthermore, they often add, ‘Steve Jobs didn’t focus on what users wanted — he just made insanely great products’. But this a dangerous diversion, not least because it misunderstands what Jobs did. Of course it’s correct that, at the turn of the 21st century, few people would have said they wanted a smartphone, as the first modern smartphone had only been built in 1992 (by Canova) and few people would have heard of them. Just as, at the turn of the 20th century, few people would have said they wanted a motor car, as the first modern car had only been built in 1886 (by Carl Benz) so few people would have heard of them. However, all these people knew what they WANTED —either to get from A to B with minimal hassle, or to have the power of computing in their pocket — and it’s these desires that Ford and Jobs solved spectacularly by providing users something they would NEED to satisfy those desires or WANTS. They both started with what users wanted and worked way back to what they would NEED. As Jobs said: “People don’t want to know about computers; they want to know how computers will help them live better. You’ve got to start with customer needs and work back towards the technology — not the other way around”.
If you don’t have direct access to your users then the next best thing is using customer-facing staff as a proxy. ‘Frontline employees’ interact directly with users a daily basis and deal with many of the same frustrations. Therefore, they can often provide rich insights into what your users really WANT. For example, on a project for a bank that was losing lots of prestigious customers we ran two sessions, one with the client-facing staff and the other with current customers. What we found was that the perspectives of these two groups were remarkably similar — both identified the same positives about the bank (‘it was highly-innovative’) but also the same negatives (it kept ‘dropping the ball’ on simple things, causing significant frustration). This revealed a list of things the bank should do more of (innovation) but also less of (stop dropping the ball on simple things). And delivering on this would have satisfies the NEEDS of two important user groups for the bank — prestigious customers and the frontline employees working directly with them — which serves to show how users often NEED similar things from your organisation.[7]
PUN (Purpose, Users & Needs)
The reason we focus first on discovering what users WANT is that what users NEED tends to be transient. Once upon a time users would have said they ‘needed’ the latest Blackberry. But then they “needed” the latest i-phone and this change came about far quicker than most business can keep up with. Therefore, we focus first what users WANT as these are semi-permanent — users switched from ‘needing’ a Blackberry to ‘needing’ an i-Phone but what they WANTED (ex, the ‘coolest’ mobile on the market) didn’t change. Therefore, knowing what users WANT is the first step to exploring what they NEED to satisfy that desire.
There are many ways of discovering what users WANT and we highlighted two earlier (asking users directly and asking customer-facing staff as a proxy). Generally, there are two broad approach you can take:
- Seek mechanical or quantitative data — such as past sales data, demographic information and marketing segmentation. You can also read user comments online, buy surveys about target groups, study successful promotional campaign of competitors, or run focus groups[8]
- Seek behavioural or qualitative data — try to see the world through their eyes, walk in their shoes and ask; what is it like to be this person and what fears, frustrations and desires are they likely to have that are not revealed in quantitative data (you might be surprised at the insights this uncovers).
Whatever methods you use the aim is to capture what users WANT in a format that others can easily see and question if necessary. This is how you build alignment in an organisation, by focusing everyone on the one job they all have — creating and keeping a customer.[9]
Fig.35: Capturing User WANTS
- Who are you — Are you representing the entire organisation or just a part of it (a department, a line of business, or a project team)?
- What do you do — What is the scope of your activities, in other words, how do you (the organisation, department, LoB or team identified in question one) create value for others?
- Why do you do this — What is your vision, or aim, or purpose (this may be the organisation’s vision or your team’s aim)?
- Who do you do this for — Who are your users (who uses what you produce) and who do you need to delight most? (NB: — you will have many users here so, for now, focus on the most important one)
- What do these users want — Users may not know what they NEED but they know what they WANT and you should too! Work with others to refine this until you agree it’s a reasonable representation
- What’s in it for them — This is now your mission. (NB: — You’ll be able to answer this more convincingly once you have gone through the mapping process).
You’re now ready to map.
Creating Value Chains
Mapping is best done by a small team of 3–4 people to ensure there’s enough diversity of perspectives to scan the entire Landscape, but not so many diverse perspectives that focused conversations don’t happen.[10] You’ll need with a large whiteboard with some different coloured ‘post-it’ stickers, or a Miro board like this one.[11]
Step 1 — Complete your PUN Template[12]
Take as much time as you need to complete your PUN as this is crucial in getting alignment for your group: This is who we are, this is what we do and why we do it, this is who we do it for and this is what they want. (Leave question 6 blank for now as that is best answered after you have mapped your Landscape). As you can see from our example below, a completed PUN enables others to quickly understand what the situation is about. This is invaluable when you start showing your maps to others later.
Fig.36: PUN for XYZ Gym
Step 2 — Discuss what users NEED (in order to get what they WANT)
Now comes the hard part, which will take some thinking and discussion. We’re going to take our users’ perspective (that of a ‘busy adult’) and try to identify what they NEED in order to get what they WANT (which, as our PUN says, is ‘to get fit, do it fast and enjoy the process’).
It’s important here to focus on what our users NEED and not on what we need. We create value by satisfying the needs of users who, in exchange, give us what we need (i.e. revenue). Therefore, suggesting now that users need a ‘gym membership’ is pushing our need to sell something whereas, in reality, ‘busy adults’ have a range of options to satisfy their desires — they can go to a swimming pool, start a new diet, or even just cut out bad habits — so coming to our gym is just one option of many for them and may not be their favoured one. If we’re going to create value, we have to meet users where they are now and show them a path to where we want them to go. This requires taking the user’s perspective and identifying what they think they NEED first.
After some thinking and discussion we’ve decided that ‘busy adults’ NEED:
- Convenience — something that easily fits into their busy lives
- Reliability — something that delivers the results they want, and
- Guidance — someone or something that helps them achieve those results.
We now have three things[13] we think our users NEED to satisfy their desires (WANTS). And the winners will be those on the market who deliver this best. We capture this in the following way:
Fig.37: User Needs
Step 3 — Consider what users are LOOKING FOR?
We now know what users WANT (to get fit, fast and enjoy the process) and what users NEED (something convenient, reliable and some guidance). Next, we’re going to consider what users are looking for in order to satisfy those NEEDS. In other words, what do these NEEDS NEED.
Again, just a reminder: We should resist saying ‘users are looking for a gym’ as that’s pushing our needs. Instead, we should try and walk in our users’ shoes and consider what they’re looking for. In the example below (fig. 38) we think that, to satisfy the need for something ‘convenient’, users will be looking at the ‘location’ of different places (“is there something local we can get to easily?”), at ‘opening times’ (“can we go there before or after work, or on weekends?”), and the ‘cost’ (“is this something we can afford?”).
Once we’ve identified those higher NEEDS we then add in what those NEEDS NEED:
Fig.38: Users’ Needs Need
We think that:
- Users (‘Busy adults’) NEED ‘convenience’
- This means they NEED a ‘location’ close to home or where they work
- Those locations NEED to do some ‘advertising’ so potential users find out about them
- And advertising NEEDS some ‘content’ (ex, copywriting)
- It also NEEDS some ‘advertising channels’ (signage, social media ads, other media etc)
- To be convenient the location also NEEDS to have ‘long opening times’
- And that will NEED the ‘agreement with the building owner’ (to ensure they allow this)
- Finally, convenience implies the ‘cost’ of whatever the user chooses to do will NEED to be acceptable
- Which means providers of services (like XYZ Gym) will NEED some kind of ‘pricing strategy’
- That means a ‘budget’ is NEEDED to ensure forecasted revenues exceed expected expenses
- And finally, the price must also be competitive with rivals, therefore it’ll NEED some ‘market research’.
We could go deeper, (such as what ‘market research’ needs, or which ‘advertising channels’ are best) but let’s stop here as we’re simply aiming to map out the big picture first (and we can go deeper into details later). The main thing we’re trying to understand is what every component (the things on the post-it stickers) NEED. This is why we call this a ‘Value Chain of Needs’ — it shows all the things that must be done to create value for these users by satisfying their NEEDS (in this case, for some ‘convenient’ way to get fit).
So, how do we know we have the ‘right’ answers here? Well, we don’t. That’s why we map with others, to bring different knowledge and experience to the process. Therefore, it’s important that people listen to each other and understand the different perspectives in play as this is how you build up a rich picture of your Landscape. To support this we advise having people in your mapping team who know:
- Your users — someone client-facing, perhaps from marketing, sales or a customer support
- Operations — someone who understands deeply how you do things in your organisation
- Underlying technology — your IT person (as you’ll be using technology systems in your business).
This diversity will help you connect what your users NEED (at the top of the Value Chain) with how you deliver that (further down the Value Chain). And this is one of the key features of mapping — learning from others — which means the process of making a map is just as important as the map itself.[14]
Step 4 — Think Activities, Practices, Knowledge and Data
We now add in what we think the other two NEEDS (something ‘Reliable’ and some ‘Guidance’) NEED. We always consider four types of components:
- Activities — things we do or provide (ex, ‘facilities’)
- Practices — how we provide those things (ex, ‘free trial’)
- Data — how we measure those things (ex, ‘testimonies’)
- Knowledge — how we make sense of those things (ex, ‘qualifications’).
Fig.39: Value Chain (part 1)
We think that:
- Busy adults NEED a way of getting fit that has some ‘reliability’
- For this, they’re going to NEED to see what the ‘outcomes’ look like
- Therefore, this NEEDS some kind of ‘evidence’ that they can verify
- Which NEEDS ‘testimonies’ of others, or perhaps ‘visuals’ showing results
- ‘Facilities’ will be needed to provide a reliable service, which users can experience through a ‘free trial’
- Users also NEED some ‘guidance’ to get results fast, which NEEDS ‘trainers’ or ‘programs’
- Trainers will NEED to have ‘availability’ for users and programs NEED some sort of ‘delivery mechanism’
- And the last thing NEEDED are ‘qualifications’ for trainers to prove they are capable of delivering.
Again, we could go a deeper (exploring what ‘delivery mechanisms’ — such as an app, or an in person event — NEED and what those components NEED) but, as we’re trying to see the big picture first, we keep the number of components to around 20, which helps keep the map manageable (as it’s what you do with it that counts and having a map that’s not too complicated will help you do more with it, as we’ll show later).
Step 5 — Add Evolution
Now we come to the most important part of a Wardley map. The x-axis shows the four stages of evolution[15] that everything we do (activities), how we do it (practices) and what we use (data and knowledge) goes through.
Fig.40: The Four Stages of Evolution
- When an activity is new to the world we describe it as the genesis of that activity. If this is a new way of doing things we call it a novel practice. While unmodelled data also appears here, as do new concepts
- As things evolve they move to the right. Activities become custom-built for each new user. Emerging practices spread. Data is divergent, (going off in different directions) and hypotheses are formed
- As things evolve further activities become products (that can also be rented). Approaches that work become known as good practices. While data starts to converge (on a problem) and theories emerge
- Finally, we’re at the stage where products have become commodities as they’re hard to differentiate on. Widely-accepted ways of doing things become known as best practices. Data is now modelled for a particular use and concepts, which once were marginal, become universally-accepted knowledge.
The force driving this evolution of components is supply and demand competition. New components must find demand to spread their development — failure to do this leads to the death of the activity, practice or knowledge, while unmodelled data is left untouched, unused and useless. Therefore, components in stage 1 are looking for early users who tend to make demands on suppliers to modify the new components to meet their needs better. This is why early activities are often custom-built anew to satisfy different user needs, while practices, data and knowledge get refined and slowly become more useful to more people.
Once a component has reached stage 3 its continued development is almost inevitable. While this may be a positive for those with theories that eventually become universally-accepted, or practices that become known as best practices (often increasing demand for them), those supplying products tend to resist evolution as users are usually not willing pay a premium price for commodities (ex, would you pay more for electricity that comes from Amazon, or for gold stamped with an Apple logo?). However, we have no choice about evolution — it’s happening whether we want it to or not. Those that embrace this can capture the future by becoming monopoly suppliers of commodities that have become essential costs of doing business for everyone else.[16]
Evolution Cheat Sheet
Identifying how evolved components are is more art than science, which is why mapping is best done as a small (informed and diverse) group to ensure a wide-array of perspectives are being considered. To aid this process Wardley created a ‘Cheat Sheet’ from his research into over 9,000 publications codifying the language used for describing components in different stages of evolution. This provides useful guidance as to where components should be placed along the x-axis according to the market’s perspective. We strongly advise you to use Cheat Sheet when mapping for the first time until you learn the descriptions.
Fig.41: Modified Cheat Sheet [17]
One further tip here: If you’re mapping a space that cuts across different countries you’ll find that some components are more evolved in some markets than others. Therefore, either map each market separately, or chose the most evolved state of that component (as this is where it’s heading to in other markets anyway).
We’ve used the Cheat Sheet to turn our Value Chain into a rough map.
Fig.42: Rough Map
You will find that you may have some disagreements about where components should be placed along the evolution axis and it’s important to note that this is feature of mapping, not a bug. Maps encourage you to think more deeply about what you do and how you do it as this is how you build better awareness of your current situation. This is also why, once you have a map, you show it to others who can challenge your assumptions, which extends your learning and deepen your situational awareness.[18] For now, try to resist the temptation to compromise when people have different opinions about where components should go — don’t put them on the line between two stages, have that tougher conversation (with the aid of the Cheat Sheet) and commit the component to one side of the dividing line or the other (this matters greatly when when we’re using maps for strategic moves, which we’ll come to in Book Five).
So what?
Once you have a map the question you might be asking is: “So what — what can we do with it?” Well, with a map we can start to discuss our Landscape in more detail:
- Have we got the user needs right?
- Are we taking the right steps to satisfying those user needs?
- Are we missing anything important, such as an unmet need, or a key component?
- Are we treating components in the right way?[19]
- What will happen when key components evolve to the next stage?[20]
If the first benefit of a map are the conversations you have to create it, then the second benefit are the conversations you have with others who challenge it,[21] which helps you learn things you may not have known. This can be extremely valuable when you are trying to understand a complex project. Instead of waving your hands vaguely at the technology part of your project and stating ‘that’s for IT’ — while IT vaguely waves their hands at other parts of the map, stating ‘that’s for the business’ — you can all now see who you are creating value for and how you are creating value from end to end.
In our rapidly-changing world organisations need the collective intelligence of their entire team online and focused on achieving common objectives. The days of functional heads saying ‘I’m here to take care of IT or Finance’ or ‘that’s not part of my job description’ should be long gone in organisations who hope to adapt to the new world and succeed. Maps enable these conversations to be had in earnest.
1 https://medium.com/wardleymaps/on-being-lost-2ef5f05eb1ec
2 There 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 (of which this is the one we first saw) 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 (creative commons) work and our own inputs.
3 The Art of War, chapter 1
4 We’ve found a useful question to ask users is: ‘Think of something in the last 12 months that delighted or disappointed you about how we or our industry works’. Then listen intently to what they tell you.
5 Colin Bryar. “Working Backwards”. Apple Books. p248
6 Although there’s no evidence Ford ever said this.
7 However, in this case, the shared perspective of both staff and customers contradicted the belief management of the bank had — that prestigious customers were leaving due to poor performance of customer-facing staff and what was needed was a big overhaul of recruitment, training and staff compensation. But what our research clearly showed was that customers were overwhelmingly happy with the bank’s staff — they recognised that they regularly went the extra mile to overcome deficiencies in the bank’s process. The bank’s management were unhappy at having their beliefs (and plans) contradicted by such evidence.
8 Though beware! Few participants answer questions honestly because, as social creatures who like to be harmonious, people often “gift” answers they think experts want to hear from them or “game” the process — giving ‘smart’ answers to make themselves look good.
9 “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer” — Peter Drucker
10 It’s important to note that one of the first things you should do with a map, once you’ve made it, is to show it to others who can challenge in — point out what’s not clear, what’s missing or what might be wrong — and this is how you make a better map of the Landscape and use it to improve situational awareness. Therefore, the first step is to get a draft map done, rather than a perfect map and that’s why a small group is better as they can focus on getting an outcome.
11 https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVKdaanak=/
12 PUN stands for Purpose, Users and Needs. We says ‘Needs’ even though here we’re focused on what users WANT because, as we’ve explained, this is the first step in discovering user NEEDS
13 From experience we’ve found that limiting oneself to a maximum of three needs has many benefits — it forces you to prioritise what users are really looking for and means that you don’t become overloaded when mapping. Later on you can add needs, but for now, stick to a maximum of three to keep things manageable.
14 Some in the global Wardley Mapping community even claim they throw the map away once it’s done as it’s the mapping that matters, not the map. Personally, I wouldn’t go that far (and I’ll try to show why throughout the rest of this book why having maps is so important). But their point about the importance of mapping is a valid one (and why you should make maps yourself, rather than outsource them to others to make for you).
15 For the full lowdown on the extensive research that went into developing this axis read: https://medium.com/wardleymaps/finding-a-new-purpose-8c60c9484d3b
16 This is a topic we will explore in Book Five.
17 This is an early version of Wardley’s cheat sheet we used that has slightly fewer rows, making it a little easier to read.
18 We’ll explain more about this in the next chapter.
19 We’ll explore this in Book Four
20 We’ll explore this in Book Three.
21 We’ll return to this in the next chapter
