Chapter 17. Top Ten Most Common Business Problems Mapping Solves

16 min readOct 25, 2023

“Instead of using multiple different ways of explaining the same thing between different functions of the company then try to use one. A map”. — Simon Wardley⁠[1]

As explored earlier,[⁠2] business shares many similarities with warfare — competition with rivals and uncertainty about their next moves. Another similarity is the obsession with technology, because failing to adapt quickly enough can be fatal in both warfare and business.

All new technologies are complex systems built on top of multiple sub-systems. In the simplified map below (fig.50), users need some sort of ‘analysis’, for which they might turn to an ‘AI chatbot’. Yet, chatbots rely on sub-systems like ‘machine learning’, which need ‘training data’, ‘computing power’ and ultimately ‘electricity’. Adopting any new technology therefore means increasing one’s dependence on multiple lower-order technologies, which creates new challenges. No organisation can master all these components — for example, AI chatbot developers (the new tech rockstars) are heavy users of computing power but may lack expertise in that field. Each new technology we adopt forces us to rely on more specialists and coordinating the activities of ever more, diverse teams only adds to operational complexity.

Fig.50: (Very) Basic Map Of AI

The challenge of coordinating diverse teams is exacerbated by the ‘Microsoftisation’ of modern businesses. As discussed in the previous chapter, each department relies on a specific Microsoft tool to perform core duties, but they struggle to coordinate with other departments who speak a different Microsoft ‘language’ — Finance talks in spreadsheets and IT in architecture diagrams, meaning both struggle to understand the other. Multiply this problem across the organisation and you get a cacophony of noise and misunderstanding, making coordination between teams increasingly more difficult for business leaders today.

The military, however, solved this coordination problem long ago by using maps. Generals don’t need to know how to sail a ship to coordinate activities with the navy, and admirals don’t need to know how to fire field artillery to coordinate with the army. Each knows how to do their own job and use maps to align their actions (‘we’ll sail to block the straits there, while you lay an ambush for them along this narrow coastal path here⁠3’). This is why, at their core, maps work as a common language, enabling diverse teams to create and share knowledge and align around a shared mission.

Fig.51: Coordinating Activities With A Map

Fig.52: (Still) Coordinating Activities With A Map

The Top Ten Most Common Business Problems Mapping Solves

Listing all the benefits Wardley Maps brings to business risks making one sound like a snake-oil salesman, promising a ‘cure all’ for every problem. But, then again, imagine being lost in a foreign city where you don’t speak the language. Someone hands you a map and, suddenly, you can see where you are, what lies ahead (beyond the immediate vicinity) and where your options are for moving forward. In this situation a map would seem like a ‘magic tool’ — if we didn’t already use them every day, everywhere (except in business).

In business, we all seek a clearer understanding of the present and a way to anticipate the future, so we can make decisions about the next course of action. And, just like a map of the city helps you find your way, Wardley Maps can do the same for your business — improving your awareness of the current situation and a develop an acute sense of what lies around the next corner, so you can make better strategic moves.

Let’s explore the top ten most common business problems mapping can help you solve quickly:

Problem #1 — “We Lack Alignment”

Are your teams, departments, or leaders pulling in different directions, chasing conflicting objectives? Is this lack of alignment leading to poor decisions, slow response times and rising costs?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

To foster effective teamwork, organisations need a clear, compelling purpose that everyone understands, is inspired by, and actively works toward.

Yet, most vision (why we do this) and mission statements (what’s in it for users) are generic, uninspiring and lack real substance. They don’t provide purpose, fail to inspire anyone and offer no real direction.

Having a meaningless vision and mission isn’t just a missed opportunity — it’s a serious risk. Without a shared purpose teams develop their own, often conflicting, goals that can cause discord across the organisation.

You can resolve this by completing a PUN template (see chapter 15, fig.38). Be honest and use clear language, especially for question 3, so everyone understands your purpose, finds it credible and aligns with it.

Fig.53: PUN For Team Alignment (@XYZ Gym)

Teams become misaligned when there’s no shared understanding of what they’re doing and why. This often happens when vision and mission statements are hollow marketing rhetoric. By creating and communicating an authentic purpose instead you can attract talent that believes in your vision and is motivated to make your mission (see PUN, question 6) a reality. A shared purpose also helps re-align teams if their focus starts to drift.

Problem #2 — “Our Operations Are Too Complex”

Are you constantly having to put out fires across your organisation, but never get to the root cause of these? Do your operations feel so chaotic that sometimes you wish you could start over and do things differently?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

Modern organisations are complex. They have to juggle unpredictable people — customers and employees — with complicated technology, all while competing with rivals who make unexpected, game-changing moves.

Many leaders respond to this complexity by creating ‘strategic plans’ to try and give them a sense of control — but when you don’t control all the variables, control is merely an illusion.

You can’t control what customers want, what new technologies will emerge (unless you create them), or what your rivals will do next. The only thing that you can control is what happens inside your organisation.

Start by mapping how your organisation delivers value today (chapter 15 fig.40–47), then invite others to challenge and improve your map (chapter 16) to improve your awareness of what’s really happening internally.

Fig.54: Mapping For Awareness (@XYZ Gym)

Operations can seem complex when you can’t see the big picture clearly. This often happens when you rely on fragmented information in PowerPoint or Excel that reveals only a part of the whole picture. Mapping cures this blindness⁠[4]. With a map (see fig.54) you can see the entire landscape clearly, so you can pay attention to what matters. This helps you get ahead of problems early, rather than just reacting to them after they occur.

Problem #3 — “Teams Don’t Work Well Together”

Are your teams stuck in silos, struggling to work effectively with others across the organisation? Are you constantly mediating conflicts between teams that blame each other for failures and inefficiencies?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

Silos, or self-contained teams, enable those with similar technical skills deliver better outcomes more quickly (e.g. finance teams analysing investments, legal teams drafting contracts, marketing running campaigns).

However, problems arise when silos have to collaborate with others that have different skill sets and speak a different Microsoft language⁠5. The result is often miscommunication, misunderstanding or even conflict.

Solve this by using a map to agree what each silo is responsible for and to show their mutual dependencies — how each silo supports other silos so, together, they satisfy user needs and create value for the organisation.

Once this is clear, team leaders can focus on delivering the outcomes their silos are responsible for, while senior leaders only step in when cross-silo coordination issues arise, to align everyone around the big picture.

Fig.55: Mapping For Coordination (@XYZ Gym)

When everyone understands the mission (“what’s in it for users” — see fig.53) and their role in delivering it, internal conflicts decrease. Teams become clear about what’s expected of them and what they can expect from others. Even back-office teams (ex. Teams 2, 4 in fig.55) can see how their work directly contributes to satisfying the needs of end users, by directly supporting other teams and creating value for the organisation.

Problem #4 — “Meetings Are A Waste Of Time”

Do your meetings often descend into political in-fighting, with no clear decisions made? Does this make meetings feel like a waste of time?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

Intra-departmental meetings are often short and productive because people come together to discuss a clear problem they all understand. And, since they share a common language⁠6, they can collaborate effectively.

Inter-departmental meetings are different as they’re called to tackle complex problems that require input from cross-functional teams. But, as participants speak a different ‘language’, reaching agreement can be difficult.

Using a map of your business landscape helps everyone see the situation clearly, aligns them around what matters most (satisfying user needs) and helps them understand each other’s roles in delivering this.

Issues can now be discussed with reference to the map, with agreements about next steps recorded directly on the map for all to see (see fig. 56). The annotated map then becomes the agenda for the next meeting.

Fig.56: Mapping Better Meetings (@XYZ Gym)

At the start of every meeting participants take a few minutes to review the map, reminding them of the various roles each team plays in satisfying user needs and creating value for the organisation. Rather than relying on unread minutes, the map visually displays what was agreed last time and enables you to discuss, in context, what needs to happen next. This taps into collective intelligence and makes meetings far more productive.

Problem #5 — “We Can’t Innovate”

Are your competitors consistently launching new products that users love while you’re struggling to keep up?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

Organisations love efficiency — doing it cheaper or faster — but this is pointless if users don’t want what you’re selling. Prioritising efficiency (doing things right) over innovation (doing the right thing) limits growth:

“The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger, than the wrong thing righter. If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better”.[7]

Innovation doesn’t come from tinkering with an existing product or service. Innovation comes from identifying unmet customer needs⁠8 and developing solutions that can satisfy an untapped market.

However, discovering unmet needs requires more than just running surveys or focus groups, as these can be misleading⁠9. You must take the user’s perspective: think about what users need and how you can satisfy that.

Fig.57: Mapping For Innovation (@XYZ Gym)

Don’t just stick to doing the things you’re good at them — focus instead on providing what users need right now. Get close to your users, listen to their pain points and explore potential solutions. Map out how to ‘do the right thing’ (being effective) and experiment with new products or services that delight users. Only when this is successful should you switch focus to ‘doing it right’ (being efficient) to maximise your returns.

Problem #6 — “We’re Using The Wrong Methods”

Are you unsure whether to ‘go Agile’ to improve performance or ‘outsource everything’ to reduce costs? Are your teams resisting attempts to change the way they work?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

Choosing the right operational methods — Agile, Lean, or outsourcing — is essential to building a profitable business model.

But there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach — different parts of your organisation require different methods, depending on the level of certainty there is about key components.

A map of operations (see fig.58) shows where there’s certainty about components, which can be outsourced safely and where there’s uncertainty, requiring methods focused on learning (Agile) or improvement (Lean).

Choosing the right method depends on context, and that requires a map so you can see what you should be building yourself, what you should be buying from vendors and what you can outsource safely to others.

Fig.58: Mapping For Optimisation (@XYZ Gym)

One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is trying to impose a single method across the entire organisation. While it may succeed in some areas, it will fail in others because the context is different. This is why teams resist major transformation efforts — not because they’re difficult, but because they know the proposed changes won’t work for their situation. A map helps you avoid these costly mistakes.

Problem #7 — “Our People And Culture Aren’t Good Enough”

Do you feel disadvantaged because competitors have better people? Do you think your culture is holding you back?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

A leader from a Fortune 500 company complained to a Netflix executive that they couldn’t compete because Netflix had better talent. “Where did you get them?” he asked. The Netflix executive replied: “From you⁠”.[10]

W. Edwards Deming famously said: “A bad system will beat a good person every time”. So, ask yourself — are you hiring bad people, or are you hiring good people but placing them in a system that makes them bad?

The solution isn’t a massive disruptive re-organisation. Instead, hire for aptitude — bring in people with the right skills — but then match them to challenges that fit their attitude (see fig.59 below).

Even talented people struggle if tasked with challenges that don’t suit their strengths. So, match challenges to aptitude AND attitude (see fig.60) and watch as your people become the talent your competitors envy.

Fig.59: Three Types of Attitude

Fig.60: Mapping For Attitude (@XYZ Gym)

People within a department have similar skills (aptitude) but very different attitudes: Some prefer out-of-the-box thinking and are comfortable taking risks to find novel solutions (innovators); others prefer structured approaches to problem-solving at scale (adaptors); and some, in between, help bride the gap between these two extremes, enabling collaboration (bridgers). Put people in the right context and watch them soar⁠.[11]

Problem #8 — “Our Projects Keep Overrunning”

Are your projects constantly coming in late and over budget?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

The biggest reason projects overrun is due to ‘unknown unknowns’ — problems you didn’t know, that you didn’t know, before the project began.

Many organisations try to minimise risks by bundling activities into one big project, shifting responsibility to someone who can be blamed if things go wrong (see fig.61). But this doesn’t solve the core problems.

The solution is to map out your project before it begins, identify where the ‘unknown unknowns’ are likely — components on the left of the map with high levels of uncertainty — so you can manage them pro-actively.

Create smaller, flexible contracts for components on the left, that allow you to change quickly if issues emerge. Separate these from other contracts on the map to prevent delays from affecting the entire project.

Fig.61: Single Contract Method (@XYZ Gym)

Fig.62: Multiple Contract Method (@XYZ Gym)

Don’t bundle everything into one big project for the sake of accountability. Break projects into smaller, manageable parts and assign the right people and methods. Then invest according to the level of certainty involved — ‘time and materials’ or ‘outcome-based’ approaches for uncertain components on the left, and buy ‘commercially off the shelf’ or ‘unit based’ (pay only for what you use) for components on the right (fig.62).

Problem #9 — “The Future Is Uncertain”

Is uncertainty about your industry’s future preventing you from making big decisions today, in case you focus on the wrong thing and get no return on your investment?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

While the future is uncertain, not everything is unpredictable⁠.[12] You can’t predict what individual companies will do (as you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors) but you can anticipate how an industry will change.

As components in industry Value Chains — the controllable assets used by organisations to create value — evolve, moving to the right on a map and cross into a new stage of evolution, the industry landscape changes.

For example, our map of XYZ Gym (fig.63) shows ‘equipment’ starting to commoditise, as lightweight home exercise versions become widespread. This reduces the need for gyms as users can now exercise at home.

Gyms need to adapt. They might experiment with new technologies, like Virtual Reality to create ‘Immersive Training Environments’, offering extra value-added and giving users a reason to keep visiting the gym.

Fig.63: Anticipating The Future (@XYZ Gym)

When components reach the ‘commodity’ stage of evolution, they lose much of their value as they have become widespread on the market and are no longer exclusive. You can’t stop evolution from happening, but you can stay ahead of the curve by experimenting with emerging technologies and practices that users may care about (top left). This helps you create new sources of value and keeps your organisation competitive.

Problem #10 — “We Need A New Business Model”

Is your industry changing so rapidly that you need to rethink how you make and deliver your products or services in order to survive — let alone thrive?

How Mapping Solves This Problem:

When facing rapid change, it’s tempting to try and copy what successful organisations are doing, thinking this is the safest path to success as it reduces the risk of going off in the wrong direction.

However, copying others has significant drawbacks.[⁠13] You waste resources implementing yesterday’s solutions that made someone else successful, instead of adapting to tomorrow’s realities to make yourself successful.

To create a business model that’s fit for your current situation and helps you to adapt to change, use the information from your map (see fig.62) to fill in the nine categories of a Business Model Canvas (BMC).

Identify any category you can’t answer (see fig.64) as this highlights something important that’s been missed on your map. Map it out in a sub-map (fig.65) then add the key component back into your main map (fig.66).

Fig.64: Business Model Canvas for XYZ Gym — Missing Category In Red (Channels)

Fig.65: Mapping Channels XYZ Gym Will Use To Reach Target Users

Fig.66: Mapping New Business Model @XYZ Gym (Note: ‘Advice’ Added In)

Mapping develops situational awareness — clarity as to what’s really happening inside your organisation, how the wider industry is changing, and where your options for action are. Now you can make better choices about what you should (and shouldn’t) do and how you should do it. This results in a business model that’s uniquely fit for your organisation and situation, rather than being a pale imitation of someone else’s.

The next step is to ‘future-proof’ this business model, ensuring it continues to create value as your industry evolves. This is what we’ll explore in part three. For now, these are the ten most common business problems mapping can help you start solving — some in just a few hours, rather than weeks, months or years.

Wrapping Up

Now we can return to the PUN template we completed above (fig.53) and answer the all-important sixth question — what’s in it for them? In other words, why would busy adults choose XYZ Gym over competitors to achieve their fitness goals?

At XYZ Gym, we’re entirely focused on meeting our users’ needs. We’ve mapped our operations to ensure everyone understands what we’re doing. Every team knows how we all contribute to creating value for the organisation. When we meet, we focus on the big picture — satisfying our users’ needs, not our own.

We’ve listened to these users’ pain points and uncovered some innovative opportunities. We know the right methods to get these solutions to market quickly and have the right people in place to adapt as we go. Our projects are broken down into manageable chunks, so delays in one area won’t derail the entire process.

We’ve decided to create the future of fitness. We’re building personalised fitness programs, custom-designed for each user, tracked with AI-powered monitoring, all within an immersive environment that makes getting fit enjoyable. We’ve cross-checked everything to ensure nothing has been overlooked.

We’re confident in our ability to delight our users, giving them every reason to choose us over competitors. Therefore, the answer to question 6 is: XYZ Gym offers personalised fitness programs, custom-designed for busy adults, with real-time progress tracking powered by AI — all within an immersive environment, ensuring every session feels fresh and engaging.

Fig.67: Finalised PUN for XYZ Gym: Customer Proposition (Question 6)