Gameplay in Wardley MappingAn Introduction to Context-Specific Play

Gameplay is the set of actions you can take to create the most advantageous situation for your organisation. Unlike doctrine, which applies everywhere, a play only works in the right context, so start with your map. Below are a few plays, what each does to the landscape, and the risks some of them carry. The Gameplay Patterns page lists the full set.

Speeding Up or Slowing Down Evolution

Many plays change how fast a component evolves. You might speed one up to erode a rival's differentiation, or slow one down to protect a position you already hold.

Open Approaches

Making a source, data, or practice open lowers the barrier to adoption. More people can use and improve it, so it evolves faster towards Commodity. The Gameplay Patterns catalogue lists it as an accelerator.

IPR

Intellectual property rights, such as patents, copyright, and trademarks, can slow evolution by limiting competition, sometimes ring-fencing a component entirely. The cost is that you may also hold back the ecosystem that would otherwise build on it.

Exploiting Constraint

Find a constraint and reinforce it through supply or demand, for example by pushing demand beyond what a single player can supply. The market then fragments rather than consolidating around that player.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

Sowing doubt about a new entrant exploits customers' inertia to change. It slows evolution and forces the entrant to spend energy answering accusations instead of developing. It trades on doubt rather than evidence, so it can cost you trust.

Dealing with Toxic Components

A toxic component is a liability you would be better off without, such as a legacy system that costs more to run than it is worth. Some plays for getting rid of one are unethical. Pig in a poke depends on the buyer not seeing what they are getting, which can amount to misrepresentation and carry legal risk. Knowing these plays helps you spot them when someone uses them on you. If you are considering a divestment, take legal advice.

Disposal of Liability

Getting rid of the component yourself. Expect resistance: your own organisation is likely to fight the disposal, even of something clearly toxic.

Refactoring

Spending money on development to make the component more efficient, so it costs less to keep.

Sweat and Dump

Disposing of a legacy liability onto a third party by exploiting that party's own inertia to change.

Pig in a Poke

Dressing up a liability as some form of future business before divesting it to a third party. Of the plays here, this is the one most likely to cross ethical and legal lines.

Building on Ecosystems

Ecosystem plays use the activity of others to strengthen your position. Both of these rely on network effects and on the data that comes with scale.

Two Factor Markets

Bring providers and consumers together in one place. Each side draws in more of the other, and the aggregated data from their interactions shows you how the market is changing.

Sensing Engines (ILC)

Be the first to industrialise a component as a utility, let others build new products on it, and use the consumption data to spot which of those products are spreading. You then industrialise those in turn.

Anticipating Change with Climatic Patterns

Plays work with the climate, not against it. Climatic patterns are the forces that act on every map whatever you do, such as "Everything evolves through supply and demand competition", "Success breeds inertia", and "No choice over evolution". Knowing which patterns apply to a component tells you how it is likely to move, and that narrows the plays open to you. Open approaches, for example, speed up an evolution that is already under way, while IPR and FUD can slow it but not stop it.

Choosing a Play

Gameplay is ever-evolving. A play that works today may stop working once a component evolves or a competitor responds. Get the basics of doctrine right first: principles such as "Know your users" and "Focus on user needs" apply whatever the context, while a play fits only a particular one. Then map your landscape, check which climatic patterns apply, and pick plays that fit. Once you act, update the map and reassess.

Sources

Adapted from Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Material adapted from these sources is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.