Climatic PatternsWardley Mapping Body of Knowledge
Explore 28 climatic patterns — the forces that act on the landscape that you cannot stop but can learn to anticipate.
Competitors
Competitors actions will change the game
Climatic patterns depend upon aggregated market effects e.g. evolution through supply & demand competition. You cannot stop them without preventing competition in the market.
Most competitors have poor situational awareness
In general, most competitors act as blind players. When you make a move, they are unlikely to understand why or counter you.
Components
Everything evolves through supply and demand competition
If competition exists then the components affected will evolve until they become industrialised. This impacts activities, practices, data, and knowledge. The map is never static but dynamic.
Evolution consists of multiple waves of diffusion with many chasms
Evolution consists of many instances of the same act. Every instance of an evolving act will diffuse through its applicable market. The path is not smooth, not linear, and has many branches and dead ends.
No choice over evolution
In a competing ecosystem the pressure for adoption increases as more adopt the change. This is the Red Queen effect — you have to continuously adapt to keep still relative to others.
Commoditisation does not equal centralisation
Don't confuse evolution to a commodity with centralisation. They are governed by different factors and an industrialised component can easily yo-yo between centralised and decentralised forms.
Characteristics change as components evolve
The characteristics of a component in the uncharted space are not the same as when it becomes industrialised. This leads to the Salaman & Storey Innovation Paradox — the need to innovate requires polar opposite capabilities to the need to be efficient.
No single method fits all
Because of changing characteristics there is no one size fits all method or technique applicable across an entire landscape. You have to learn to use many approaches.
Components can co-evolve
All components can evolve whether activities, practices, data or knowledge — and they can also co-evolve. This is commonly seen with the co-evolution of practice with the evolution of an activity. DevOps is one such example.
Financial
Higher order systems create new sources of value
It is the genesis of new components, enabling new user needs, that creates future sources of differential value.
Future value is inversely proportional to the certainty we have over it
Genesis of a component is inherently uncertain but has its highest future value. As the component evolves, its potential for differential value declines as it becomes more ubiquitous.
Efficiency does not mean a reduced spend
Evolution results in more efficient provision but should not be confused with a reduction of spending. There is often a long tail of unmet demand that efficiency will enable. This is Jevon's paradox.
Evolution to higher order systems results in increasing energy consumption
The constant evolution of components and creation of higher order systems means we are always moving to a more ordered environment by reducing local entropy, requiring greater amounts of energy.
Capital flows to new areas of value
Financial capital will seek the area of most consistent return. Capital tends to move away from pre-existing product forms and towards more industrialised components and new industries built upon them.
Creative destruction
The combination of inertia, punctuated equilibrium, the Red Queen and co-evolution of practice means that as we shift across a boundary we tend to get rapid destruction of the past along with creation of the new.
Inertia
Success breeds inertia
Any past success with a component will tend to create resistance to changing that component. There are many different forms of inertia.
Inertia increases the more successful the past model is
The more success we have had with a component then the more resistance and bias we have against it changing.
Inertia can kill an organisation
It's not a lack of innovation that harmed companies such as Blockbuster and Kodak but instead inertia to change created by past success.
Prediction
You cannot measure evolution over time or adoption
The only consistent mechanism for measuring evolution is ubiquity and certainty — how well understood, complete and/or fit something is for the environment.
The less evolved something is then the more uncertain it is
By definition, the novel and new are more uncertain than industrialised components such as commodities and utilities.
Not everything is random
Not everything is uncertain. There are aspects which can be anticipated. In some cases you can say what will happen but not when; in other cases you can anticipate both.
Economy has cycles
The economy demonstrates cycles such as the peace, war and wonder cycle. New giants form during peace, past giants fall during war as acts evolve to industrialised forms, and new industries form in wonder.
Two different forms of disruption
There is more than one form of disruption — the unpredictable product to product substitution and the more predictable product to utility substitution, which can be anticipated through weak signals.
A "war" (point of industrialisation) causes organisations to evolve
The industrialisation of an act will tend to cause co-evolution of practice and changes to how organisations operate. If the component is significant, this can lead to a new form of organisation.
Speed
Efficiency enables innovation
Genesis begets evolution begets genesis. The industrialisation of one component enables novel higher order systems to emerge through componentisation effects.
Evolution of communication can increase the speed of evolution overall
If a means of communication evolves to a more industrialised form, the speed of diffusion curves can increase, accelerating the rate at which future components evolve.
Change is not always linear
There can be a perception that change is gradual because one product is replaced by another in the same stage. This illusion of smooth change lulls us into a false sense of security.
Shifts from product to utility tend to demonstrate a punctuated equilibrium
The shift across a boundary (e.g. from custom to product, or product to commodity) tends to visibly exhibit rapid exponential change and a shift from the past.
28 of 28 patterns shown
Explore More of the Body of Knowledge
Climatic patterns describe the forces at play. Explore how characteristics evolve, universal doctrine principles, and context-specific gameplay.