Wardley Mapping Glossary

Wardley Mapping Glossary
This document provides an in-depth glossary of key terms used in Wardley Mapping, a powerful strategic tool for visualising and analysing business landscapes. Each term is accompanied by a detailed explanation and, where applicable, visual representations to aid understanding.
Anchor
In Wardley Mapping, an "Anchor" represents the fundamental user need or purpose that a business is seeking to address. It serves as the starting point for creating and analysing a map, ensuring that the focus remains on delivering value to the end-user. The Anchor is the core driver that shapes the entire business landscape, and all other components on the map should ultimately contribute to fulfilling this central user need.
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User-Centric
The Anchor emphasises the importance of understanding and catering to the needs of the end-user, rather than prioritising internal processes or technological considerations. 
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Strategic Alignment
By keeping the Anchor in mind, businesses can ensure that their strategies and decisions remain aligned with the fundamental purpose they aim to serve.
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Adaptability
As user needs evolve, the Anchor can be re-evaluated and adjusted, allowing businesses to maintain their relevance and adapt to changing market dynamics.
Bias
In the context of Wardley Mapping, "Bias" refers to the tendency to become entrenched in outdated perspectives or solutions, failing to recognise that the situation has changed and more efficient alternatives have emerged. This bias can lead to a lack of adaptability, resulting in the continued use of sub-optimal approaches even when better options are available.
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Echo Chamber
Bias often stems from operating within an echo chamber, where ideas and assumptions are reinforced without being challenged by external perspectives.
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Inertia
Organisational inertia, resistance to change, and the sunk cost fallacy can contribute to the perpetuation of biases, making it difficult to abandon established practices.
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Tunnel Vision
A narrow focus on specific solutions or approaches can lead to tunnel vision, preventing recognition of alternative paths or emerging trends.
Overcoming bias is crucial for businesses to remain agile and adaptable in the face of changing market conditions and technological advancements.
Capability
In Wardley Mapping, a "Capability" refers to the high-level needs or services that an organisation provides to its customers or stakeholders. Capabilities represent the overarching value proposition that a business offers, encapsulating the combined efforts of various components and activities within the organisation.
Customer-Focused
Capabilities are defined from the customer's perspective, emphasising the end-user's needs and expectations rather than internal processes or technologies.
Abstraction Layer
Capabilities serve as an abstraction layer, hiding the underlying complexities and implementation details from the customer, who is primarily concerned with the desired outcome or service.
Strategic Alignment
By identifying and mapping capabilities, organisations can ensure that their strategies, resources, and activities are aligned with delivering value to their customers or stakeholders.
Capital
In the context of Wardley Mapping, "Capital" refers to any asset, resource, or advantage that an organisation can leverage to create value or gain a competitive edge. Capital can take many forms, both tangible and intangible, and can be utilised to influence the business landscape in various ways.
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Monetary Capital
The most obvious form of capital is financial resources, such as cash, investments, or access to funding, which can be used to acquire goods, services, or other assets.
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Reputational Capital
An organisation's reputation, brand recognition, and credibility within its industry or market can serve as a form of capital, influencing customer perceptions and buying decisions.
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Human Capital
The skills, knowledge, and expertise of an organisation's workforce, as well as its ability to attract and retain top talent, can be considered a valuable form of capital.
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Relational Capital
Relationships and partnerships with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders can provide access to resources, knowledge, and opportunities, representing a significant form of capital.
Effective management and strategic deployment of capital can enable organisations to navigate the business landscape more effectively, capitalise on opportunities, and mitigate risks.
Capital Flow
In Wardley Mapping, "Capital Flow" refers to the dynamic movement and exchange of value between different components within a business landscape. It involves the constant flow of resources, investments, and returns across various elements of the map, shaping the overall ecosystem and influencing the evolution of individual components.
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Industrialisation
When a component undergoes industrialisation and becomes more efficient, investors often shift their capital towards businesses operating around the new, improved version, inflating the value of those businesses while deflating the value of older, less efficient ones.
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Higher-Order Components
As higher-order components are developed, new businesses form around them, attracting capital and resources from investors, further influencing the flow of capital across the landscape.
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Value Exchange
On a Wardley Map, there is a constant exchange of value between different components, with each component contributing to and receiving value from others. Understanding these value flows can reveal the cost and risk structures of the map.
Centralisation
In the context of Wardley Mapping, "Centralisation" refers to a trend where one company or entity gains a dominant market position and acquires or out competes its rivals in a particular niche or industry. This concentration of assets and power often results in a monopolistic or oligopolistic market structure.
Market Dominance
Centralisation occurs when a company successfully outmanoeuvres its competitors, either through superior products, services, or business strategies, allowing it to capture a significant portion of the market.
Consolidation
In some cases, centralisation can occur through mergers, acquisitions, or the elimination of competitors, leading to the formation of a single dominant player or a small group of major players.
Barriers to Entry
Centralised markets often have high barriers to entry, making it difficult for new competitors to enter and challenge the established players, further entrenching their market dominance.
While centralisation can lead to efficiencies and economies of scale, it can also raise concerns about monopolistic practices, reduced competition, and potential harm to consumers or smaller businesses.
Cheat Sheet
In the context of Wardley Mapping, a "Cheat Sheet" refers to a reference table or guide that provides a set of secondary characteristics or indicators to help determine the level of evolution of a given component within the business landscape. The Cheat Sheet serves as a valuable tool for mapping practitioners, offering a structured approach to assessing the maturity and potential future trajectory of components.
By evaluating the characteristics of a component against the criteria in the Cheat Sheet, practitioners can more accurately position it on the Wardley Map, enabling better strategic planning and decision-making.
Climate
In Wardley Mapping, the term "Climate" refers to the overarching rules, patterns, and forces that govern and shape the business landscape. The Climate encompasses the external factors, market dynamics, and competitive actions that organisations must navigate and adapt to in order to succeed.
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Market Trends
The Climate includes macro-level trends, such as shifting consumer preferences, technological advancements, and regulatory changes, that can significantly impact the business environment.
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Competitor Actions
The strategies and moves of competitors within the same industry or market are a critical part of the Climate, as they can disrupt the landscape and require organizations to respond accordingly.
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Environmental Factors
External factors like economic conditions, geopolitical events, and natural phenomena can also contribute to the Climate, influencing the business landscape in various ways.
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Industry Dynamics
The Climate encompasses the underlying dynamics and power structures within an industry, such as barriers to entry, network effects, and switching costs, which can shape the competitive landscape.
Understanding and adapting to the Climate is essential for organizations to remain competitive and make strategic decisions that align with the ever-changing business landscape.
Movement
In Wardley Mapping, "Movement" refers to the progression or evolution of components within the business landscape over time. It describes the journey that components undergo as they transition from being novel and innovative to becoming discommoded and ubiquitous.
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Genesis
Components begin their lifecycle in the "Genesis" phase, where they are newly invented or conceptualised, and their potential value is still unknown or unproven.
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Custom-Built
As components gain traction and demand increases, they enter the "Custom-Built" phase, where they are tailored to specific customer needs and often require significant manual effort or customisation.
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Product
As components mature and become more standardised, they reach the "Product" phase, where they are widely available and can be easily purchased or acquired off-the-shelf.
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Commodity
In the final stage, components become "Commodities," where they are highly standardised, widely available, and often treated as interchangeable and undifferentiated by consumers.
Understanding the movement of components is crucial for strategic planning, as it can inform decisions about investing in emerging technologies, optimising existing products, or divesting from discommoded offerings.
Situational Awareness
In the context of Wardley Mapping, "Situational Awareness" refers to the ability to perceive and comprehend the current state of the business landscape, including its dynamics, trends, and potential future trajectories. Maintaining situational awareness is essential for organisations to make informed strategic decisions and adapt to changing market conditions.
Environmental Scanning
Situational awareness involves actively monitoring and analysing external factors, such as competitor actions, emerging technologies, regulatory changes, and consumer preferences, that can impact the business landscape.
Data-Driven Insights
Leveraging data-driven insights and analytics can enhance situational awareness by providing a deeper understanding of market trends, customer behavior, and the performance of various components within the business landscape.
Continuous Learning
Maintaining situational awareness requires a commitment to continuous learning and adaptation, as the business landscape is constantly evolving, and new challenges and opportunities can emerge rapidly.
By cultivating situational awareness, organisations can anticipate potential disruptions, identify emerging opportunities, and make proactive strategic decisions to stay ahead of the competition and navigate the ever-changing business landscape effectively.
Value Chain
In Wardley Mapping, the "Value Chain" refers to the sequence of activities and components involved in creating and delivering a product or service to customers. It represents the interconnected series of steps, from raw materials and inputs to the final offering, that collectively contribute to the generation of value for the end-user.
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Inputs
The Value Chain begins with the acquisition of raw materials, resources, or other inputs required for the production process.
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Transformation
These inputs then undergo a series of transformations, such as manufacturing, assembly, or processing, to create intermediate components or sub-assemblies.
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Integration
The intermediate components are then integrated and combined to produce the final product or service offering.
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Distribution
The finished product or service is then distributed to customers through various channels, such as retail outlets, online platforms, or direct delivery.
Analyzing and optimizing the Value Chain can help organisations identify inefficiencies, streamline processes, and uncover opportunities for cost savings, quality improvements, or competitive differentiation.
Commodification: When Value Emerges from the Unexpected
Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto was created to promote a collaborative, people-centric approach to software development, prioritising working software over documentation and processes.
Scrum Certifications
As Agile methodologies gained popularity, a market emerged for Scrum certifications, introducing a commercial element to the originally non-profit movement.
Changing Natures
Commodification can transform the essence of something, shifting its focus from principles to profit. This can challenge the original intent and values of a concept.
Opportunities and Risks
Commodification can create new business opportunities, but also carries the risk of losing sight of the initial purpose and values that made the concept valuable in the first place.
Commodity: When Value Becomes Ubiquitous
Commoditization
As products or services become widely available, they transition into a commodity state where they hold little brand value and providers offer similar offerings.
Compatibility
In the commodity phase, there is a high level of compatibility between offerings, allowing customers to easily switch between providers based on factors like price or convenience.
Shifting Focus
Customers no longer see the commodity as the end goal, but rather as a means to a higher purpose or need they are trying to fulfill.
Component
A component is a single entity within a Wardley map, representing a fragment of the surrounding reality that is treated as a cohesive unit for the purpose of analysis. Components can be tangible physical objects or intangible concepts.
Identifying the right components is crucial for mapping, as they form the building blocks of the value chain. The boundaries of components are somewhat arbitrary, defined by the mapper to suit the needs of the analysis.
The Process of Componentisation
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Blobs in Genesis
In the early stages of a concept's development, it often starts as a large, amorphous "blob" without clearly defined boundaries.
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Splitting into Components
Over time, this blob will be divided into distinct, manageable components that can evolve independently and be used in other contexts.
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Expanding Possibilities
Componentisation opens up new opportunities, allowing the individual parts to be combined and recombined in novel ways.
Creative Destruction
Creative destruction is a process where an invention or innovation drastically changes the value chain, often disrupting established industries. This can be seen in the transition from newspaper ad sales to digital advertising platforms, where the value is still created but in a fundamentally different way.
Custom-Built: The Artisan's Craft
In the realm of the custom-built, each creation is a unique expression of the artisan's skill and vision. These are not mass-produced items, but rather individually tailored solutions, designed and crafted with meticulous attention to detail for a specific environment or purpose. The focus here is on learning, experimentation, and the mastery of a specialised craft.
Decentralisation
Decentralisation is a trend that runs counter to centralisation. However, it is important to note that the decentralisation of a market, where one provider is replaced by many small companies, rarely happens. Transitions between evolution phases are often the best time to look for such decentralisation.
Additionally, the decentralisation of assets is sometimes used as a buzzword to emphasise that not all assets are directly controlled by the power holder. This can be seen as a form of decentralisation, but it does not necessarily mean that power has been truly decentralised.
Doctrine
Doctrine refers to the fundamental principles and best practices that guide an organisation's operations, regardless of the specific context.
It encompasses the standard ways of operating, the techniques that are consistently applied, and the set of beliefs that are believed to work effectively.
Doctrine helps avoid unforced errors and provides a solid foundation for building and executing strategic initiatives.
The Domains of Evolution
Each Wardley map has three distinct domains - the uncharted space of exploration and uncertainty, the transitional zone as certainty increases, and the industrialised realm of predictability and stability. These domains exhibit different patterns of economic competition and value creation.
Uncharted Domain: High production costs, significant uncertainty, but potentially vast future opportunities. Being first to explore this space can be a burden due to the risks and challenges of research and development.
Transitional Domain: Declining uncertainty, production costs, and increasing volumes lead to the highest profitability. However, as the activity becomes more widespread and well-defined, future opportunity starts to decline.
Industrialized Domain: High certainty, predictability, and volume, but low production costs and unit margins. These mature, commodified activities have minimal differentiation and offer only early-stage replacement opportunities for future innovation.
Duplication
Duplication refers to the tendency of an organisation to repeatedly perform the same actions or construct the same things across different parts of the business, without considering the cost of committing the same errors over and over.
This wasteful practice often results in inefficient resource utilisation and is a common way for organisations to squander their limited assets.
Recognising and addressing duplication within an organisation can lead to significant cost savings and improved operational efficiency.
Environment: The Context and How It Is Changing
The environment in which an organisation operates is constantly evolving, presenting both challenges and opportunities. Understanding the broader context and anticipating how it may change is crucial for strategic decision-making and ensuring long-term success.
Factors such as technological advancements, shifting customer preferences, regulatory changes, and broader economic trends can significantly impact an organisation's landscape. Staying attuned to these environmental shifts allows businesses to adapt and thrive amidst the dynamic landscape.
The Evolution Cheat Sheet
Uncharted
High uncertainty, high costs, vast potential
Transitional
Declining uncertainty, rising volumes, high profitability
Industrialized
High certainty, low costs, commodified
This cheat sheet outlines the four major phases of component evolution, from the highly uncertain and costly Uncharted domain, through the profitable Transitional phase, to the mature and commodified Industrialised realm. Understanding this progression can help organisations anticipate changes, seize opportunities, and adapt their strategies accordingly.
Capital Flow
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Risk Transfer
The movement of risk between components, such as insurance or hedging, allows for better management of uncertainty.
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Financial Transactions
The exchange of money, loans, or investments facilitates the mobilisation of capital across the value chain.
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Information Sharing
The transfer of knowledge, data, and insights between components enables informed decision-making and coordination.
Gameplay: Maximizing Well-being
Customer Isolation: Strategically limiting access to competitors to protect your customer base.
Basic Constraints: Leveraging rules and limitations to your advantage, creating barriers to entry.
Embrace & Extend: Adopting and enhancing existing technologies or practices to outpace the competition.
Threat Acquisition: Proactively acquiring or neutralizing potential threats to your market position.
Signal Distortion: Obscuring or manipulating information to confuse and mislead rivals.
Vertical Movements: Strategically expanding your value chain to capture more of the profit pool.
Fighting with "Open": Utilizing open-source technologies or standards to undermine closed ecosystems.
Influencing Customers: Shaping customer preferences and behaviors to align with your offerings.
Dealing with Toxicity: Mitigating the negative impacts of competitive or unethical practices.
Genesis
The first stage of evolution, characterised by a non-existent market, high uncertainty, and vast potential. This represents the unique, the rare, the constantly changing, and the newly discovered. The focus is on exploration and discovering new possibilities.
Industrialization: The Path to Efficiency
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The Transition
Components evolve from the Product Evolution phase to the Commodity/Utility phase, marked by increased efficiency and the unlocking of a long tail of unmet needs.
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The Revolutions
This transition often sparks a 'revolution' - the Internet Revolution, the Industrial Revolution - as the world adapts to the new realities and capabilities unlocked by industrialization.
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Increased Accessibility
Industrialization makes previously rare or inaccessible components widely available, transforming them into commodities that can meet the diverse needs of the mass market.
Industrialised Domains
Industrialised domains are characterised by high certainty, predictability, and efficiency. The activities in these domains have become commonplace, with low production costs and low unit margins.
Industrialization transforms previously rare or inaccessible components into widely available commodities, meeting the diverse needs of the mass market. These domains are not seen as differential but as an expected norm.
Overcoming Inertia
Inertia, the resistance to change, can be a significant barrier to progress. People often cling to the status quo, finding real and imagined reasons to justify why they shouldn't adapt or evolve. Overcoming this inertia requires understanding the different types of resistance and addressing them proactively.
Innovation
Innovation refers to the first attempt to put an idea into practice, according to Professor Jan Fagerberg's definition. This process of translating concepts into real-world solutions is a crucial driver of progress and change.
The Innovation Paradox
Spontaneous Innovation
Innovation is a spontaneous act, driven by creativity and the desire to introduce new solutions.
Nurturing Conditions
While innovation cannot be forced, certain disciplined practices can create favourable conditions for it to thrive.
Striking the Balance
However, if the discipline becomes too rigid, it can stifle innovation and creativity, leading to a paradox.
Adaptive Approach
The key is to find the right balance between structure and flexibility, allowing innovation to flourish within a supportive environment.
Interface and Connection Between Components
The interface is the connection point between different components, enabling them to interact and work together seamlessly. This interconnectivity is crucial for systems to function effectively, allowing the exchange of information, resources, and capabilities.
Designing intuitive and efficient interfaces is essential for optimising the flow and integration of components, ensuring a smooth and integrated user experience.
Jevon's Effect: The Paradox of Increased Efficiency
The Jevon's effect describes a counterintuitive phenomenon where increased efficiency in the use of a resource actually leads to higher overall consumption. This often occurs during the industrialization of a component, as seen with more efficient steam engines that ended up consuming more coal.
The reason is that the improved efficiency makes the resource more affordable and accessible, leading to its adoption in new applications and expanded usage across the economy. This highlights the complex dynamics at play during technological progress and the importance of considering unintended consequences.
John Boyd's OODA Loop
The OODA Loop, developed by military strategist John Boyd, is a decision-making framework that emphasises the importance of adaptability and continuous learning. It describes a cyclic process of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act, enabling individuals and organisations to respond rapidly to changing circumstances.
The Landscape
User Needs
The current landscape is focused on delivering value to users through a combination of established components and emerging solutions. Key user needs being addressed include convenience, customisation, and seamless integration.
Control and Influence
In this landscape, different stakeholders exert varying degrees of control and influence over the available components. Centralised entities maintain strict oversight, while decentralised actors work to disrupt the status quo.
Obstacles and Opportunities
The landscape is not without its challenges, as users navigate a complex environment of legacy systems, regulatory hurdles, and technological barriers. However, pockets of innovation and creativity present opportunities for those willing to adapt and innovate.
Evolving Dynamics
As the landscape continues to shift, the balance of power and the dominant components are in constant flux. Anticipating and responding to these changes will be crucial for maintaining a competitive edge.
Pioneers
Pioneers are brilliant visionaries who boldly explore uncharted territories, creating 'crazy' ideas that pave the way for future success. Though their innovations often seem like magic and face initial scepticism, pioneers push the boundaries of what's possible, like the inventors of the Parthian Battery and the first digital computer.
Position
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Visible
The most important components, closest to the user
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Moderately Visible
Components that provide key functionality
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Less Visible
Supporting components, further from the user
The position of components on the Wardley map represents their visibility and importance to the user. Components at the top are most visible and crucial, while those lower down provide supporting functionality. This hierarchy reflects the user's needs and the relative value of each component.
Practice
Practice is a special type of component that defines how to do things.
It's the only way to get fluent with Wardley maps, as mapping is a tacit skill.
Therefore, practice, practice, practice is the key to mastering this technique. 🧑‍🏫
Product (rental)
This represents the increasingly common, the manufactured through a repeatable process, the more defined, the better understood. Change becomes slower here. Whilst there exists differentiation, particularly in the early stages, there is increasing stability and sameness. You will often see many of the same products. The focus is on refining and improving these offerings.
Productisation
Productisation is the process of transforming a custom-built solution into a standardised, repeatable product that can be packaged and sold on the market. This involves identifying core functionalities, designing intuitive interfaces, and streamlining the delivery and support processes.
Purpose
Your purpose is your moral imperative - the scope of what you're doing and why you're doing it. It's the reason others follow you, the driving force behind your actions.
The Red Queen Effect
Constant Improvement
The Red Queen Effect states that to maintain your position, you must continually improve and adapt. In business, this means that even if you are currently successful, you must constantly strive to get better to stay ahead of the competition.
Avoiding Stagnation
The Red Queen Effect warns against complacency. If you stop innovating and improving, you will quickly fall behind as your competitors catch up and surpass you. To survive, you must embrace continuous change and evolution.
Creative Destruction
The Red Queen Effect can lead to a cycle of creative destruction, where successful products and business models are constantly being replaced by newer, more efficient ones. This dynamic ensures that the market remains competitive and constantly evolving.
Applying the Concept
Businesses can apply the Red Queen Effect by continuously investing in research and development, adapting to changing customer needs, and embracing new technologies. Staying ahead of the competition requires a mindset of constant improvement and innovation.
Servitization: Evolving from Products to Services
Servitization is the transformation from a traditional product-centric business model to one that focuses on providing comprehensive services and solutions. It goes beyond simply offering add-on services, and instead seeks to understand the core needs of customers and delivering value through integrated offerings.
Identifying the key uses and dependencies of the core product
Bundling the product with complementary services to address those needs
Delivering an integrated solution that provides greater value for the customer
Servitization is not just about adding services, but about rethinking the entire business model to place the customer's needs at the center. It requires a deep understanding of the value chain and the ability to coordinate diverse capabilities to create tailored offerings.
Settlers: Turning Prototypes into Profitable Products
Settlers are the brilliant people who can transform half-baked ideas into useful products for a wider audience. They excel at building trust, understanding, and making the possible future a reality. Settlers take prototypes and turn them into profitable, manufacturable products, listening closely to customer needs along the way.
Settlers were behind the creation of some of the earliest computer products, such as the IBM 650, as well as pioneering work in generators like Hippolyte Pixii's and Siemens'. Their applied research and differentiation are what drive innovation and bring new concepts to the mainstream.
Signals
Signals are indicators that provide insight into the current state and potential future of a system or environment.
They can come from internal sources like product usage data, or external sources like market trends and competitor actions.
Analysing signals helps identify emerging opportunities and threats, enabling more informed strategic decisions.
Situational Awareness
Situational awareness is the level of understanding you have about your environment and the ability to anticipate how it will unfold. The more aware you are, the less you will be surprised by how a situation develops. Situational awareness can be measured in terms of the quality of decisions made (product-oriented) or the effectiveness of the tools and processes used for scanning and analysis (process-oriented).
Spend Control
Spend Control is a mandatory process that encourages organisations to map their strategic landscape before investing significant resources. It adds a mapping step to the project execution process, requiring approval from a designated governing body before a project can proceed.
Mapping becomes a required activity before committing resources
A review board or strategic unit must approve the mapping analysis
This helps ensure alignment with overall organizational strategy and priorities
Stages of Evolution
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Genesis
The first emergence of a new idea or technology.
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Custom-Built
Crafting unique, one-off solutions for specialised needs.
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Product
Standardising and scaling to meet growing demand.
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Commodity
When a product becomes ubiquitous and undifferentiated.
As a concept or technology evolves, it progresses through distinct stages - from the initial spark of an idea, to custom-tailored solutions, to mass-produced products, and eventually reaching commodity status when it becomes widely available and interchangeable. Understanding this trajectory is crucial for strategizing and capitalizing on emerging opportunities.
Strategy: A Context-Specific Approach
Situational Awareness
Effective strategy requires deep understanding of the environment. Continuously scanning for signals and trends enables anticipating how the landscape might evolve.
Adaptability
Strategy should not be rigid. It must remain flexible to adapt to changing circumstances and seize emerging opportunities. Embracing iterative learning is key.
Alignment
Strategy aligns the organisation's capabilities, resources and actions towards a shared purpose. It coordinates efforts across the value chain to maximise impact.
Competitive Edge
Great strategy leverages an organisation's unique strengths to create differentiated value. It positions the firm to out compete rivals in a sustainable way.
Town Planners
Town Planners are brilliant people who can take an idea or technology and industrialise it, taking advantage of economies of scale. They possess immense skill in finding ways to make things faster, better, smaller, more efficient, and more economical - turning them into commodities or utilities that we all depend upon.
Transitional Domains: The Zenith and the Decline
Transitional domains are associated with reducing uncertainty, declining production costs, and increasing volumes - leading to the highest profitability. However, as the environment becomes more predictable, the future opportunity also declines. The act is becoming more widespread, well understood, and well-defined, signalling the industry's zenith of wealth creation. Yet, the future is looking decidedly less rosy for the industry itself.
Uncertainty in Adoption
Uncertainty is a key factor in the adoption of new technologies or solutions. Potential users may lack confidence that a given offering will meet their needs, creating hesitation and slowing the pace of adoption.
Addressing uncertainty through clear communication, demonstrating value, and reducing perceived risk can help accelerate the adoption process.
Uncharted
Uncharted domain is associated with high production costs and high levels of uncertainty, but potentially very high future opportunity. Being first is not always the best option due to the burden and risks of research and development.
User Needs
Understand the user's key requirements and pain points
Identify the essential functionalities and features the user needs
Determine the user's level of technical expertise and adapt the solution accordingly
Ensure the solution solves the user's real problems in an intuitive and efficient manner
Continuously gather user feedback to refine and improve the offering
The Utility Phase of Evolution
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Infrastructure Emerges
In the utility phase, infrastructure like electricity grids and cloud computing platforms emerge to seamlessly deliver the required components and services to users.
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Convenience and Accessibility
Users no longer have to worry about obtaining or installing things themselves. The necessary infrastructure is in place to make the component or service readily available on-demand.
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Commoditization and Ubiquity
As the infrastructure matures, the component becomes a ubiquitous utility, like electricity or water - something that is easily accessible and taken for granted.
The Value Chain
Customers
End-users with specific needs and preferences.
Products/Services
Offerings that address customer requirements.
Components
Building blocks that make up the products/services.
Suppliers
Providers of the necessary components and materials.
The value chain is a diagram that represents the interconnected components and relationships within a system. It helps visualise how different elements, from suppliers to customers, work together to deliver value. By understanding the value chain, organisations can optimise their operations and focus on the most critical parts of the process.
Visibility in the Value Chain
Visibility refers to the distance between the user and a particular component or element in the value chain. The more intermediary components there are, the less visible that component becomes to the end-user. This can impact the user's understanding and appreciation of the overall system.
Wardley Mapping
A Wardley Map is a powerful visual tool that represents a value chain on a two-dimensional diagram. The horizontal axis depicts the Visibility of each component to the end-user, while the vertical axis shows the Evolution of those components over time.
By mapping out the value chain in this way, organizations can gain deep insights into their business, identify opportunities, and make strategic decisions more effectively.
Weak Signals
Weak signals are seemingly insignificant events that, upon closer inspection, may indicate impending changes. They are based on correlation and can be easily concealed or spoiled, making them difficult to detect. However, if anticipated, these signals can provide valuable insights into larger shifts happening within an organisation or industry.
Your customer starts avoiding you before a contract renewal
The CEO of a company steps down due to personal reasons
Your company undergoes a third reorganisation within the same year
These types of events, though seemingly minor, can serve as early warning signs of more significant changes to come. Paying attention to weak signals and anticipating their implications can help organisations stay ahead of the curve and make more informed strategic decisions.
Why of Movement
Embrace adaptability - the ability to pivot and respond to changing needs is key for success.
Unlock new opportunities - by exploring unfamiliar territory, you can discover innovative solutions.
Gain a competitive edge - staying ahead of the curve allows you to anticipate and capitalise on market shifts.
The Why of Purpose
A common goal-based focus for business strategy, purpose is typically expressed in company mission and vision statements. This unifying principle can drive organizations to achieve remarkable outcomes, from winning a game to reaching for the stars.