Purpose

In Wardley Mapping, Purpose is "the game" being played. It defines the scope of what you are doing and why you are doing it. It may be a moral imperative or just what motivates you to come to work every day.

Purpose is the first step in the strategy cycle. Because many leaders do not understand the importance of Landscape, Climate, and Doctrine, they commonly shortcut the cycle and jump straight from Purpose to strategic decisions in Leadership. This "strategy by gut feel" is an inadequate approach for strategic thought.

Strategy Cycle courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The climate may affect your purpose, the environment may affect your strategy and your actions may affect all... Your purpose isn’t fixed, it changes as your landscape changes and as you act. There is no “core”, it’s all transitional.

Landscape

A map of physical terrain is visual, specific to the battle at hand, and includes the position of troops and obstacles relative to an anchor (magnetic North).

Twelfth Army Group situation map, 1944. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

A map of a competitive business Landscape (a Wardley Map) is also visual and context-specific, but instead of magnetic North, the anchor is the User being served and their corresponding needs. And instead of troops, the map contains a value chain — capabilities necessary to fulfill the needs, arranged according to their dependency relationships.

The position of the capabilities on a Wardley Map is dependent on two aspects:

1. Visibility to the user, which is a natural outcome of a component's relative position within the value chain, manually adjusted as needed.
2. Evolutionary stage, as determined through evaluation of the component's general properties and characteristics.

Courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Making a Map

Wardley Mapping is a straight-forward process, and most difficulties boil down to concerns about making "mistakes" or doing the "wrong" thing. It is much more valuable to discard these concerns up-front, embrace the messiness of the process, and learn by boldly doing.

The process of mapping is also the process of constructing a model of reality. An incorrect model that is also useful is the definition of success.

To make a map:

1. Identify the Users being served
2. Identify the Needs to be met (think of these as top-level Capabilities)
3. Identify the Capabilities needed to successfully meet those needs
4. Determine the stage of Evolution for each Capability by evaluating its characteristics (if it's difficult to decide, try breaking the Capability down into multiple, smaller Capabilities)
5. Draw the complete value chain — User at the top, Needs and Capabilities underneath, with dependency relationships included and Capabilities placed in Stages I, II, III, or IV of Evolution

The process can also look something like this...

1. Users and Needs

Courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

2. Capabilities

Courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

3. Value Chain

Courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

4. Wardley Map

Courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Capability Types

Capabilities can be Activities (what we do), Practices (how we do it), Data (how we measure it), or Knowledge (how we understand it). Their manifestations in the different stages are shown below.

Stage of Evolution	I	II	III	IV
Activities	Genesis	Custom	Product (+rental)	Commodity (+utility)
Practices	Novel	Emerging	Good	Best
Data	Unmodelled	Divergent	Convergent	Modelled
Knowledge	Concept	Hypothesis	Theory	Accepted

Evolutionary Characteristics Cheat Sheet

The list of characteristics below may help as you determine how evolved something is. If you like, you can click cells to highlight them as you think.

Don’t worry if some of the terms are confusing... just use what you can. Like Chess, mapping is a craft and you will get better with practice.

Stage of Evolution	I	II	III	IV
Characteristics
Ubiquity	Rare	Slowly increasing consumption	Rapidly increasing consumption	Widespread and stabilising
Certainty	Poorly understood	Rapid increases in learning	Rapid increases in use / fit for purpose	Commonly understood (in terms of use)
Publication Types	Normally describe the wonder of the thing	Build / construct / awareness and learning	Maintenance / operations / installation / features	Focused on use
General Properties
Market	Undefined market	Forming market	Growing market	Mature market
Knowledge management	Uncertain	Learning on use	Learning on operation	Known / accepted
Market perception	Chaotic (non-linear)	Domain of experts	Increasing expectations of use	Ordered (appearance of being linear) / trivial
User perception	Different / confusing / exciting / surprising	Leading edge / emerging	Common / disappointed if not used or available	Standard / expected
Perception in industry	Competitive advantage / unpredictable / unknown	Competitive advantage / ROI / case examples	Advantage through implementation / features	Cost of doing business / accepted
Focus of value	High future worth	Seeking profit / ROI?	High profitability	High volume / reducing margin
Understanding	Poorly understood / unpredictable	Increasing understanding / development of measures	Increasing education / constant refinement of needs / measures	Believed to be well defined / stable / measurable
Comparison	Constantly changing / a differential / unstable	Learning from others / testing the water / some evidential support	Feature difference	Essential / operational advantage
Failure	High / tolerated / assumed	Moderate / unsurprising but disappointed	Not tolerated, focus on constant improvement	Operational efficiency and surprised by failure
Market action	Gambling / driven by gut	Exploring a "found" value	Market analysis / listening to customers	Metric driven / build what is needed
Efficiency	Reducing the cost of change (experimentation)	Reducing cost of waste (Learning)	Reducing cost of waste (Learning)	Reducing cost of deviation (Volume)
Decision drivers	Heritage / culture	Analysis & synthesis	Analysis & synthesis	Previous experience

Based on Simon Wardley's Evolutionary Characteristics Cheat Sheet, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Climate

While understanding the competitive Landscape is extremely helpful, it's also important to understand the Climate — the external forces acting upon it. These are the broader rules of the game, the patterns of the seasons, and competitor actions.

Below are two patterns you've already encountered.

Pattern 1: Everything Evolves Through Supply and Demand Competition

If the conditions exist that a person or groups of people will strive to gain some form of advantage or control over others due to a constraint (i.e. a limitation of a resource or time or money or people) then we have competition.

If competition exists then the components effected will evolve until they become industrialised. This impacts everything from activities (what we do), practices (how we do something), data (how we measure something) to knowledge (how we understand something).

Genesis	Custom	Product (+rental)	Commodity (+utility)
Focus on exploring	Focus on learning and developing the craft	Focus on refining and improving	Focus on ruthlessly removing deviation, industrialising, and increasing operational efficiency

Pattern 2: Characteristics Change as Capabilities Evolve

The characteristics of a component in the uncharted space are not the same as the characteristics of the same component when it becomes industrialised.

A company has to manage both the extremes along with the evolution between them. It’s really important to remember that there is a transition from uncharted to industrialised. Don’t organise by the extremes alone.

Uncharted		Industrialised
Chaotic		Ordered
Uncertain		Known
Unpredictable		Measured
Changing		Stable
Different		Standard
Exciting		Obvious
Future Worth		Low Margin
Unusual		Essential
Rare		Ubiquitous
Poorly Understood		Defined
Experimentation		Volume Operations
Differential		Operational Efficiency
Competitive Advantage		Cost of Doing Business

Table of Climatic Patterns

Below are Climatic Patterns that can be studied and integrated into strategic thinking about Competition, Components (Capabilities), Finances, Inertia, Prediction, and Speed. Mouse over each cell for more detailed descriptions.

Competitors	Competitors actions will change the game	Most competitors have poor situational awareness
Components	Everything evolves through supply and demand competition	Evolution consists of multiple waves of diffusion with many chasms	No choice over evolution	Commoditisation does not equal Centralisation
	Characteristics change as components evolve	No single method fits all	Components can co-evolve
Financial	Higher order systems create new sources of value	Future value is inversely proportional to the certainty we have over it.	Efficiency does not mean a reduced spend	Evolution to higher order systems results in increasing energy consumption
	Capital flows to new areas of value	Creative Destruction
Inertia	Success breeds inertia	Inertia increases the more successful the past model is	Inertia can kill an organisation
Prediction	You cannot measure evolution over time or adoption	The less evolved something is then the more uncertain it is	Not everything is random	Economy has cycles
	Two different forms of disruption	A “war” (point of industrialisation) causes organisations to evolve
Speed	Efficiency enables innovation	Evolution of communication can increase the speed of evolution overall	Change is not always linear	Shifts from product to utility tend to demonstrate a punctuated equilibrium

Courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Doctrine

With an understanding of the Landscape and the external forces acting on it (Climate), next is the training of your people in the standard ways of operating and the techniques that you almost always should apply.

Below is one of the doctrinal principals worth considering carefully.

Principle 1: Use Appropriate Methods

In any large system, multiple methods (e.g., agile or lean or six sigma) may be used at the same time. You will need to be mindful of the particular context where each is appropriate.

Courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Table of Doctrinal Principles

Below are Doctrinal Principles that can be studied and integrated into organizational behavior. Simon recommends starting with the basics (Phase 1). Mouse over each cell for more detailed descriptions, and click cells multiple times to make a self assessment, rotating through weak, warning, good, and neutral (undetermined) statuses.

Phase 1: Stop Self-Destructive Behavior

Communication	Use a common language (necessary for collaboration)	Challenge assumptions (speak up and question)	Focus on high situational awareness (understand what is being considered)
Development	Know your users (e.g. customers, shareholders, regulators, staff)	Focus on user needs	Remove bias and duplication	Use appropriate methods (e.g. agile vs lean vs six sigma)
Learning	Use a systematic mechanism of learning (a bias towards data)
Operations	Think small (as in know the details)

Phase 2: Becoming More Context Aware

Communication	Be transparent (a bias towards open)
Development	Focus on the outcome not a contract (e.g. worth based development)	Be pragmatic (it doesn't matter if the cat is black or white so long as it catches mice)	Use appropriate tools (e.g. mapping, financial models)	Think fast, inexpensive, restrained, and elegant (FIRE, formerly FIST)
	Use standards where appropriate
Leading	Move fast (an imperfect plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed tomorrow)	Strategy is iterative not linear (fast reactive cycles)
Learning	A bias towards action (learn by playing the game)
Operations	Manage failure	Manage inertia (e.g. existing practices, political capital, previous investment)	Effectiveness over efficiency
Structure	Think aptitude and attitude	Think small (as in teams, "two pizza")	Distribute power and decision making

Phase 3: Better for Less

Leading	Be the owner (take responsibility)	Think big (inspire others, provide direction)	Strategy is complex (there will be uncertainty)	Commit to the direction, be adaptive along the path (crossing the river by feeling the stones)
	Be humble (listen, be selfless, have fortitude)
Learning	A bias towards the new (be curious, take appropriate risks)
Operations	Optimise flow (remove bottlenecks)	Do better with less (continual improvement)	Set exceptional standards (great is just not good enough)
Structure	Seek the best	Provide purpose, mastery, & autonomy

Phase 4: Continuously Evolving

Leading	Exploit the landscape	There is no core (everything is transient)
Learning	Listen to your ecosystems (acts as future sensing engines)
Structure	Design for constant evolution	There is no one culture (e.g. pioneers, settlers and town planners)

Adapted by Tasshin Fogleman from this tweetstorm and Better for Less, courtesy of Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Additional Instructions

By examining the doctrine in an organization, you can get an idea of how adaptable it is and how well it will respond to external change or gameplay. You can do this with your own organization, or with other organizations.

In-person? Gather several people from different levels of the organization and perform the above self-assessment together. Distributed? See this form-based assessment by Justin Stach.

Once you've assessed the current state of doctrine in your organization, you can go about addressing areas of weakness, starting with the first phase.

Leadership (Gameplay)

Given your Purpose, the Landscape, the Climate, and your Doctrine, now you can make an informed decision about which strategy is appropriate for the context and take action against it.

Conditions and Consequences

For most of us, the traditional idea behind strategy is the deployment of people against some objective. "If we do X, then we will achieve Y!" This approach entails a "means-ends" model, which creates only first-order effects and limits leadership to the choice of which objective to pursue.

An alternative approach is to examine the conditions that would make desirable consequences inevitable. Instead of pursuing one particular objective, the cultivation of the inherent potential within the situation to enable second-order effects makes many different desirable outcomes possible. Means-ends thinking is tactical in nature, while conditions-consequences thinking makes a grand-strategic approach possible.

Think of it like tending a garden. What are the conditions that enable life? Success isn't about putting seeds in the ground. Success is an inevitable outcome when the seeds, soil, lighting, watering, weeding, pruning, pest control, temperature, and seasons are all considered and integrated into a complete picture of what it means to have a garden. Any one of those conditions can threaten the success of the garden if not accounted for.

When you map, think about second-order interventions. Once you get past the basic doctrinal problems, like correcting bias, reducing duplication, focusing on user needs, and making maps in general, you'll start to reflect your more strategic intentions in the maps themselves (e.g., "We want to accelerate the evolution of this component."). The least brilliant thing to do at this point, however, is to brute force your way to that outcome.

Instead, study the inherent potential of the context closely. What are the indirect options that create multiple desirable possibilities, of which that outcome is one? See Deciphering Sun Tzu for a more in-depth exploration of these ideas.

Table of Stratagems

Accelerators	Open approaches	Co-operation	Exploiting network effects	Industrial policy
	Market enablement
De-accelerators	Exploiting constraint	IPR	Creating constraints
Dealing with toxicity	Pig in a poke	Sweat and Dump	Disposal of liability	Refactoring
Ecosystem	Sensing Engines (ILC)	Two factor markets	Alliances	Channel conflicts & disintermediation
	Co-creation	Co-opting and intercession	Embrace and extend	Tower and moat
User Perception	Fear, uncertainty and doubt	Artificial competition	Brand and marketing	Bundling
	Confusion of choice	Creating artificial needs	Education	Lobbying / counterplay
Attacking	Centre of gravity	Directed investment	Experimentation	Fool's mate
	Playing both sides	Press release process	Undermining barriers to entry
Competitor	Ambush	Circling and probing	Fragmentation play	Misdirection
	Reinforcing competitor inertia	Restriction of movement	Sapping	Talent raid
Defensive	Defensive regulation	Limitation of competition	Managing inertia	Procrastination
	Raising barriers to entry	Threat acquisition
Markets	Buyer / supplier power	Differentiation	Harvesting	Last man standing
	Pricing policy	Signal distortion	Standards game	Trading
Poison	Designed to fail	Insertion	Licensing play
Positional	Fast follower	First mover	Land grab	Weak signal / horizon

Based on Simon Wardley's, On 61 Different Forms of Gameplay, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A Scenario

As an example, where might you focus in the below scenario (view in MapScript) if you wanted to increase competition around content?

Image produced with MapScript, based on a scenario by Simon Wardley, CC BY-SA 4.0.

View one possible answer...