Key Takeaways
1. Impact Mapping: Aligning Business and Delivery
Impact mapping helps to create better plans and roadmaps that ensure alignment of business and delivery, and are easily adaptable to change.
Bridge the gap. Impact mapping is a strategic planning technique designed to bridge the communication gap between business objectives and software delivery. It helps organizations avoid building products that miss the mark by ensuring that everyone involved understands the underlying assumptions and goals. This alignment reduces wasted effort and scope creep, focusing teams on delivering value that directly contributes to business outcomes.
Visual collaboration. The method promotes collaborative strategic planning, bringing together senior technical and business people to create a shared understanding. By visualizing the relationships between deliverables, impacts, actors, and goals, impact mapping facilitates better decision-making and adaptability in the face of change. It's not just about shipping software; it's about making a real impact.
Fits current trends. Impact mapping fits nicely into several current trends in software product management and release planning, including goal-oriented requirements engineering, frequent iterative delivery, agile and lean software methods, lean startup product development cycles, and design thinking.
2. The Four Core Questions: Why, Who, How, What
An impact map is a visualisation of scope and underlying assumptions, created collaboratively by senior technical and business people.
Mind-map structure. Impact mapping revolves around answering four core questions that form the structure of a mind map: Why (the goal), Who (the actors), How (the impacts), and What (the deliverables). This structure ensures that all aspects of a project are considered in relation to each other, creating a clear and coherent plan. The collaborative nature of the process ensures that diverse perspectives are incorporated.
Interconnected elements. The "Why" sits at the center, representing the business goal. The "Who" identifies the actors who can influence the outcome. The "How" describes the desired behavioral changes or impacts. The "What" lists the deliverables or features that support those impacts. This interconnectedness helps teams understand the rationale behind each deliverable.
Dynamic visualization. By visualizing these elements, impact mapping provides a dynamic roadmap that can be easily adapted as new information becomes available. It's not a static plan but a living document that evolves with the project, ensuring that the team remains focused on the most important objectives.
3. Goals: The "Why" Behind Every Project
Knowing why we're doing something is the key to making good decisions about cost, scope and timelines, both at the start and later when things change.
Central importance. The "Why" question, representing the project's goal, is at the heart of impact mapping. Defining a clear and measurable goal is crucial for aligning the team and making informed decisions about scope, cost, and timelines. Without a well-defined goal, projects can easily lose focus and deliver features that don't contribute to business objectives.
SMART goals. Good goals tend to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Timely. They should focus on the problem to be solved, not the solution, and should have an obvious link to money for commercial products and organizations. Examples include "Starting to trade in Brazil by March next year" or "Increasing user conversion by 20% in three months."
Guide decision-making. By keeping the goal at the center of the map, impact mapping ensures that everyone knows why they are doing something. This helps teams align their activities better, identify true requirements, and design better solutions. The goal serves as a constant reference point for evaluating decisions and prioritizing tasks.
4. Actors: Identifying Key Influencers
To deliver high-quality results, we first have to understand who these people are, and what kind of value they are looking for from our products or project outcomes.
People matter. The "Who" question focuses on identifying the actors who can influence the project's outcome, including end-users, decision-makers, and stakeholders. Understanding their needs, goals, and preferences is essential for delivering high-quality results. Software doesn't work in a vacuum; it interacts with people who have their own agendas.
Three types of actors:
- Primary actors: whose goals are fulfilled
- Secondary actors: who provide services
- Off-stage actors: who have an interest in the behaviors
Prioritize work. By mapping out different actors, we can prioritize work better – for example focusing on satisfying the most important actors first. Be specific and avoid generic terms such as ‘users’ – different categories of users might have different needs, and not all users of a system might be important to consider for a particular project.
5. Impacts: Desired Behavioral Changes
By listing impacts on the second level of a map, we consider the desired changes in the behaviour of actors.
Behavioral changes. The "How" question explores the desired changes in the behavior of the identified actors. These impacts represent how the actors can help achieve the project's goal or how they might obstruct it. Focusing on behavioral changes leads to better plans and helps with prioritization.
Focus on business activities. Impacts are not product features. Avoid listing software ideas here, focus on business activities. Ideally show a change in actor behavior, not just the behavior. Show how the activity is different from what is currently possible. So instead of just ‘selling tickets’, say ‘selling tickets five times faster’.
Prioritization. The hierarchical nature of the map clearly shows who creates an impact and how that contributes to the goal. This clear visualization allows us to decide which impacts best contribute to the goal and identify the risks; this helps immensely with prioritization.
6. Deliverables: Supporting the Impacts
The third level of an impact map answers the following question: What can we do, as an organisation or a delivery team, to support the required impacts?
Scope and features. The "What" question addresses the deliverables, software features, and organizational activities that support the desired impacts. This level of the impact map puts all the deliverables in the context of the impacts they are supposed to support. This helps with breaking deliverables down into independent chunks that provide clear business value, and helps us launch something valuable sooner.
Options, not commitments. Treat deliverables as options, don't take it for granted that everything listed here will actually be delivered. Don't go into a lot of detail early on, there will be time for that later. List only high-level deliverables. You can break down high-level features into lower-level scope items, such as user stories, spine stories, basic or extension use cases later.
Achieve an impact. Even on software projects, there are often ways of supporting a business activity without building software – sometimes it is cheaper to pay for advertising to recruit new players than spend months rebuilding a system. Consider anything that helps to achieve an impact.
7. Impact Maps: Strategic Planning, Defining Quality, and Roadmap Management
Impact mapping is a great way to communicate assumptions, create plans and align stakeholders for iterative software delivery.
Three key roles. Impact maps serve three key roles: strategic planning, defining quality, and roadmap management. For strategic planning, it engages senior experts to create a shared understanding of scope from a business perspective. For defining quality, it ensures that everyone involved in delivery shares the same understanding of the expected quality of software at a holistic level.
Dynamic roadmap. An impact map communicates scope, goals and priorities, but also assumptions on two levels. The first is that a deliverable will cause a change in behavior of an actor, produce an impact. The second is that once the impact is achieved, the relevant actor will contribute to the overall objectives. This visualization makes impact maps a powerful tool for roadmap management.
Measure and adapt. Once a deliverable is shipped, we can measure the actual changes in actors' behavior and the impact on the overall objective. We can then re-evaluate our strategy and decide whether to continue working on the same part of the map or move on to something else.
8. Adaptive Planning: Build-Measure-Learn
Impact maps can help to facilitate the application of the Palchinsky method.
Feedback and adaptation. Impact maps provide the basis for feedback on assumptions, allowing for adaptive planning. They visualize assumptions so that we can control them, and adapt our plans accordingly. This is crucial because big upfront plans rarely survive contact with reality due to individual variations and local knowledge.
Palchinsky method:
- Variation: seek out new ideas and try new things
- Survivability: try new things out at a scale where failure is survivable
- Selection: seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along
Lean startup. Impact mapping complements the lean startup ideas nicely by enabling us to clearly visualize assumptions and see the big picture, so that we can decide which experiments are the most valuable to conduct and most in line with overall company goals.
9. Impact Mapping: Solving Common Problems
One of the unique features of impact maps, compared to alternative planning methods, is that they allow us to quickly solve common planning and delivery problems.
Scope creep. Because there is a clear mapping from deliverables to goals, we can measure when the main objective is reached and stop working on it. An impact map demonstrates that no further impacts are needed to achieve our goal. Similarly, maps provide us with a clear view of all the planned software features that support an impact.
Wrong solutions. Because an impact map puts software deliverables in the context of business goals, it is trivially easy to spot solutions looking for a problem, or those that would contribute to a different business objective. By visually grouping together different deliverables that could contribute to the same impact, maps allow us to spot over-complicated solutions and prevent over-engineering.
Ad-hoc prioritization. Without a clear understanding of the business context, it is difficult to know that we're really working on the most important things. Impact maps put features in the context of behavior impacts, allowing stakeholders to relate better to benefits they would get from features and make much better prioritization decisions.
10. Iterative Delivery: Big Picture and Better Prioritization
Impact maps provide the big picture for both business sponsors and technical delivery teams.
Business and delivery. A common cause for the disconnect between business and delivery is that teams iteratively deliver items that are too small to make a difference from a business perspective. Impact maps provide the big picture for both business sponsors and technical delivery teams. They remove the need for major upfront analysis.
Business activities. Impact maps allow us to have a discussion around business activities and impacts (level 2), instead of deliverables and software features (level 3 and beyond). In my experience business users are much better engaged and make much better decisions when the discussion is at that level.
Iterative, not incremental. Impact maps break deliverables down into branches that contribute to individual impacts, and make us think about quick ways to support them, promoting truly iterative delivery.
Last updated:
FAQ
1. What is "Impact Mapping: Making a Big Impact with Software Products and Projects" by Gojko Adzic about?
- Strategic planning for software: The book introduces impact mapping, a collaborative visual planning technique to align software delivery with business goals.
- Bridging business and delivery: It addresses the common disconnect between business objectives and software development, aiming to reduce waste and increase impact.
- Practical guidance: The book provides step-by-step instructions, examples, and advice for creating and using impact maps in real-world projects.
- Focus on outcomes: It emphasizes achieving measurable business outcomes rather than just delivering features or software.
2. Why should I read "Impact Mapping" by Gojko Adzic?
- Solve common project failures: The book tackles issues like scope creep, misaligned objectives, and wasted resources in software projects.
- Enhance collaboration: It offers a method that brings together business and technical stakeholders for better communication and shared understanding.
- Adapt to change: Impact mapping supports iterative and adaptive planning, making it suitable for fast-changing environments.
- Actionable and concise: The book is intentionally short, practical, and filled with references for deeper exploration.
3. What are the key takeaways from "Impact Mapping" by Gojko Adzic?
- Visualize assumptions and goals: Impact maps make business objectives, assumptions, and deliverables explicit and visible.
- Focus on business impact: The method helps teams prioritize work that truly contributes to business goals, not just technical outputs.
- Iterative and adaptive planning: Impact mapping fits well with agile, lean, and iterative delivery models, enabling frequent course corrections.
- Collaborative decision-making: The process leverages the wisdom of crowds by involving both business and technical experts in planning.
4. What is impact mapping, as defined by Gojko Adzic in "Impact Mapping"?
- A collaborative mind-mapping technique: Impact mapping is a visual method for strategic planning, created by answering four key questions: Why, Who, How, and What.
- Connects goals to deliverables: It links business objectives (Why) to actors (Who), desired impacts (How), and deliverables (What).
- Highlights assumptions: The map makes explicit the assumptions behind each connection, enabling validation and learning.
- Supports prioritization: By visualizing alternatives and dependencies, it helps teams find the shortest path to achieving business goals.
5. What are the four key questions in impact mapping, and how do they structure the map?
- Why: Defines the central business goal or objective the project aims to achieve.
- Who: Identifies the actors (users, stakeholders, decision-makers) who can influence the outcome.
- How: Describes the changes in actor behavior (impacts) needed to reach the goal.
- What: Lists the deliverables, features, or activities the team can implement to support the desired impacts.
6. How does impact mapping help prevent common software project problems, according to Gojko Adzic?
- Reduces scope creep: Clear mapping from deliverables to goals allows teams to stop work once objectives are met.
- Avoids wrong solutions: By focusing on business impacts, it prevents over-engineering and building unnecessary features.
- Eliminates pet features: Features that don't support a mapped impact or goal are easily identified and discarded.
- Surfaces wrong assumptions: Explicitly visualizing assumptions enables teams to test and validate them early.
7. How does "Impact Mapping" by Gojko Adzic recommend setting measurable objectives?
- Use SMART goals: Objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Timely.
- Define clear metrics: Each goal and impact should have associated measurements to track progress and success.
- Avoid vanity metrics: Focus on actionable metrics that inform decisions, not just those that are easy to measure.
- Two levels of metrics: Track both high-level business goals and lower-level impacts on actor behavior.
8. How does impact mapping support iterative and adaptive planning in software projects?
- Facilitates learning cycles: The map enables teams to test assumptions, measure results, and adapt plans based on feedback.
- Enables small, safe experiments: By breaking down deliverables and impacts, teams can try new ideas at a survivable scale.
- Supports build-measure-learn: Impact mapping complements lean startup and agile methods by prioritizing experiments aligned with business goals.
- Encourages regular review: Teams are advised to periodically measure progress and pivot or persevere based on outcomes.
9. What is the process for creating an impact map, as outlined in "Impact Mapping" by Gojko Adzic?
- Preparation: Discover real business goals, define good measurements, and plan the first milestone.
- Mapping: Draw the map skeleton, find alternatives for actors and impacts, identify key priorities, and decide whether to "earn or learn."
- Iterative refinement: Continuously update the map as new information emerges and as deliverables are shipped.
- Collaborative workshops: Involve both senior business and technical stakeholders in group sessions for maximum effectiveness.
10. What are some typical mistakes to avoid when using impact mapping, according to Gojko Adzic?
- Too many or wrong people: Limit group size and ensure the right mix of decision-makers and technical experts.
- Jumping levels: Avoid skipping from actors directly to deliverables without defining impacts.
- Lack of measurable objectives: Ensure all goals and impacts have clear, actionable metrics.
- Over-detailing early: Don’t go into too much low-level detail or try to map out every possible deliverable at the start.
- Ignoring negative impacts: Consider both positive and negative actor behaviors that could affect the goal.
11. How does impact mapping relate to other methods like user stories, design thinking, and lean startup?
- User stories: Impact mapping helps keep user stories focused on real business value and prevents "story card hell."
- Design thinking: The method supports divergent and convergent thinking, brainstorming, and testing assumptions.
- Lean startup: It provides a framework for prioritizing experiments and validating assumptions in the build-measure-learn cycle.
- Goal-oriented requirements: Impact mapping builds on and simplifies goal-oriented requirements engineering for practical use.
12. What are the best quotes from "Impact Mapping" by Gojko Adzic and what do they mean?
- "Never aim to implement the whole map. Instead, find the shortest path through the map to the goal!" – Focus on delivering only what is necessary to achieve the business objective, not every possible feature.
- "If a deliverable does not support an impact, even if it works correctly from a technical perspective, it is a failure and should be treated as a problem, enhanced or removed." – Technical success is meaningless without business impact.
- "Impact mapping helps you to find the right questions, which is much more difficult than finding good answers." – The method is about uncovering and validating assumptions, not just executing tasks.
- "Our products and projects do not work in a vacuum. They have an interdependent, dynamic relationship with people, other projects, the organisation and the wider community around them." – Emphasizes the importance of context and adaptability in planning.
- "Once you reach your milestone, regardless of what was actually delivered in the software, you're done. It's time to move on to the next milestone, and do another mapping session with senior actors." – Encourages iterative delivery and regular reassessment of goals and plans.
Review Summary
Impact Mapping receives mostly positive reviews, with readers praising its concise and practical approach to strategic planning. Many find it valuable for prioritizing tasks and aligning business and technical teams. The visual technique is appreciated for its simplicity and effectiveness. Some criticisms include a lack of depth and diversity in examples. Readers recommend it for agile teams, product owners, and managers. While some feel the content could be conveyed in a shorter format, most agree it's a worthwhile read for those involved in project management and product development.
Download PDF
Download EPUB
.epub
digital book format is ideal for reading ebooks on phones, tablets, and e-readers.