When X Meets Y (WXMY)

A diagram for visualizing boundary innovation and beyond

Last year, I created the above diagram and named it “When X Meets Y” (WXMY). This week, I applied it to several issues and generated some domain specific diagrams!

The WXMY diagram says nothing about practical issues, but pure abstract relations between two groups of entities. Container X means one group which contains entity X and its related entity X’. Y and its related entity Y’ form another group Container Y in the same way. When X meets Y, there is a new group called Container Z which emerges from the process of coupling, connecting, competing, cooperating and more interacting between X and Y.

The WXMY diagram is not a practical framework for directly solving a domain problem, but it can generate domain diagrams if you use it to visualize your ideas about a particular issue in a special context. By using the WXMY diagram, you can create your framework.

I have mentioned an idea called Avocado Effect which describes an essential structure called “meta-product / product”. If we apply the Avocado Effect to diagramming, we can see the same structure: “meta-diagram / diagram”. The WXMY diagram is a meta-diagram and you can use it to create as many domain specific diagrams as you want.