Impact Mapping — Working Together, Chapter #1
Refocus the scope of a project on specific business goals with Impact Mapping
Foreword
Designing and producing a product that meets users’ expectations is an exhilarating experience. Since 2017 I have been passionate about design tools and development methodologies. These tools are supposed to significantly increase a company’s chances of success in creating its product or, failing that, to quickly realize that the direction taken was not the right one.
The technical aspect of the development of a software or application is essential. But the human element is even more so. The global understanding of the project by all the actors involved in its implementation is critical. Product owner, business manager, developers, designers, must work together to avoid any division between the problem that the company wants to solve with its product, and the technical solution imagined.
During my readings, I noticed that there was a lack of online material presenting this methodology as a whole, describing each step, and the link between them, with the questions that inevitably arise along the way.
In recent months I have therefore been working on creating a product in my free time, taking turns at wearing the hat of the business manager, the product owner, and the back or front developer. The result is necessarily biased, not presuming dissociative personality disorder, but I found the experience fascinating. It’s like I have a small startup team in my head. It is this fantastic team that I propose to follow during these chapters. To discover the concepts of Impact Mapping, EventStorming, Example Mapping, Behavior Driven Development, Test Driven Development, etc., in the process of creating a new product, and writing the articles composing this short story. I will not detail the methods of discovering user needs, such as Design Thinking tools for example, I am not the most qualified for that.
This team is composed of Bizz, the business manager, Paul-Olivier (PO) the product owner, Senior, the senior developer, and Junior the junior developer. Each character has its importance to reflect in a timely manner the real issues encountered in the real world. It should be kept in mind that this is a theoretical example and that in practice, adjustments are necessary. Are you ready to go? Welcome to my brain…
— Welcome everyone, greeted Bizz, today’s meeting is important because it marks the beginning of an exciting new project. As you know, our priority here in the brain is knowledge, knowledge. And knowledge is only real when it is shared.
— That’s happiness, not knowledge, Senior grumbled, once again attesting to his aversion to lack of rigor.
— As business manager, continued Bizz, I have brought you here to discuss together how best to share our modest knowledge with the developer community around the world. We are going to do a workshop that will be facilitated by PO, to whom I will leave it to you to tell you more.
— Thank you Bizz, we will do an Impact Mapping workshop, says Paul-Olivier. As Bizz pointed out, our objective is to share our knowledge, so that it can be discussed and thus enriched. Impact Mapping is a strategic planning tool. It avoids getting lost in an infinite number of features that are far from the initial objective. This visual map answers the questions: “Why?” “For whom?” “How?” “What?”. The “why” always corresponds to a business objective.
— But we’re in a brain; there’s no money here! interrupted Junior.
— We are not only rich in money, replied Bizz. The currency here is knowledge, so our business objective is linked to the knowledge we need to share.
PO resumed:
— Indeed, this objective is at the heart of our impact map. It must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic, Timely defined). Our goal is therefore to obtain 2000 “claps” on all the chapters of this story before the end of 2019. You can see on the screen the key indicators of this objective:
« We can now place this objective as a “GOAL” of our impact map:
— Were we not supposed to develop a product? asked Junior.
— Let’s not skip any steps,” said PO. The product we are going to create will serve as a support for the chapters of this story. The objective remains the sharing of knowledge, the product to be developed is part of the possible technical solutions. We will come back to this later.
« We must now ask ourselves about the different actors who can help us achieve this objective or those who could slow us down. Who can produce the desired effect? Who are the users? Who will be impacted?
— The main actors are the members of Medium, said Senior. These are the first users to be addressed. They are looking to read inspiring articles. And more precisely, the members interested in the design of a web project, and the tools to carry out its realization. And they are the ones who “clap”….
PO agreed.
— Indeed, these are called primary actors. There are three types of actors:
- Primary actors, whose needs are directly met.
- Secondary actors, who provide a service.
- Off-stage actors, who are interested in the different impacts but do not provide a direct service
— Senior found a type of primary actor, recalled PO by turning to the team, can you try to find others?
— I think of the Medium curation team, called Junior. If they highlight our articles, it will have a powerful impact on their visibility.
— Let’s not forget either Twitter, through which we will broadcast our ads, Bizz pointed out.
PO added this information on the impact map before turning the screen back to his colleagues.
— So far, so good:
— So now we can talk about the features of the product we are going to develop? asked Junior.
— Still not, said PO. We want to avoid having a list of features in the form of a shopping list. The next level of the impact map allows us to put the actors in the context of our objective. How can they help us achieve this goal? What behavior should they adopt to move in this direction? This level corresponds to the impacts we are trying to create. From these reflections will come the functionalities that we will consider most relevant, and not the other way around.
— The ideal is to indicate changes in the behavior of our actors, Bizz added. For example, our Medium readers learn by reading articles, and we want them to do so but even more effectively.
— We also want to see them “clap” more than usual our articles, Junior added.
Senior spoke in turn:
— In the same vein, we would like to create discussion, through answers posted under our articles.
— Here we are with three impacts on Medium readers, summarized PO. As for the Medium curation team, I think you will all agree that if they select one of our articles, it will have a strong impact on our objective. The impact of Twitter can be limited at first to the simple fact that it will publish our ads. Here is the updated impact map with these elements:
— We will finally be able to talk about the product we will develop, said Junior. I noticed in my learning that I understood some concepts better if they were logically articulated together in a real context. It makes sense now, developing a product to use as a guideline throughout the learning process seems like a good idea!
— Tout did, said PO. This is the last step in our impact map. Now that we have answered the first three questions “Why?”, “Who?” “How?” we can try to answer the “What? Each element, or deliverable, will thus be linked to the initial objective, and will not leave in a vacuum. As it can all too often be the case with a simple list of features. Junior has therefore perfectly defined a “deliverable” that we can link to the impact of “learning new concepts more effectively.” Let’s complete our impact map right now:
Senior, pragmatic, added:
— I guess that replying to all possible responses posted on future articles constitutes a fully-fledged “deliverable.” Concerning the “claps,” the fictional story format is a risky bet, but it can be effective in generating interest.
The team agreed, PO modified the impact map in a first version finalized following Senior’s proposals:
— As you will have noticed, said Bizz, we talked very little about technique in this workshop. The goal was for everyone to be on the same page to work together to achieve our goal. We will discuss product design in future workshops. As the business manager here in the brain, all I can tell you right now is that this product will focus on memory! Thank you all for your participation and see you soon for the next workshop: EventStorming.
To be continued….
