Who?
At this stage, we need to identify all those who will help to influence the goal, contribute to it, or obstruct it. In our example, it will be the Marketing Department and the Forum Moderator. In the customer's opinion, they can change user satisfaction:
Here, we can list specific people, department names, market segments, etc. Choose any level of abstraction as long as it is adequate to your project.
How?
Now we need to identify the impacts that will be made to achieve the goal. For example, the moderator of the forum can try to give answers to questions within 1 minute. Do you think this will increase user satisfaction? We have an assumption that it will, so we are writing down this "impact". We do the same for the other roles:
A few recommendations:
It is not necessary, but it is desirable that the impact is measurable too. We have written not just Answer forum, but Answer forum within 1 minute.
Do not write down all the possible impacts of each role. We need only those activities that lead to the achievement of the goal.
What?
We have reached the most insignificant point in Impact Mapping. The last node of our map contains the same shopping cart that usually starts the project. The difference is that we now understand the value of each feature, why it is here and where it will lead to:
A few remarks and recommendations:
In the final nodes of the map you can write User Story or names of modules/subsystems.
This part of the map can be left unspecified, and you can not even fill it out at all, but only talk about its main points. You can create a complete list of all User Stories on Story Mappging.
It is not necessary to describe IT tasks here. Instead, you can write some organizational changes and generally any actions to implement the impact on the target.
Understanding the goals gives us the ability to create cheaper and faster solutions to achieve these goals. At the expense of the map, we begin to use not only the hands of the developers, but also the head - each team member can make informed decisions.
Impact Mapping results
That's what our Impact Mapping is all about. It remains to prioritize each column. Not all targets are equally important, the same can be said about the other nodes of the map. There are different ways to prioritize. Since we are on the path of simplicity and visualization, I can recommend asterisks. Each participant is given 5 stars and can put them where he wants. Thus, it is possible to identify the most priority nodes.
The result of the work should be hanged in plain sight. If the team is distributed, then you need to put Impact Mapping in the general knowledge base or hang it in front of the screen, which is seen by all participants of the development. The main goal is to ensure that this information is visible and achievable, because we rely on it to work on the project.
When I talked about Impact Mapping on AgileClub, colleagues noticed that there are other ways to understand the strategic goals. For example, you can use Lean Canvas, or you can collect the requirements in the project documentation with a description of the objectives and stakeholders. In fact Impact Mapping does not contradict other approaches and can be used in conjunction with them. Personally, I like it better because:
It's a simple technique that facilitates communication and interaction, it's not bureaucratic.
For customers who don't understand IT and software production, this approach is very easy to explain, it takes a couple of minutes.
Visualization as a mind map
Incoming task filter
Even when everyone has agreed on the goals of the project and the ways to achieve them, the customer can add a feature to the project that he likes very much - pet feature. We can filter it through the goals, showing that this feature will not lead us to achieve our goals in any way.
Similarly, we will filter the architectural and design ideas that come from the development team. Does the redesign of the architecture lead to a faster and cheaper achievement of the goal? If not, why would we do that?
Modernization of Kanban boards
What's the last column on your Kanban board? I bet it's Release, Deploy, Done or something like that. The last column on the board should be a check to see if your goal is being achieved. It's not enough just to fill in the feed on the server, we need to check if we've reached the goal as expected or not.
FAQ
How to sell Impact Mapping to a customer before starting a project?
It's best to go from problem to problem. Ask the customer to remember cases when a lot of bugs have been done and the business has only suffered from it. Why did this happen? Maybe we should clearly describe the goals?
Does this work have to be paid for?
Yes, we must. Drawing up Impact Mapping can take several days and is valuable to the business, I do not recommend doing it for free.
What if the customer doesn't want to do it?
As a professional, you have to provide the customer with a forecast for the future. Tell us about possible problems, describe the risks and their dangers. After that, let the client choose. If you have reported a possible problem future and the client has accepted it, refuses Impact Mapping with full clarity of consequences, now it is not your problem, just give him/her a flick.
Impact Mapping is one of the activities that will make both customers and developers happier and more efficient. Set the right goals correctly!