Impact mapping is a powerful visual technique to make sure that you are building the right thing; making a big impact with our efforts. I’ve found it very enlightening and powerful.
Intro slide that doesn’t really supposed to do anything
Before we start….
Here’s my site http://www.booooring.com.
I thought that I could make a couple of dollars. Say 10 AUS per month from this.
1. Here’s the goal
1. WHO do i need
Users playing the sound
Users uploading new sound
1. HOW should their behaviour change?
1. WHAT do I need to build to support that?
Impact mapping is one of those tools that really made my eyes pop.
It’s been called a game changer by some and I agree fully.
I’ve seen this becoming the missing link in communications between the “business” and the “software guys”
My name is Marcus Hammarberg,
and this is supposedly also me. Or the love child of Frodo and Jeff Goldblum
I work for Aptitud as an lean/agile coach and contractor
i work for the Salvation Army in Indonesia as a team leader for the executive office of the foundation managing the 6 hospitals the Salvation Army runs in Indonesia.
I have one wife
two leisure interests
and 3 kids
I have been a developer
Since 1998 - mainly with the Microsoft sphere
and lately in Javascript and node
During the last 9 years I have been more and more interested in how you can work effectively together as teams
with agile methods such as Scrum and Kanban
If you like this talk… there’s more in the book.
That I’ve written with my good friend Joakim Sundén
There’s a book. Get it. It’s beautiful!
Let’s talk about what we just did, from a little more theoretical perspective.
A Impact map is just a mind map, following this structure
WHY - why are we doing this? The goal of the project.
What can we measure to see if or when we reach that target?
If we can’t measure it… what value does it bring. Clone organisations. How to measure anything
WHO - the actors who can influence the outcome. WHO can get us there? WHO can stop us? WHO will benefit from the impact we are making
By the way - YOU are not WHO. Don’t put yourselves in here. These are the people that we need to influence with our work.
HOW - how should we change the behaviour of these actors change. What are the IMPACTS we are trying to make.
WHAT - what do we need to build. The deliverables
If you’re using user stories this is easy to map over.
Now that we know how it works - let’s talk about the theory.
There’s 3 words that I wanted to talk about around impact maps.
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning tool
The first one is strategic. Impact maps are a strategic planning tool.
This is what makes is a great communication tool between “business” and the team, because this is a nice level to communicate about WHY we are doing things.
Do you know this plane? [CLICK]
F16 Fighting falcon - one of the most successful fighter jets in the world.
The US Airforce asked Lockheed Martin (that makes these) to create an jet fighter that could: “go the double speed of sound”
This was at the time very hard to do, so the engineers asked back “Why?” Great question, huh?
“To be able to escape other fighters” was the answer.
The didn’t get a fighter that went twice the speed of sound but they did get a fighter that could out-maneuver any other fighter for decades to come.
HUD-display, open hood, G-force chair etc
A lot of development teams expects the scope to be created by the product owner or business person.
When I talk about scope here I mean; the thing we want created, priorities and ordering of those items
Even that the backlog is created by them; a list of suitable sized items prioritized in the right business order
“But, Marcus, how do they do that?”
“Meh - don’t know. Don’t care. They tell us what to do - and we do it!
That’ll get them satisfied”
Impact mapping is a tool that helps answer that question
Where does Impact mapping fit in?
“I want to turn the business wheel faster”
IM is a strategic planning technique
Focus on the IMPACTS not the software features
Business strategic planning and sharing understanding about scope
An impact map also serves very well as a road map, out lining where we are going. Showing our strategy
But what is a road map…
How do I get from here [CLICK] to here [CLICK]
It’s road map showing the many routes we can take to get to a goal.
Road map is not a tunnel
Many road maps looks like this. First this, then that and then that and then this will happen and then…
Now way to turn and change, or go back.
Let your impact map show your options, what are we trying now, why are we trying that. What are other ways to go? Where’s the goal?
With many roads we can try more than one at the same time. A/B testing.
How can we know if this is taking us the right way? What are we going to measure? How? What is good?
What is interesting to measure? Lead time? Or outcomes?
How to measure anything.
Here’s the often cited example. The goal is 1M players for the next 6 months. It’s not the rest of the lifetime of the company
Here’s one for a hospital in Bandung Indonesia.
it has nothing to do with IT. Impact Map is a strategic planning tool
Here’s the WHY - notice the measurements. Very useful question: What can we measure to know if we’re getting closer to the goal or not
That was a little section about an Impact map being strategic
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning too
Another key aspect is that the impact map is visual.
A road map in an excel list simply don’t stay in your minds. Let me relate my top 2 visualisation stories
How is the team doing?
Where are they working?
What is done?
What makes them worried?
Visualise our assumptions to make our shared understanding clear
Where are the assumptions on this map?
Unspoken assumptions get’s cleared out by making it visual
Communications around scope, where we are in the process and helps release management.
Put things into context, providing a link back to the reason for doing the item in the first place.
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning tool
Let’s wrap it up with the Collaboration part
I think one of the key aspects is to do the impact map together.
Sharing
Questioning
Thinking
Rubbing off each other
Who know the business rules of a bank the best? The COBOL guys, yes.
You might have heard about the 3 amigos that can be very handy to have in the room when you are specifying something.
I say: bring as many amigos as you want. As long as the meeting is efficient.
In this meeting you are sharing, learning from each other.
The less time we need to document, pass that documentation around and misunderstand each other, the better.
Working with Impact Maps there’s two points where it can be handy to have many people in the room. First when you is when you generate options. That’s why I ask you in the beginning.
Secondly - when we prioritise. Voting is a really fast way, if nothing else works.
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning tool.
It helps us visualise the assumptions we are making about our strategy.
It is great as a road map.
It helps us know WHY we are doing what we are doing.
And drawing one is really simple. Even i can do THAT.
Go here for more information [CLICK]
Thanks for listening
If you liked this talk… there’s more in the book.
using the code above and you’ll get a discount
And now it’s over
Here’s the often cited example. The goal is 1M players for the next 6 months. It’s not the rest of the lifetime of the company
Here’s one for a hospital in Bandung Indonesia.
it has nothing to do with IT. Impact Map is a strategic planning tool