https://medium.com/wardleymaps/finding-a-path-cdb1249078c0
The problem I had was how do I map a business? Unlike a board game such as chess with its turned based moves, when you consider a business it is a living thing. It consists of a network of people, a mass of different activities and reserves of capital including financial, physical, human and social. It consumes, it produces, it grows and it dies. Like all organisms, any business exists within a community of others, an ecosystem. It competes and co-operates for resources and it’s shaped by and shapes its environment. Even within a business, people come and go. The things we do, the things we build and the things that others desire change over time. All firms are in a constant state of flux and the ecosystem it lives within never stands still. What sort of map can cope with that?
I struggled with these concepts for many months, playing around with different ideas of mapping and how to represent this maelstrom. I knew any map had to have those basic elements of being visual, context specific, the position of components relative to an anchor and some means of describing movement. But I had no idea where to start.
It was at this point I thought about mapping what was core for my business and questioning how this changed using some form of mind map. My reasoning was simple. A business, like all organisms, needs to continuously adapt to changes in order to survive and if we could somehow describe this then maybe that would give us a map? Take for example, the multinational Finnish company Nokia. Originally founded in 1865 as a paper mill, the company has undergone many transformations through various close calls with bankruptcy. From a paper mill to a rubber manufacturer to consumer electronics to a telecommunications giant, this organism has radically evolved. The problem for me was the core for Nokia today was not its core in 1865 but instead an unimaginable flight of fancy at that time. How could I connect the two? When you focus on what is core for a company then the question becomes whether you mean core today, core yesterday or core tomorrow? They are not necessarily the same. I followed this logic down endless rabbit holes getting nowhere fast.
In frustration, I started to ask why do things change? The responses I was given when talking to my peers varied from “progress” to “innovation” to “disruption”. Examples across history were normally cited including the appearance of random innovations that impact the way we operate — from the telephone to electricity to computing. But given the upheaval they cause, the close calls with bankruptcy, the death of former great companies and the need to continuously learn new skills then why would anyone want this? Surely a more sedate, slower rate of change would be more comfortable? So why are things changing?
Alas it seems that we don’t get a choice. In any industrial ecosystem, novel and new things constantly appear as a consequence of the desire for companies and individuals to gain an advantage over others. Those things that are useful will be copied. They will spread until the once novel and new becomes commonplace. Yesterday’s wonders are destined to become today’s discounted special offers. The magic of the first electric light bulb, the first computer and the first telephone are now an expected norm. We no longer marvel at such things but instead we would reel in utter shock if presented with a workplace that did not provide them. Competition and the desire to gain an advantage not only creates change, it spreads it and forces companies to adopt it. Somehow, I had to map this competition itself including the journey from novel to commonplace. But what is that journey and what are the components that I’m going to map?
The more I looked into this, the more complex it became because that journey from novel to commonplace is not the end of the story. These extremes are connected as one enables the other. A historical demonstration of this would be Maudslay’s screw cutting lathe in 1800. The invention of the first screw thread is often cited as 400BC by Archytas of Tarentum (428 BC — 350 BC). Early versions of this and the subsequent nut and bolt designs were custom made by skilled artisans with each nut fitting one bolt and no other. The introduction of Maudslay’s lathe enabled repeated production of uniform nuts and bolts with standard threads. One nut now fitted many bolts. The artisan skill of building the perfect nut and bolt was replaced by more mass produced and interchangeable components. The novel had become commonplace. Whilst those artisans might have lamented the loss of their industry, those humble components also enabled the rapid creation of more complex machinery. Uniform mechanical components enabled the faster building of ships, guns and other devices.
It also allowed for the introduction of manufacturing systems that took advantage of these components. In 1803, collaboration between Marc Isambard Brunel and Maudslay led to the principles of modern mass production being introduced at Portsmouth dockyard. The use of block making machinery replaced the craft of custom made pulley blocks, an essential component in the rigging of Naval ships. A total of 45 machines enabled a magnitude of order increase in productivity with highly standardised outputs. This system of manufacture helped changed ship making itself. The practices subsequently spread throughout industries leading to what became known as the Armory Method and later the American System of manufacturing.
Things not only evolved from novel to commonplace enabling new things to appear but they also allowed for new forms of practice and organisation. Throughout our history, it has always been standardisation of components that has enabled creations of greater complexity. We are always standing on the shoulders of past giants, of past innovations, of past wonders that have become commonplace units. Without such well-defined mechanical or electrical components then our world would be a less technologically rich place — no Internet, no generators, no TV, no computers, no light bulbs and no toasters.
Why toasters?
In 2009, the designer Thomas Thwaites exhibited his attempt to build a common household toaster from scratch at the Royal College of Arts. Beginning with mining the raw materials he aimed to create a product that is usually built with common components and sold for a few pounds in the local supermarket. This ambitious project required “copper, to make the pins of the electric plug, the cord, and internal wires. Iron to make the steel grilling apparatus, and the spring to pop up the toast. Nickel to make the heating element. Mica (a mineral a bit like slate) around which the heating element is wound and of course plastic for the plug and cord insulation, and for the all important sleek looking casing”.
After nine months and at a cost of over a thousand pounds, Thomas finally managed to create a sort of toaster. It lasted 5 seconds, the heating element bursting into flames. However, along his journey Thomas had been forced to resort to using all sorts of other complex devices built from similar standard components that he could have used to make his toaster. Everything from microwaves to leaf blowers was involved in achieving his goal. Our society and the wondrous technologies that we can create not only consume but are dependent upon provision of these standard components. Remove this and the wheel of progress grinds very slowly and very expensively.
Back in 2004, Thomas hadn’t attempted this experiment but I was acutely aware that we lived in a world where there’s a constant flow of change, where the novel becomes commonplace and where the commonplace enables the novel. This is the environment that businesses live within. This entire process is driven by competition; the desire to differentiate creates the novel, the desire to keep up with others makes it commonplace. If we define economic progress as the movement of our society to ever more complex technological marvels, then progress is simply a manifestation of this competition. This impacts all organisations. This is what we have to map.
But in all this complexity there was also comfort. I knew my world was built of components and hence it had its own chess pieces. Those pieces changed but there might be a way of describing evolution and the movement from novel to the commonplace. But movement is not enough for a map, I also needed to find the position of these components and that required some form of anchor. Alas, I had no anchor and without it then I was still lost.
In later chapters I’m going to dive into the details of how this first map was created, how I discovered that anchor and ultimately described the movement of evolution. However, for our purposes I’m going to simply show you a map, explain what bits matter and then use it to navigate the strategy cycle. I would dearly love to claim that this map was the result of some towering intellectual might but in reality, as you will later discover, it was more trial and error combined with endless accidents. Figure 8 is what a map of a single line of business should look like. I created my first map in 2005 and it was for an online photo service that I ran. Take a few minutes to read it carefully.
Figure 8— A Map
The map is visual and context specific i.e. it is unique to that line of business containing the components that influence it at that moment in time. This is not a map of an automotive industry in 2016 or a pharmaceutical company in 2010 but instead an online photo service in 2005. The map has an anchor which is the user (in this case a public customer though other types of users exist) and their needs. The position of components in the map are shown relative to that user on a value chain, represented by the y-axis. Each component needs the component below it, however the higher up the map a component is then the more visible it becomes to the user. The lower it is then the less visible it becomes. For example, in that first map the user cares about online photo storage but whilst this needs the provision of underlying components such as compute and power, those components are positioned far from the user and hence are less visible.