Impact Mapping: Making a big impact with software products and projects

Who can produce the desired effect? Who can obstruct it? Who are the consumers or users of our product? Who will be impacted by it? These are the actors who can influence the outcome.

Measurability is the key element here – if a goal is measurable, the other elements are easier to pin down.

Treat deliverables as options, don't take it for granted that everything listed here will actually be delivered.

But iterative delivery plans often lack a big picture.

Impact mapping helps to reduce waste by preventing scope creep and over-engineered solutions. It provides focus for delivery by putting deliverables in the context of impacts they are supposed to achieve. It enhances collaboration by creating a shared big-picture view for technical and business people.

List only the impacts that really help move you in the right direction towards the central goal.

Our products and projects do not work in a vacuum. They have an interdependent, dynamic relationship with people, other projects, the organisation and the wider community around them.

Enrolling customers to participate in designing a solution: the visual and collaborative aspects of impact mapping help to engage both delivery teams and customers or business users in defining a good solution together.

An impact map connects candidate causes with desired effects. It is a map of assumptions connecting causes and effects. It helps you to find the right questions, which is much more difficult than finding good answers.