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

impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organisations make an impact with software.

Getting it right:

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.

Avoid generic terms such as ‘users’ – different categories of users might have different needs, and not all users of a system might be important to consider for a particular project. Try to define actors in this order: specific individual, user persona, role or job title, group or department.

To use impact maps for roadmap management, you need: agreement that your aim is to achieve a business goal, not deliver pre-set scope frequent, iterative releases to measure progress agreement on metrics that express stakeholder expectations for the central business goal

Strategic planning

Testing assumptions to prove them: impact maps capture assumptions in pictures, helping us to intentionally look for insights that will prove or reject those assumptions.

Impact mapping helps to create better plans and roadmaps that ensure alignment of business and delivery, and are easily adaptable to change.

Goals should not be about building products or delivering project scope. They should explain why such a thing would be useful.