A lot can (and often does) go wrong in meetings. Plenty of speaking, but no listening. Attention and status games, but no clarity or action. “Why was I invited?” “Will they notice if I leave?” “Oh no, we’re running over time again.” We can make things just a little bit better, with the help of a few simple doctrinal principles from Wardley Mapping.

This is the worst guide to Wardley Mapping ever written — a tongue-in-cheek collection of bad advice. In other words, this is everything I would tell someone about Wardley Mapping if I wanted them to fail.

Jan Rezac asks: "How should I represent user needs when mapping? Because quite a lot of maps do NOT have user needs clearly stated (even Simon's original teashop map & Canonical map)." Short answer? It depends! Wardley Mapping highlights areas of ignorance —...

Jan Rezac asks: “How do I connect scenario planning and Wardley Mapping?” I think people sometimes mean different things when they say scenario planning, so I want to share a few different ways Wardley Mapping might be useful for evaluating alternative situations.

In my time delivering workshops and working with different teams, I’ve found that no two experiences learning Wardley Mapping are alike. There are so many concepts to learn and ways to learn them. And importantly, “Wardley in concept” differs significantly from “Wardley in use.” The messiness of actual mapping work can be quite jarring when compared to the book knowledge.

Let’s talk about Wardley’s doctrine — what it really looks like and how to find opportunities to practice. Don’t worry! Getting started is easier than you think.

I like Wardley Mapping. It’s captured my attention for the last five or so years, and I know I’ve still hardly scratched the surface of what’s possible. As you can imagine, I am overjoyed when other people take interest. Behind my enthusiasm, however, is a blunt pragmatism, informed by years of frustration and mistakes.

Are there any “objective” Wardley Maps, or is it always “subjective” to the team, time, and place? What should I do to understand where the “objective” position of a component is?

Valerie Freitas asks: In using Wardley mapping, are there guidelines in thinking about who you have at the table to begin these discussions?   Designing/cultivating the kind of input you receive by selecting who is part of your discussion group or...

On March 5th, we attended an online workshop to get some hands-on practice with Wardley Mapping. The topic of the day was Disinformation, and our group focused on mapping how to recognize fake news — truth or not, technological fakes, deep fakes, videos, pictures, and all kinds of things that come to mind when we hear that phrase…

One of the more curious aspects of Wardley Mapping is Doctrine — what we choose to believe are universally-applicable principles. Doctrine is essentially values-based ideas like putting users first and being open to challenge. Simon Wardley presents his chosen...

Kill all your darlings, crumple all your Wardley Maps. Not every map needs to be a perfectly polished artifact and sometimes a lo-fi, easily discarded sketch (or two or two dozen) is superior in that it allows a space to be wrong and grants permission to explore.