Thank you for enrolling in Wardley Mapping for Busy People!

By joining Early Access, you will be the first to see and respond to the early drafts of the content as it makes its way from outline to polished product. Your viewpoint matters, especially because your response to the material is the best way for me to tell if the course is doing its job. The content will start out in written form but may evolve as the need arises.

Last edited 2018-11-12

A Word of Caution

This course is going to move fast. Don't expect a lot of introduction, explanation, or hand-holding. Do expect that you'll be working and applying the concepts the whole time. The learning comes from doing the work, and it's your work that matters.

The Project Strategy Audit

We'll start with something I call a Project Strategy Audit.

Make a list of a few recent projects that required significant effort. For example:

• Starting a business
• Launching a new product line
• Writing a report
• Preparing for a new compliance rule
• Adding a software feature

For each project, see if you can answer these questions:

1. What was the immediate point of the project?
2. At a higher level, what was completion of the project supposed to make possible?
3. Did that higher possibility make sense? Was it worth pursuing? How do you know?
4. Was the project completed? How well?
5. Was the higher possibility realized? How well?

Most times #1 and #4 will be easier to answer, while #2, #3, and #5 will be harder. It is not uncommon, however, for all of them to have unsatisfying answers.

If you're disappointed with your answers, that's ok. You'll learn about what needs to change for things to get better. If you're happy with your answers, that's great too, because we're about to take things to the next level.

The Point

Spending time, money, effort, or attention is an investment. The where and why requires intentional (not accidental) choice in order for a worthwhile return to be probable. And if that work doesn't enable something greater, is it worth doing?

What’s Next

Pick a significant project that you are about to start, just started, or might start soon. We'll use it as a proving ground for the concepts throughout this course, so pick something important to you.

What did you think of this unit?

Comment below with what worked for you, what didn't work, and what questions you have!