Wardley Maps are probably the most novel & exotic frameworks in this repo, but also among the most illuminating, & therefore the ones we spent the most time with. These were facilitated & refined over two super productive sessions with Ben Mosior of Hired Thought & LearnWardleyMapping.com (highly recommended!).
Will defer to Ben, Simon & other experts to explain how to use & interpret Wardley Maps, but in general they are read as value chains of user needs & the capabilities they depend on (top to bottom) along an "evolutionary" x-axis depicting the stage of development for each element of the value chain (left to right). The basic usage is like that of any map: interrogate the landscape & use it to plot a course of action.
We created maps of 4 categories of potential "users" of Coεmeta's work (as clients, collaborators, content consumers, etc):
| Nonprofits & social impact orgs | Small business, startups & solopreneurs |
|---|---|
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| DAOs | Content consumers, learners, mentees |
|---|---|
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And then one metamap for Coεmeta itself:
Some general notes & observations:
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Relative position & general proximity is more important than precise location on the map, so we didn't overthink these initial placements along the evolutionary x-axis.
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Nonprofit, Small Biz & DAOs all had essentially the same relative positions, but less spread across the x-axis. Some differences:
- Nonprofit / mission-driven orgs think much more about desired outcomes, & generally have info & reporting standards & requirements, so might have more relative maturity & infrastructure in those areas
- DAOs are digital-native & technically advanced, which correlates with data & info maturity
- DAOs (& some nonprofits) have additional(ly salient) needs of collective intelligence & coordination & community-building due to their nature, which present more challenges / opportunities
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For all:
- Stage 4 areas can be an entry point / low-hanging fruit to demonstrate value if not fully adopting current best practices
- e.g. tool adoption / implementation, automation of manual efforts
- Can then work down (& up) value chains depending on need
- Moving other nodes rightward is generally high-LOE & low-certainty, but can look for quick wins, e.g.:
- applying sensemaking frameworks like logic model / outcome mapping, integrating with evaluation & monitoring systems
- facilitating decision & activation frameworks
- doing underlying work required beyond their current capacities
- training / advising to increase capacities
- Stage 4 areas can be an entry point / low-hanging fruit to demonstrate value if not fully adopting current best practices
- We applied these & other takeaways to refined value propositions, service descriptions & other copy on the initial Coεmeta landing page, as well as my approach with initial clients & potential collaborators. But again, all of this bears experimentation, validation & iteration.