A node between the physical and digital. The rants and raves of Simon Wardley. Industry and technology mapper, business strategist, destroyer of undeserved value. "I like ducks, they're fowl but not through choice"
I’m often asked whether we can add a new axis onto a Wardley map or some new legend; to be blunt, I prefer not to. When you create a Wardley map, you first start by identifying users and their needs. For example, a Tea Shop has users like the business that wants to sell cups of tea to members of the public who will hopefully drink it. The Public and the Business are connected through a cup of tea.…
If you’re coming here for the latest and greatest in project management techniques, then I’ll stop you there. In this article, I will go through some basic principles that are well over fifteen years old and have been used from heavy engineering to low earth orbit. There will be no new-fangled concepts or terms, just basics that have been tried and tested. Nor will I spend my time waffling on…
I am occasionally asked how to combine Wardley Maps with Cynefin. They are complementary tools, not a replacement for each other nor something that can be mashed into a "holistic" view (except in the mind of DALL-E which kindly created the image which makes no sense whatsoever). They explore a problem space from different viewpoints and both are useful in their own right and should be used…
Explorers, villagers and town planners ( EVTP ) is a system for organising a company that is having to deal with constant change due to an evolving environment. It's over 18 years old, it's a small part of the concept of mapping and it has been used successfully in several companies, BUT it is a difficult path to follow. I used to call this system - pioneers, settlers and town planners -…
In the last post, I explored the idea of code as maps. In this post, we will dig a bit deeper and try to understand the essential role of open source. To begin with, let us understand what code (or software) is. Code is a set of symbolic instructions. They are symbols that alter the behaviour of the system. The following symbols ... #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("Hello world"); return 0;…
1.0 INTRODUCTION The Fourth Industrial Revolution ( Industry 4.0 ) has been described as revolutionising [1] the global business landscape. It is the "next phase in the digitization of manufacturing"[2]. It represents an era of connectivity, advanced analytics, automation, robotics, and new manufacturing approaches from additive techniques to chemputation [3] to IoT, digital twins, AI, blockchain,…
1. ARE VIRTUAL ROADS THE FUTURE? Autonomous vehicles, digital twins, last-mile delivery, ridesharing, micro-mobility, transport hubs, hyperloop, decarbonisation, flying taxis and informatics - the field of transportation is as electrified as the batteries that are supposed to power tomorrow's vehicles. Or maybe they won't? Maybe the future is hydrogen? Given all the excitement and areas competing…
INTRODUCTION Over the last 15 months, I've been working on a research project with many volunteers to map different industries. This has been an exercise in exploration. Most of us are familiar with using maps to apply appropriate methods, whether project management o finance. We're equally familiar with how to challenge what is being done or to find areas where we need to concentrate on…
It's an interesting question. There are some that use maps to challenge what they're doing i.e. "Why are those racks custom-built?" There are others who use maps to apply the right methods - whether project management or purchasing or finance. Then, there are those who use maps to anticipate change for reasons of investment or managing inertia or both Whilst others use maps to convey complicated…
In my last post on conversational programming I asked the reader to " get yourself ready for a world of conversational programming" but I wasn't willing to call it for ChatGPT or the existing crop of LLMs. My advice was one of preparation and not nailing any colours to a mast. There is a reason. I think GPT4 and systems like Github CoPilot are admirable but probably in the wrong space. I think the…
Why the fuss about conversational programming? (a slightly more upto date version is on medium - I keep these as my original first drafts). First, there isn't much fuss ... yet. But there will be. To understand why, I'm going to build on my previous HackerNoon post on "Why the fuss about serverless" . That post discussed the historical rise of DevOps associated with changing characteristics of…
The different types of situational awareness. I’m a bit of a stuck record when it comes to supply chains, situational awareness and mapping. In order to get myself off the subject, I thought I’d have a bit of a rant about this bugbear of a topic. I’m going to do this with the aid of multi-domain defence. Setting the scene. Why do we need defence? Let us start with Government. Government needs a…
I'm going to explain a few things that don't matter in order to explain one thing that does. So let us start. First, I invented a method of mapping competitive landscapes . This not only includes physical activities but practices, data, knowledge and even ethical values. I used such a map to map culture. A map of culture The map of culture is not important except I'll note that collectives…
In this post I'd like to discuss why I believe video games will become a new battleground for the soul of a country. Before I start, I will need to cover some basics. However, I'm also going to have to make a few assumptions including :- a) that you know how to map b) that you've read my posts on mapping culture c) you're familiar with my discussion on the issue of digital sovereignty . If not,…
It has been a long time since I've posted and there is so much to discuss. The continued industrialisation of the technology stack, the automation of radicalisaton online, the impacts of physical isolation in accelerating adoption, the ethics of choice against the ethics of care or the entire question of how to balance "Me" vs "We" in a modern society? There is so much to choose from that it's…
From the earlier sections, I hope we have a basic grasp of concepts like values, principles, enablement systems and the general map of culture. Of course, it's quite a lot of ground to cover, so how much you understand probably depends upon how much you remember and when it comes to culture, nothing matters more than memory. Within any collective, the values we espouse and the principles we hold…
In this section, I'm going to explore a bit more into our map of culture in order to shed some light on the question of what should I do now? As with mapping in general, there are no right answers, there is simply a way of discussing the environment to find a better path. Values To begin with, I'm going to re-examine that concept of pipelines when it came to values. In figure 1, I provided a very…
In the previous chapter, I left you with a map of brexit. I said that I had avoided the use of values within it ... mea culpa ... I had left some in there. Two values in particular - fairness and equality (see highlighted point 1 in figure 1) Figure 1 - Brexit Map But what are values? Values identify what is judged as good or evil within a culture. They are more than just the operating norms or…
The first rule of brexit is “you’re wrong”. No matter what you say on brexit then someone will argue that you’re wrong and that they’re right. So let us start by concluding that whatever map I’m going to produce on the subject is wrong which is ok because all maps are wrong anyway. The purpose of a map is never about being right but instead helping to create a better map. Hence, I’m going to start…
How do we map culture? What is culture? Will mapping a culture somehow effect it? In one interview with a global company that relied upon the use of stories, an observation was made that was quite startling to begin with but obvious in hindsight - “maps are helping us shift our culture”. One of the issues with using stories in decision making is that stories are often tied to an individual - the…
THE PROBLEM During 2005-2006 with the implementation of a pioneer-settler-town planner structure in a high tech startup in Old Street, London (a barren wasteland of technology at that time), one noted observation was that the different components of the structure appeared to have different cultures. A more recent set of observations (2014-2016), through examination of company’s doctrine has shown…
It is with great sadness that I write on the sudden and unexpected passing of Martin Burns. Death has become a frequent visitor in my world as of late, each time cruelly taking a friend and in selfish terms, making my life the poorer for it. I will miss Martin, his humour, his graciousness, his willingness to debate, to foil, to challenge, to question and so much more. I will also miss the…
(draft) I often see examples where people add characteristics to a map or use new definitions for one of the axis. There's nothing wrong with this and I want to encourage people to explore. One recent effort by Manish has the axis as Rookie to Expert which leads to the question - what is an expert? A map (and I have an entire creative commons book on this, if you want to know more) is a map of…
(draft) There has been a lot of chatter recently about rebooting GDS (Government Digital Service). Don't get me wrong, GDS has made mistakes but some were actually my fault. I made a terrible assumption in writing the "Better for Less" paper to do with mapping and how much people were aware of it. In hindsight, I should have pushed mapping into that paper rather than leave it as background noise.…
Chapter 19 (rough draft) On Stepping Stones Manipulating the environment to your advantage is the essence of strategy. In the case of Fotango, we understood our competitive environment and that we were losing the battle in the online photo service business. We were losing this external battle because we had to focus internally on our parent company's needs and that absorbed what little resources…