The anchor
At the top of every map is the anchor:
This describes who has the need and what is their need that the practices on the map are serving.
What placement means
The Y axis represents how visible the practice is to those who have the need. If they interact with, or play a part in the practice then it is positioned near the top or is it something that they do not even know exists, therefore positioned further down.
The X axis represents how mature a practice is. This is defined in four stages, Concept, Emerging, Good and Best. To help with the positioning we use the following guides:
- Concept: Aware of/experimenting with the practice.
- Emerging: Getting to grips with/getting some value from the practice
- Good: Doing some aspects of the practice repeatedly but still needs improvement
- Best: Doing all aspects of the practice consistently, unlikely to need focused improvement effort and could be considered an exemplar.
What the symbols mean
On the map itself we visualise capabilities as squares and link them to other maps that describe the practices that compose it.
Practices are circles. Practises are things you can describe and observe the act of. Practises integrate together to form capabilities.
Lines that connect the practices represent the relationships between the practices. These can range from a need a practice has on another to a shared element of practice (meaning, material or skills).
When the line is broken this suggests a poor connection e.g. a poor flow of information.
Patterns of movement and change
Arrows show intended movement and they come in four flavours:
1.Develop: A movement to the right visualises the intention to improve the practice is, well, practiced.
2.Reconfigure: A movement to the left that notes a significant change in the skills required, the tools used or the intention of the practice. This movement suggests the way in which the practice is done is likely to get worse before it gets better.
3.Expose: A movement upwards that suggests that the practice needs to be made more visible to the customer, potentially increase the interaction with the customer through this practice.
4.Hide: A movement downwards that suggests the practice should be less visible to the customer
Adding new practices to the map are done two ways:
Compete: This is when a new practice is added to the map to challenge, and potentially remove, another practice in the belief that more value can be delivered from the new practice.
Introduce: This is a new practice that we believe will add to the overall capability that map represents.
A black bar visualises that there’s a blocker to movement.