Extending Impact Mapping to Gain Better Product Insights

Impact Mapping is a powerful technique that helps teams understand how to link the work that they do with results that their organizations would like them to achieve. We’ve been using this technique for a while in our Scaled Professional Scrum and Professional Scrum Product Owner courses, but I have had a growing discomfort with the approach that I couldn’t well articulate until we were using it recently in an Agile Measurement (EBM) Workshop. There seemed to be something missing in the usual Goal-Actors-Impact-Deliverables chain (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: A "classic" Impact Map Example (for a ride-sharing service)