Impact Mapping: Making a big impact with software products and projects

by Gojko Adzic

When everyone involved in delivery understands the objectives, expected impacts and key assumptions in the same way, products and projects benefit from better focus and less waste. This is why goal-oriented requirements engineering methods are becoming increasingly popular in software academia. Current goal-oriented requirements engineering practices mostly focus on the early requirements phase – they end where most traditional specification techniques would start. This provides a big-picture view, but it also significantly undercuts the effectiveness of such techniques in modern software delivery. Iterative delivery methods and lean startup ideas place significant emphasis on integrating learning from delivery into refining scope, specifications and requirements. Upfront plans are inadequate because the landscape changes too frequently. But iterative delivery plans often lack a big picture. Impact maps bridge the two worlds: they facilitate strategic planning and thinking to create a big-picture view focused on key business objectives, but also facilitate learning through delivery and help us manage project roadmaps. They represent and organise delivery scope in a way that is easy to evolve, reprioritise, grow and shrink as necessary to react to changed market opportunities or new knowledge.