ANSWER

Wardley Mapping is a strategic visualization technique created by Simon Wardley. It plots all the components required to satisfy a single user need on a two-dimensional chart:

• Vertical axis – Value Chain: visibility to the end user, from customer-facing features at the top to commodity infrastructure at the bottom.
• Horizontal axis – Evolution: maturity of each component, moving left-to-right through Genesis → Custom-built → Product/Rental → Commodity/Utility.

Core Elements of Wardley Mapping

• User Need – the anchor at the top.
• Components – activities, data, practices, or technologies enabling that need.
• Movement – arrows indicating strategic plays (e.g., open-source, outsource, retire).
• Patterns & Doctrine – Wardley’s heuristics for testing the map’s logic.

Typical Wardley Mapping Steps

1. Define scope and user need (e.g., “borrower receives loan approval”).
2. Inventory components via interviews, logs, and architecture diagrams.
3. Draw the value chain top-to-bottom, linking dependencies.
4. Place components on the evolution axis using signals such as ubiquity and market change rate.
5. Stress-test with patterns (commoditization, inertia) and doctrine (“focus on user”).
6. Derive options – outsource commodities, invest in differentiating genesis items, standardize products.
7. Translate insights into backlog items, sourcing decisions, and roadmap themes.

Why It Matters

Wardley Mapping converts abstract strategy into a single, shared picture that exposes blind spots and looming commoditization. By revealing where each activity sits in both the customer’s line of sight and the market’s evolutionary curve, it makes build-versus-buy, cloud migration, and investment choices almost self-evident. The map fosters rapid consensus across business, technology, and finance because stakeholders debate evidence they can all see rather than hidden assumptions. As the environment shifts, the map also highlights areas vulnerable to disruption, enabling pre-emptive moves and continuous alignment with user value—exactly the kind of situational awareness a business analyst needs to keep initiatives on target.

Wardley Mapping gives business analysts a crisp, evidence-backed lens for prioritization and strategic guidance, letting the landscape—rather than hierarchy or opinion—dictate where time, talent, and budget should go.

Example

In an online mortgage platform, the borrower UI may fall under Product, the proprietary underwriting algorithm under Custom-built, and cloud hosting under commoditized Utility. The map immediately suggests outsourcing hosting, protecting and enhancing the algorithm, and leveraging ready-made UI frameworks to accelerate delivery.