In every organisation, if people working there care in the slightest, there will be multiple opinions on what to do. As PMs, we need to collect all this info, synthesise and prioritise it. Then we need to communicate back efficiently and keep everyone aligned.
It's a familiar story for every PM, you work on your roadmap, trying to address the most pressing customer problems that could make the biggest impact on the business. Then the CEO comes with a new "most important thing". You start looking into that and get in the crosshairs of the head of sales who has his team "selling the roadmap" for the last three months. Meanwhile, your biggest client threatens to churn if they won't get certain features that don't make sense to anyone else.
Those sorts of environments are stressing out and burning out PMs the most. Our jobs are difficult at the best of times, and we're going mad when we need to get our jobs done in spite of our organisations, not being supported by them. But how do you change a company culture? You need to start with better communication.
Start with impact
Most organisations in our times are hierarchical. People on various levels of the hierarchy are concerned with different sets of problems. As PMs, we need to communicate effectively at every level to achieve success with our products. An impact map is one of the tools we can employ to have important conversations within our companies.Senior leaders are always focused on the impact on the business. Or they should be. That's why it makes sense to start from impacts when creating your map. Make sure you're in agreement regarding the impacts you should be chasing and then use an impact map to communicate that direction to the rest of the organisation. People on all levels need to know what your ultimate destination is.
Focus on the right actors
Another benefit of using an impact map for communication is to educate the organisation on different actors who need to act or be serviced in order for the organisation to have the impact it wants to have. Put effort into defining and describing actors (you can employ personas, jobs-to-be-done or any other tactic) so everyone is on the same page who they're solving for.Let your product teams own outcomes
You want people who are closest to the problem that needs solving to define and own the outcomes. And those are your product teams. As a PM you need to make sure your product team is aligned on the outcomes you are chasing. Review your impact map on every retro session to discuss it together and course correct if needed.Brainstorm and justify your outputs
Outputs are the trickiest part of an impact map. People love to question outputs and suggest alternatives. Use this momentum to promote healthy opportunity cost discussions with your stakeholders. When you agree on the outputs you'll be chasing - make sure you put enough details into the impact map so everyone understands why certain outputs have been selected while others not.Be annoying with your impact map
Like with any communication device you need to be very insistent for it to work. Not everyone will be immediately on board with this tool and might ignore or sabotage it. For Impact Mapping to work, you need to be very consistent to the level of annoyance. It would also help to find someone to champion this method in senior leadership.Make sure your impact map is available to anyone in your business and it is a good idea to let people provide you feedback easily. Remember that impact mapping could be used for efficient collaboration too.
Link your data to the impact map to show the progress on outputs, the way you reach or miss the outcomes you wanted and how the actors might be changing on the way.
Finally, it's a good idea to keep historical versions of your impact map to showcase how your thinking evolved based on the results and work you and your team have been doing.