Impact Mapping en Metodologías ágiles

It is a fundamental tool that also allows generating the initial version of a Product Backlog .

In October 2013 he gave a talk as a guest speaker at the fifth Agile Tour conference [1], a conference that brings together specialists in the subject of agile methodologies. At the conference he encouraged the use of Impact Mapping to improve the use of agile techniques in software development. Below are his main guidelines, and then he explains their impact within the agile universe.

Impact Mapping: What is it and what is it for?

Impact Mapping is a methodology that proposes concentrating efforts on what is really important, asking the right questions to accurately determine what needs to be achieved to achieve the desired goals. Concentrating efforts to occupy the mind on what is crucial, ignoring superfluous details. Asking the right questions to detect what needs to be achieved and how, to meet the goals to be achieved. Everything is then combined through a very simple and effective visualization of the information that allows for an adequate analysis. Four questions guide the technique:

1. Because?
2. Who?
3. As?
4. That?

The first thing to do is to answer why this is being done. This is the main goal to be achieved. In agile methodologies, it corresponds to the business objective pursued by a particular project.

Next, you need to answer who can achieve the desired effect, who can obstruct it, who will benefit (i.e. the entire set of stakeholders). Next, you need to answer how the actors identified in the previous point will help achieve the goals, how their behavior will impact once the objective is achieved. Finally, you need to answer what the organization or company can do to support and consolidate the changes necessary to achieve the desired goal. All this information is structured visually in a tree-like style and branches, as illustrated in Figure 1 .

Impact Mapping in Agile Methodologies

Impact mapping can have a huge positive impact on agile methodologies. At the aforementioned conference, the author of Impact Mapping explained the main reasons, and how to adapt it to be used in an agile way.

The main contribution of Impact Mapping is that it introduces a new feedback cycle into agile methodologies. Such feedback is provided from a process point of view, through managers, marketing staff, and other high-level stakeholders in the organization. Without this cycle, once the backlog of stories is determined, the agile methodology can easily become a linear process, where a sprint is finished, new stories are chosen, they are developed, others are chosen, and so on until the backlog is finished.

But what if this path was not the right one? Although the user and Product Owner are involved in the process, always doing everything the customer wants without a critical spirit, or without asking the right questions, can lead the product to failure in many cases. In many others, it can mean a large number of requirements for the Product Owner. Here, the technique allows understanding in early stages what will have the greatest impact on the business, in order to be able to make a Release Plan that maximizes the business value in each delivery.

An Impact Mapping visualization allows for variations to be introduced within the plan to be followed, avoiding the dreaded “linear effect”. Such variations allow for testing alternatives in manageable scenarios, where failure is allowed in order to take other options. Let us imagine that at the end of one or two sprints it is already possible to validate that a chosen path will not work. Having other alternatives planned allows for pivoting in time towards new proposals. Being able to evaluate an option early, and choose another path if necessary, is the decisive new feedback cycle that Impact Mapping adds to the agile world. The best way to see how this is possible is through the example presented at said conference [1].

In practice

An IT organization received a new project. An educational institute wanted to develop a system that would allow communication between students, teachers and parents. The objective described in this way is too general, so the use of Impact Mapping helped clarify requirements, thus facilitating the generation of the Product Backlog and the initial sprint. After answering the question “why are we doing this” the business objective was explicitly defined: to generate a communication link between the members of the educational community. In the “who” round, the players were established: the institution’s managers, teachers, and also parents and students. For the “how” part, strategies were designed to see how each of those involved could achieve the objective. The greatest weight was on the students’ side: getting them involved in the system was fundamental for the success of the project, since all the main communication channels went through them.

This conclusion allowed us to concentrate the focus of the system to be developed on student participation. This fact was fundamental for several reasons. First, it was decided to implement a smartphone application, and not a web system or any other type of communication. Most students base their virtual interaction on their phones, almost ignoring classic email as well as traditional web browsing. Second, it helped to outline the Product Backlog and the initial sprint. Since a smartphone application was going to be used, User Stories related to the creation and usability of the user interface were prioritized. This allowed us to quickly have a prototype to test the functionality of the application screens.

Conclusions

Impact Mapping introduces a new feedback cycle to agile methodologies. It forces you to consider several alternatives in advance to achieve the final goal, in order to have the possibility of changing in time, and avoid falling into the trap of a methodology. It also allows you to analyze what provides the most value to the business, based on the impact you want to achieve, and to align development based on this aspect.

In the example presented, the use of the technique helped to select the appropriate technology and was particularly useful in prioritizing the first release plan.

When everyone is clear about the purpose and why each task is being carried out, software production stops just for the sake of production, and real changes are achieved with a clear and verifiable impact on the business.

References:

[1] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/keynote-agile-toronto-2013