Journey Mapping for Organizations
You live and breathe your organization’s mission – but how do you help your customers, clients, or members connect with it? Sometimes, we live and breathe our values but they’re the hardest to put into words. It’s a challenge whether you’re an solo entrepreneur or managing a large workforce.
For me, that’s where a Journey Map comes in.
Recently I’ve been collaborating with organizational change consultants who help groups articulate what path they’re on. Journey Maps help groups identify where they’ve come from, what’s ahead, and milestones to get there. It’s often a combination of workshops, interviews, and group engagement to gather the data. Then it is transformed into images (infographics, illustrations, posters) – for internal use, trade shows, or public education, etc. (Often they’re proprietary, or I’d show more examples!)
I think Journey Maps are inspiring to see hanging up on the wall – everyone can see how their work fits together. And as always, it’s a huge improvement over a bulleted powerpoint list called “What We Do.”
Some tips from recent Journey Mapping projects:
– Bring in stakeholder perspectives early. For example, for health care journey maps, bring in a patient advisor from the beginning.
– Align the metaphor. There may be metaphor that will help the wider public or your stakeholders understand your vision quickly. It could be a road, a bridge, a trail through the woods, a canoe in a river…. it should clearly show where you’ve coming from and where you are going – your North Star.
– Make it specific to the group. Bring elements of your organization to life by using images that highlight specific elements of the organization. In the image to the left, transmission and distribution power lines connect the milestones for a power company.
– Consider it a living document. One organization took laminated copies of their Journey Map into the community – then asked people to give their feedback by drawing right on the page. It showed they were truly open to feedback.
Does your group have a Journey Map? How do you use it?