Expedition Mapping Part 3

How You Can Use Expedition Maps

The primary aim of expedition mapping is to execute strategy. There are myriad applications and uses for expedition maps. We would like to describe a few important advantages or uses that we have seen emerge from nearly all strategy expeditions using our methodology.

Use One: link to annual and quarterly action planning. Strategic planning is too often appended to existing operations. Most organizations operate at a certain capacity, people are busy, budgets are fully expended. During times of strategy setting, staff get excited about the possibilities and eventually get overwhelmed by the requirements. Expedition mapping allows the organization to more easily integrate new strategy into existing operations by linking activities to annual and quarterly action planning.

Use Two: align strategic resources and annual budgets. Finding the resources to fund new strategies is a difficult endeavor. Organizations either seek new investment resources or cut current budgets to create pools for reinvestment. By better understanding how the actions required along the expeditions tie into quarterly or annual action planning, we have a better understanding of how to align the strategic resources required and link these to annual budgets.

Use Three: target capacities for growth and development. A key activity in expedition mapping is preparing the backpack by evaluating what you need, what you have, and what you must acquire. Beyond new financial resources, this allows the organization to understand and target the capacities that need focused growth and development activities.

Use Four: staying nimble and responding to changing conditions. The first analysis of the accelerators and decelerators reveals the many forces that support and impede strategic actions. By keeping the expedition maps updated and alive, quarterly or even annually will do, a focused understanding of your organization’s most important strategic actions and the forces acting on them give great insight. You can better understand how conditions are changing and remain nimble in response to them.

Use Five: getting people on board and keeping them focused. One of the most powerful aspects of our methodology for expedition mapping is the nature of the facilitated process used to build the maps from the ground up. Large-scale, collaborative sessions pulls people in. It engages them in vision. Ongoing storytelling inspires them to action. They own the outcomes and give more to the activities in a focused way. This all starts with leadership’s engagement and true belief in the destination and the journey.

A final advantage is that expedition maps are perfect tools for tracking success and adapting to changing environmental conditions. As time goes on, future years can be expanded into quarters as new activities gain granularity and detail, budgets can be refined, and more apparent accelerators and decelerators emerge. Past quarters, years, and their associated metrics make tracking strategic progress easy; the initial current state can be relabeled as the prior state and the story at any point in time can be retold as the current state. This iterative implementation of the strategy stays alive, active, and engages those involved.

The Developmental Side of Expedition Mapping

Expedition mapping in not just a tool that any individual or team can use effectively, out of the box.  Skill building should be “baked into” the development of expedition maps, and the teams should be facilitated by experienced practitioners who have acquired the perspectives, know-how, and process skills needed to successfully execute the application of expedition mapping. Such individual, team, and organizational development should be part of the expedition mapping expected outcomes.

In summary, we are excited about expedition mapping and would like to help others explore the methodology and practice. By combining storytelling, action planning, resource analysis, and adaptive scanning – and beginning and continuing the expedition as a collaborative activity – you can emerge through turbulent environments with motivated people and positive outcomes.