Is creating an impact map important? If your answer is a yes to this question or if this question has bothered you, then you are not alone. An impact map plays a crucial role in aligning business objectives with product goals, bringing the team on the same page, and steering away from product failure. According to the research, 95% of products fail to achieve the desired impact on the customers.
So when should you start mapping impacts? Let’s go through these five use cases, which highlight the importance of impact mapping in product development.
Organizations often go the feature-driven development route forgetting what pain point they initially wanted to address. As a result, all the features developed do not map back to the original business model and lead to product-market fit issues or bloated products with unnecessary features.
Creating an impact map before development helps you reverse engineer what features will solve customers’ pain points, align with the business objectives and achieve the product-market fit.
There’s nothing more frustrating to a product manager than witnessing the slow death of a healthy project to the beast known as scope creep. An impact map avoids product morphing and helps product teams maintain their focus on the initiative’s primary objective by mapping everything back to business objectives. If a feature doesn’t make it to the impact map, it probably doesn’t need to be in the product.
Were you bombarded with a myriad of feature requests from clients? We have all been there. Being committed to building a product based on user feedback is a significant promise. Some features reach your roadmap, whereas the sad reality is that most of them don’t make it to your roadmap.
This is where an impact map comes into play. Create an impact map and let the customers see for themselves. The map will show how this feature aligns with the business goals and whether or not it will benefit the product.
A well-thought impact map brings everyone on your team in sync with what features are being implemented and why. The impact map also enables you and your team to plan your next sprint cycle by highlighting which features will most impact your customers.
Last but not least, impact mapping helps you address stakeholders’ questions. The impact map demonstrates ties business goals to product development. An impact map is an excellent way to explain why certain features are being prioritized, how they will meet the user’s needs, and how this will increase the company’s revenue. Since impact mapping is visual and straightforward, it’s easy to digest. Plus, it’s 100% focused on goal attainment, making it believable.
As a product manager, you can use impact mapping to break from the feature-centric development trap. You can use impact maps during brainstorming sessions, and ongoing development when trying to figure out what to build next and bring everyone on the same page.
Looking into how you can create an impact map for your initiatives? Use Prodeasy’s impact map board to visualize, engage and plan strategically, delivering maximum value to your customers.
.jpg)
%20(1)%20(2).png)
