A Guide to Impact Mapping (With Examples!)

Impact mapping is a strategic planning tool introduced by Gojko Adzic in 2012 to help product development teams prioritize features that align with overarching organizational goals. By emphasizing the importance of mapping features to business objectives, it ensures that the product roadmap is not merely a list of features but a targeted plan with clear reasons for each inclusion. This collaborative method facilitates engaging various stakeholders, exposing assumptions, and documenting decisions, thereby creating a dynamic and adaptable project scope. Impact mapping involves four steps: defining goals, identifying key actors, determining desired impacts, and writing down deliverables, which collectively ensure that development efforts are focused on actions that drive significant outcomes. It is particularly useful when setting shared goals across departments or when revisiting existing initiatives, helping organizations refine their strategies in response to changing market conditions or new insights while fostering collaboration across different roles.