Impact mapping is a method for strategic planning and is designed to ensure that projects or products make a real “impact” – a difference – and thus create value. The reason for the method developed by Gojko Adžié is the statement that products/projects do not function and emerge in isolation, but are in dynamic interaction with people, other projects and their environment.
Impact maps are used to make this dynamic relationship explicit and to visualize the most important assumptions and the scope of delivery behind it. This allows teams to focus their activities more specifically on the business goals of the project.
To accomplish this, an impact map – a type of mind map – is created with the following four key questions:
1. why are we doing this project/product (goal)?
2. who is relevant for this (actor)?
3. how does the target affect the actors (impact)? 4. what are the requirements to be delivered for this (result)?
One of the great advantages is that the “what?”, i.e. the activities we need to implement, are always linked to the corresponding impact and goal.
