The Milky Way enterprise map
A shared map to find your way around your enterprise
Authors: @Milan Guenther @Annika Klyver
Stage: This is ready for review – get in touch if you would like to try out the tool and give feedback.
Phase: Focus | Explore | Co-Create | Invest | Realise | Sustain | All
Scope: Architecture | Identity | Experience | Enterprise
Flight level: Operations | Coordination | Strategy
Short description:
The enterprise on a page: capturing the enterprise Core Story in a single cycle-based geography, to bring together various viewpoints on the enterprise and enable shared understanding.
Why and when to use
A Milky Way enterprise map shows an overview of the enterprise on a single page, as a shared mental model for all co-creators involved in its evolution. It depicts what's going on, again and again, as the enterprise performs its activity and goes after desired outcomes.
This map is based on the enterprise's Core Story: a representation of this activity in discrete steps lined up to form a recurring cycle, that build up a universally applicable geography and provide context to all enterprise elements to be positioned on the map.
Over time and with use and adoption, the map achieves a stable layout that makes it easy for the many co-creators to orient themselves and locate parts of the enterprise. It enables you to establish a shared mental model of the enterprise for people to remember and reuse, and apply it to the many challenges they are facing. This reduces time spent learning how to read unfamiliar maps or models, communication issues and misunderstanding, and thereby streamlines conversations and decision making. Using the map integrates different viewpoints, and leads to more collaboration and better conversations.
Use this tool for:
Holistic Insight: Imagine viewing your enterprise not as isolated islands but as interconnected constellations. By combining the full variety of EDGY Enterprise Elements—those multifaceted gems of enterprise design—with the Milky Way Map, we gain a holistic perspective. It’s like having a cosmic telescope that reveals hidden connections and illuminates the grand narrative.
Beyond the What and How: The Milky Way Map isn’t just about depicting processes and structures; it connects what’s going on to shared purpose and beliefs. It helps illustrate and clarify how they come to live in actual capabilities, products and people’s experiences. We’ll delve into the “Why” behind our enterprise’s existence, aligning our stars with intention.
Transversal Decision Making: a Milky Way map makes it easy to spot, discuss and map out the impact of a specific decision, anywhere in the enterprise. It will reveal blind spots, hidden consequences or necessary ingredients to make a change happen, and give everyone involved or affected a visual aid to evaluate and co-design this together.
How to use
Resources
Related tools:
Perform an Enterprise Scan to reveal shared understanding or gaps to be addressed
Use Service Blueprints for a more detailed depiction of operations and customer interactions across one or two map segments
Related patterns:
9 Foundation of Change-Portfolio
23 Dancing to Enterprise Rhythms
30 Depicting Shared Understanding