Wardley Mapping
Plot value chain components against their evolution from genesis to commodity — strategy becomes visible.
"Most strategy is verbal. Wardley turns it into a map you can be wrong about."
What is Wardley Mapping? Plot value chain components against their evolution from genesis to commodity — strategy becomes visible. Why outsourcing a 'core' capability is often correct — it's no longer core, it's commodity.
Simon Wardley's mapping work at Canonical and across UK government digital service.
Why outsourcing a 'core' capability is often correct — it's no longer core, it's commodity.
Map before you strategize. The position of each component dictates the right play (build/buy/outsource).
Use the model. Pick the move.
Plot value chain components against their evolution from genesis to commodity — strategy becomes visible. You've just seen this: Simon Wardley's mapping work at Canonical and across UK government digital service. Which lever does the model recommend?
Pick a lever. There are no neutral ones — every incentive funds a behavior somewhere.
Pick a reaction to Wardley Mapping
One tap. We'll point you at the most useful next surface based on how this hits.
The full taxonomy entry
Every concept in the Atlas uses the same structure — so Wardley Mapping can be compared, recombined, and cited like an element on a periodic table.
- Business
- Leadership
- Government
- Healthcare
- Education
- Sales
- Marketing
- AI
- Negotiation
- Media
- Public Policy
- Relationships
- Where in our org would Wardley Mapping most often show up unnoticed?
- Which metric, ritual, or contract clause quietly rewards Wardley Mapping?
- If we removed every payoff for Wardley Mapping, what behavior would replace it?
- Who benefits when Wardley Mapping persists — and who pays the cost?
- People defend the status quo using the language of wardley mapping.
- Decisions cluster around the easiest narrative rather than the strongest evidence.
- New data changes the slide deck but not the decision.
- Anyone naming the pattern is treated as the problem.
Every Atlas entry is a node in a knowledge graph. See the related rail below to follow the connections.
See Wardley Mapping through 2 lenses
Each layer of the Incentives OS reframes this concept with its own thinkers, vocabulary, and diagnostic question.
Do you actually know Wardley Mapping?
Three quick questions. Result is saved into your review streak — come back when the term is due to lock it in.
Which best describes Wardley Mapping?
Worked example, counter-example & concept map
On-demand AI analysis grounded in the Lab's research. Cached on your device after first run.
When you encounter Wardley Mapping, your prefrontal cortex has to do extra work to override the automatic response — and that override budget is finite.
Executive control, planning, impulse override, working memory, System 2. First thing to go offline under stress, fatigue, or low blood sugar. Why your 4pm decisions are worse than your 9am ones.
See Prefrontal in the Brain Atlas →Picked for you, from the Atlas
Ranked by shared learning paths, overlapping chips, and what you've saved.
Basics first (health/finances), then depth (mastery/impact), then altruism (widening circle).
A problem whose solution requires people to change their values, beliefs, or habits — not just apply expertise.
Holding a different — and correct — set of tools than everyone else.
Someone who incites others to take illegal or rash action, often to expose or discredit them.
Sun Tzu's ancient treatise on strategy, deception, and positioning.
Conflict between belligerents with very different resources and tactics.
Send the card, not just the link
A pre-rendered social card with the title, eyebrow, and URL. Copy the link, post it anywhere, or download the SVG for slides.
More definitions to follow
Every term in the Atlas connects to a dozen others. Pick any of these and see where it takes you.
Wish → Outcome → Obstacle → Plan. A goal-setting protocol from Oettingen.
It's better because it's newer.
Federal oversight intended to protect tribal assets creates friction that devalues the land.
Digital-age learning theory: knowledge lives in networks; the skill is forming and pruning the right connections.
We dismiss the ideas and merits of people we dislike.
False information presented as legitimate journalism.
Cue → routine → reward.
Bypassing model safety constraints.
Originators paid on volume, not on default rates.
B followed A, therefore A caused B.
Return-to-office mandated for visibility, not productivity.
Looking where the light is, not where the keys are.