I've been asked for a bit more detail on my post on "Business Model Canvas, the end of a long road" and so I thought I'd use an example.
I was recently looking into the whole area of identity and access management (something I'm mulling over for future LEF tours) and so quickly put together a basic map of the industry. Now, I'm no expert on the subject and so I turned to others to give me input (I find my Wardley maps are useful for collaboration with others). A basic map is shown in figure 1.
Figure 1
The first thing I'd do with this was to look at weak signals (i.e. points where the industry is shifting from product to commodity [+utility]), add in competition forces (i.e. those areas where competition and hence evolution appears strongest) and add in known ecosystem plays such as ILC. This I've shown in figure 2.
Figure 2
At this point, I'm looking for potential. There are two "wheres" that I might attack for example in the above map. One of which is obvious and the other is a combination of components. The two are :-
- profiling and the development of an ecosystem around this.
- personal reputation and the development of a relatively novel system that combines components of both trust and profile.
This I've show in figure 3. Of course, there's numerous other points I might wish to attack and a vast array of games (repeatable forms of gameplay applicable to different contexts) that I can use.
Figure 3
I might have spent a few hours mapping out the landscape and collaborating with others but let us say, I push the boat out and go a bit overboard by spending another day and comparing with other players in the space, adding in inertia and constraints where necessary. Lets add another half a day for gameplay. I'll have a pretty extensive map of the landscape, multiple points (WHERE) that I can attack and a good idea of how to play this and the different games available.
By now I'll be looking for my WHY as in WHY here over there. Once I've played with a few scenarios (a few hours) and settled on one or two main points of attack then this is the point that I'd start using the maps to flesh out one or more business model canvas (and yes, I might even use a SWOT). For me, these tools are more an exercise of confirmation and challenge to the idea of my chosen point of attack. And before you ask, yes I could spend a whole three days on this entire analysis prior to embarking on a major effort but in practice I rarely need to.
I find it incredibly useful to understand the landscape, the points where you can attack and the games you can play before embarking on a chosen route. I never start with business model canvas or SWOTs but I often use them further down the line when I've got a good idea of WHERE I'm going to attack and WHY here over there.
