Impact Mapping is a product development framework that focuses on defining business goals, key personas, desired changes in behavior, and features to enable those changes. It recommends adding quality gates to ensure investments are worthwhile. Measurement is key, defining what to measure, how, benchmarks, and ideal targets. The framework also examines actors, their behaviors, impacts, deliverables, specifications, routines, and provides a recap example.

1. Impact Mapping
Product Dev Framework Summary

2. Impact Map Key
Questions ● Define Business Goal -
Why?
● Name Key Personas - Who?
● Describe Desired Change in
Behavior - How?
● Find Features That Allow
Desired Changes - What?

3. Product Checkpoints
Add quality gates at key points to ensure that:
a) We’re investing in the right problems
b) Solutions we’re building are adding value and not resulting in
bugs and technical debt that erode the investment
Image from: Quality Gates in Project Management - apppm

4. Measurement
1. What do we want to measure? Eg. compute costs
2. How do we measure it? Eg. GCP invoicing
3. What is the minimum acceptable value/benchmark? Eg. $15,000
4. What would it need to be to invest? Eg. $8,000
5. What would be ideal? Eg. $5,000

5. The Who / Actors
● Whose behavior do we want to impact? Eg.
CTO, Developers
● Who can produce the desired effect? Eg. CTO
as the buyer
● Who can obstruct it? Eg. CISO, Financial
Approval
● Who are the consumers or users of our
product? Eg. Developers
● Who will be impacted by it? Eg. Anyone who
has data processed by the company
Image from: How information-driven product design helps to accelerate time-to-market | by Nikon
Rasumov | Medium

6. The how / impacts ● How should our actors’
behaviors change? Eg.
Encryption all data by
default
● How can they help us
achieve that goal? Eg. Use
our encryption library
● How can they obstruct or
prevent us from
succeeding? Eg. Blockade
product adoption
Image From: Impact Mapping - a cheatsheet | Tom Donohue

7. The What / Deliverable
● Work from goal to get a list of defined
features
● Finally, ask what can we do, as an
organization or a team to support
required impacts?
● How do we work with marketing,
sales, program management, and
ensure a feedback loop to
engineering?
Image from: Determining value using impact mapping | by Magnus Dahlgren | Medium

8. Write the Spec and Build
● Jira Story
● Git branch for story
● Build out Scenarios as
needed
● Review with key
stakeholders
● Create an entity relationship
diagram as needed
● Build out Given, When,
Thens as needed
● Create an Engineering
Definition of Ready
● Create a Definition of Done
● Review
Image from: Epics, Stories, Themes, and Initiatives | Atlassian

9. Routines
● Quarterly Planning
● Quarterly Plan Sign Off
● Weekly Product Updates
● Mid-Quarter Check-In
● Quarterly Business Review
Image from How to Create a Quarterly Release Plan | Template and Examples

10. Recap Example
Image from Impact Mapping for Business Outcomes l Elabor8
Why? Who? How? What?

11. Resources Consulted
● Impact Mapping
● What is Impact Mapping? | Definition and Overview
● Impact Mapping for Business Outcomes l Elabor8