Context Map
A wall map of the forces outside an organisation. Six flip-chart sheets form a grid with the organisation drawn at the centre top, surrounded by political factors, economic climate, trends, technology factors, customer needs and uncertainties. The group fills each area together and looks at where the pressure and the energy are.
Use when strategy work is starting and the group needs a shared picture of its environment before discussing what to do.
Solves: Strategy discussions jump straight to internal plans, and the outside world only shows up as surprises later.
- 1
Step 1: Hang six flip-chart sheets in a two-by-three grid and draw the organisation at the centre top (5 min, before).
- 2
Step 2: Label the areas: political factors, economic climate, trends, technology factors, customer needs, uncertainties (5 min).
- 3
Step 3: Work through the areas one by one; people call out or post items and the facilitator records them (30-50 min).
- 4
Step 4: For trends, ask the group to qualify each one, for example by importance or speed (10 min).
- 5
Step 5: Step back and summarise: where is the most pressure, what surprised us, what do we need to watch? (10-15 min).
- Do some homework beforehand so you can prompt with real examples.
- Notice where the energy goes, but steer internal topics back to external factors.
- Keep the map on the wall for the rest of the strategy work.
- Swap in categories that fit the sector, such as regulation or funding.