Doctrine

What is doctrine?

For mappers, Doctrine is not a scary word but a set of universally applicable principles. Principles that work in every situation, for every organisation.

Think of it. Can any reasonable person argue that principles such as 'Know your users' or 'Challenge assumptions' should be ignored?

It just does not make sense. That makes them universally applicable.

Every single organisation should have those principles covered.

Unfortunately, they often don't because they are not aware this is something they should manage.

Simon Wardley identified forty universal principles, and, for many organisations, this is a breakthrough because they can finally talk about their internal processes.

The expectations are that organisations that are poor at doctrine are poor in business because they cannot react to market changes even if their existing business looks good.

How do you use doctrine?

Simon represents doctrine like this (do not worry about the individual principles nor phases yet, we will cover them later):

Image 1: A full doctrine table.

You can ask your team to show how they feel about a particular principle. There is no maturity model, no scale, just three colours:

green - we are doing great
amber - we could improve a few things
red - we do not do it

Image 2: A first set of doctrine principles with votes.

The mere fact of those principles evaluation shows where are weaknesses and enables corrective actions. This is also the shortest path to getting value out of Wardley Mapping without learning maps in the first place.

Also, you can evaluate two companies (look at the images below) and ask yourself one of questions:

For which company I would like to work?
In which company I would like to invest?
Which company is a more dangerous competitor?

Image 3 & 4: Which of those companies look better? Which one is better to work for and which one is better to compete with?

How to use doctrine phases?

Before you run a marathon, you need to know how to run. Before you run, you need to know how to walk.

Forty doctrine principles is a lot, and trying to introduce all of them in one go would end in an inevitable crash 💥.

That is why the doctrine principles are split into four groups (or phases). If you want to work with doctrine, you start with principles listed in the phase I, then phase II, then phase III, then phase IV. Later phases require earlier phases to work.

Phase I

Phase I consists of the principles listed in the table below. Each principle links to corresponding Simon's writing.

Communication	Development	Operation	Learning
Use a common language (necessary for collaboration)	Know your users (e.g. customers, shareholders, regulators, staff)	Think small (as in know the details)	Use a systematic mechanism of learning (a bias towards data)
Challenge assumptions (speak up and question)	Focus on user needs
Focus on high situational awareness (understand what is being considered)	Remove bias and duplication
	Use appropriate methods (e.g. agile vs lean vs six sigma)

Phase II

Communication	Development	Operation	Learning	Leading	Structure
Be transparent (a bias towards open)	Focus on the outcome not a contract (e.f. worth based development)	Manage inertia (e.g. existing practice, political capital, previous investment)	A bias towards action (learn by playing the game)	Move fast (an imperfect plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed tomorrow)	Think small (as in teams)
	Think fast, inexpensive, restrained and elegant (FIRE, formerly FIST)	Manage failure		Strategy is iterative not linear (fast reactive cycles)	Distribute power and decision making
	Use appropriate tools (e.g. mapping, financial models)	Effectiveness over efficiency			Think aptitude and attitude
	Be pragmatic (it doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice)
	Use standards where appropriate

Phase III

Operation	Learning	Leading	Structure
Optimise flow (remove bottlenecks)	A bias towards the new (be curious, take appropriate risks)	Commit to the direction, be adaptive along the path (crossing the river by feeling the stones)	Provide purpose, mastery & autonomy
Do better with less (continual improvement)		Be the owner (take responsibility)	Seek the best
Set exceptional standards (great is just not good enough)		Think big (inspire others, provide direction)
		Strategy is complex (embrace uncertainty)
		Be humble (listen, be selfless, have fortitude)

Phase IV

Communication	Development	Operation	Learning	Leading	Structure
			Listen to your ecosystem (acts as a future sensing engine)	Exploit the landscape	There is no one culture (e.g. pioneers, settlers and town planners)
				There is no core (everything is transient)	Design for constant evolution

Tooling

Tooling is pretty limited. You can explore an open source https://doctrine.wardleymaps.com/ if you wish to. It is a simple tool that lets you evaluate a single company and download result as a png file.

VISUAL COMMUNICATION FOR BUSINESS

WARDLEY MAPS