In this presentation I introduce a tool for strategic planning; Impact Mapping (http://impactmapping.org).
This is one of the best tools I've used to help us produce great, well communicated and easily understood strategic plans, by involving everyone needed to execute the plan.
This presentation is a continuation of my presentations about Mission, Vision and Strategic plans, but this time it's much more hands-on and practical.
12. 12
+20%
Patients
served / Day
Other
hospitals
Clinics
People in
the city
Refer hiv
- patients
Refer patients
on O.P. wait
Refer hiv -
patients
Collaborate
with dr/
midwifes
Know
services
Use our
Ambulance
Inform
doctors
Inform
Patients
Create
Banner &
other
material
13. 13
+20%
Patients
served / Day
Other
hospitals
Clinics
People in
the city
Refer hiv
- patients
Refer patients
on O.P. wait
Refer hiv -
patients
Collaborate
with dr/
midwifes
Know
services
Use our
Ambulance
Inform
doctors
Inform
Patients
Create
Banner &
other
material
28. 28
+20%
Patients
served / Day
Other
hospitals
Clinics
People in
the city
Refer hiv
- patients
Refer patients
on O.P. wait
Refer hiv -
patients
Collaborate
with dr/
midwifes
Know
services
Use our
Ambulance
Inform
doctors
Inform
Patients
Create
Banner &
other
material
I have done three presentations going through
the Mission - the Reason for an organisation to exists
the Vision - the goal, the hopes for our future
- and finally the Strategy which outlines the plans and the resources for how to get closer to the Vision state.
If you’ve seen these presentation, at this point you probably feel a little bit overwhelmed and think: that’s just theory - how on earth do I get there?! What should I do now? What’s the first thing I need to do?
Don’t worry - this is exactly what this presentation is about.
I will show you a tool called Impact mapping that is strategic planning tool. It’s visual and is best used together as a collaboration tool.
And it’s very easy to get started with.
My name is Marcus Hammarberg and I work for the Salvation Armys Health Foundation in Indonesia. We have 6 hospitals and 16 clinics spread out through Indonesia.
During the last couple years of we have been talking a lot about mission, vision and strategic plans.
In this presentation I wanted to keep it very practical and talk much more about HOW to do things rather than about the WHY that’s been the subject of the earlier presentations.
So let’s jump right in.
For the sake of keeping it simple, let’s say that one of our strategies is about increasing the number of patients we serve every day with 20%.
I’ve found it very useful to already here try to quantify, dress in numbers, the strategy we are discussing right now.
I will keep this exceedingly simple as it’s just an example, but I hope you will understand the reasoning and ideas behind it
First question we can ask is: WHO do we need to change in order to make this happen? WHO’s behaviour need to be affected.
This is not us. This is WHO we need to influence.
Well, many of our patients comes from clinics around us. So that’s a group of people we need to talk to.
Also we get referrals from other hospitals
And of course the marketing of our own services.
But that’s not really the people we want to influence, right? That might be one of the ideas that we try to influence … WHO?
People that lives around our hospital, in our neighbourhood or city for example.
Ok, we stop there for now. These are the people we are going to influence, HOW do their behaviour need to change?
Let’s focus on the hospitals first. HOW should we change them to get more patients?
Well, maybe our hospital have a special HIV-department (let’s say). Perfect - we ask the hospital around us to refer those patients on us.
Also, our operating room have spare capacity. There’s room in our schedule for more operations. Great! We ask them, other hospitals, to refer patients on their waiting list for operations
Let’s talk about Clinics? HOW should their behaviour change?
Well, the should of course start to refer patients as well. HIV patients is a good start, since HIV still is attached with a stigma, in some parts of the world, that can really be a relief for the patient to leave the local clinic
Also, complicated child deliveries or cesarean incisions need to be done at a hospital. Let’s make sure that the doctors and midwifes of our local clinics knows that we can do that. And pick up the patients with our ambulance
Finally - what about the patients in our neighbourhood? HOW should we try to change their behaviour?
We want them to visit our hospital of course, but HOW can we get them to do that? Well… the need to know about our services of course
The should also use our ambulance service, when in need
As the final part, let’s focus on the hospital again. And more specifically the “Refer HIV-patients”-card.
WHAT do we need to do to make them change their behaviour?
This is the things the WE need to do.
At this point you will find it pretty easy to generate ideas. Remember that the this is WHAT we need to do to get the HOSPITALS to REFER HIV-PATIENTS.
There’s can be a lot of ideas here, but here are a few.
We can inform and educate doctors that we supply this service.
Secondly we can inform patients themselves.
Maybe we should create a banner or other materials that we can distribute via the hospital.
Of course we should continue through all the HOW-cards we created before and generate ideas on WHAT we can do, but I’ll leave like this for now.
Let’s summarise what we just did, by looking a little bit on the theory behind this tool; Impact Mapping.
There a lot more to read in the book with the same name and also, for free, on this website.
An Impact map is just a mind map, following this structure
WHY - why are we doing this? The goal of the project or strategy.
What can we measure to see if or when we reach that target? There should be something to measure. If we can’t measure it… what value does it bring?
WHO - the actors who can influence the outcome. WHO can get us there? WHO can stop us? WHO will benefit from the impact we are making
And again - YOU are not WHO. Don’t put yourselves in here. These are the people that we need to influence with our work.
HOW - how should we change the behaviour of these actors change. What are the IMPACTS we are trying to make.
WHAT - what do we need to build. The deliverables
HOW - how should we change the behaviour of these actors change. What are the IMPACTS, the changes, the outcomes, we are trying to achieve.
Finally: WHAT - what do we need to do, build or deliver. These are the deliverables
There’s 3 words that I wanted to talk about around impact maps.
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning tool
The first word is strategic. Impact maps are a strategic planning tool.
This is what makes is a great communication tool because this is a nice level to communicate about WHY we are doing things.
This is a F16 Fighting falcon - one of the most successful fighter jets in the world.
The US Airforce asked Lockheed Martin to create an jet fighter that could: “go the double speed of sound”
This was at the time very hard to do, so the engineers asked back “Why?” Great question, huh?
“Eeeeh - to not be shot down, please? To be able to escape other fighters” was the answer.
The didn’t get a fighter that went twice the speed of sound but they did get a fighter that could out-manoeuvre any other fighter for decades to come.
It could turn sharper, the pilot had a special suit to withstand G-forces better, the instruments was displayed on the hood in front of the pilot. Everything made for the plane to become more agile, more elusive and better to fight other plans in the sky.
But they didn’t get a fighter that went twice the speed of sound.
Did the airforce get what they wanted? Or was it even better? Did they even know what they asked for?
All of these improvements from the original request came from making sure that everyone understood WHY the plane was created.
Sharing this understanding is a very important function of an impact map
An impact map also serves very well as a road map, outlining where we are going. Showing our strategies.
But what is a road map…
How do I get from here [CLICK] to here [CLICK]
A map shows the many routes we can take to get to a goal.
Road map is not a tunnel
Many road maps looks like this. First this, then that and then that and then this will happen and then…
No way to turn and change, or go back.
As you saw in our example, an impact map shows your options, what are we trying now, why are we trying that. What are other ways to go? Where’s the goal?
With many roads we can try more than one at the same time. Try to alternatives and see which one works better.
But …
How can we know if this is taking us the right way? What are we going to measure? How? What is good?
Asking and discussing these question will breed a better understanding of your plans.
Here’s the often cited example. The goal is 1M players for the next 6 months.
It’s not the rest of the lifetime of the company. That is the vision. The scope of an impact map is for the strategies that we are using to get closer to the vision.
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning tool
That was a little section about an Impact map being strategic
Another key aspect is that the impact map is visual.
And it is visual in a format that anyone can understand just by looking at it. No further explanation is needed.
With an visual, in your face, impact map we show our assumptions and ideas more clearly to each other.
This improves the shared understanding and sparks creativity.
This is the example we created before.
Where are the assumptions on this map? We THINK that we should affect other hospital. We then HOPE that referring HIV-patients is a good path. And PROBABLY Informing doctors is a great start.
But we don’t know… They are assumptions
Unspoken assumptions get’s cleared out by making it visual
This can spark discussions and a clearer communication around scope, where we are in the process and what the next logical step is.
Put things into context, providing a link back to the reason for doing the item in the first place.
How does this connect to the vision?
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning tool
Let’s wrap it up with the Collaboration part
I think one of the key aspects is to do the impact map together.
Something happens when we get together and work on a problem. We bring different experiences, we suggest new approaches, question what’s been said. Rub off each other and spark new ideas.
No matter how brilliant one single person is by herself she never more brilliant than that she can be improved with other people in the room.
Working with Impact Maps there’s two points where it can be handy to have many people in the room. First when you is when you generate options.
Secondly - when we prioritise. Here the knowledge of the people closest to the patients, in our case, might offer invaluable insights about what can be done etc. Or with the finance staff in the room we have information about if this is a good thing to try this month or the next. Etc. etc.
You should make sure that you have representation of the people involved in executing the strategy. Sometimes this is jokingly referred to as the 3 amigos.
But it, of course, doesn’t have to be 3. Bring as many amigo as you need. 10 is a bit too many maybe, to get a good productive meeting.
An impact map is a Strategic, Visual and Collaborative planning tool.
It helps us visualise the assumptions we are making about our strategy.
It is great as a road map.
It helps us know WHY we are doing what we are doing.
And drawing one is really simple. Even i can do THAT.
Go here for more information [CLICK]
My name is Marcus Hammarberg. This has been 15 minutes on Impact mapping.
Thank you for listening.
Tuhan Memberkati Anda - God Bless you.