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MENTAL MODEL · M4698

Impact Mapping

Impact Mapping
BusinessHigh supportStrategic Management
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Updated 2026-08-10

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Impact mapping is a strategic planning technique organized around four questions: Why, the business goal; Who, the actors who can help or hinder it; How, the behavior changes those actors would need to make; and What, the deliverables the team will build. Drawing the answers as a mind map keeps every proposed feature traceable to an expected behavioral change and an underlying goal. It is used widely in agile product planning to stop feature lists drifting away from outcomes. Key qualification: the map is only as good as the clarity of the top-level goal.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Filter features: require every proposed deliverable to name the behavior change it should produce. - Challenge assumptions: test whether the assumed actor behavior is plausible before building anything. - Align stakeholders: use one shared map to expose disagreements about goals and audiences.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Most plans fail because the link between a deliverable and a business outcome is assumed rather than stated. Writing the chain explicitly forces each assumption into the open, where it can be tested or rejected. Teams then stop measuring activity and start measuring whether the intended behavior actually changed, which shortens the distance between effort spent and value created.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

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Source support: Explicit

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