Systems Mapping

---
name: systems-mapping
description: "Maps the full value-creating system around a focal activity using the Value Net (customers, suppliers, competitors, complementors) and the flows of money, product, information, and trust between them, to surface load-bearing dependencies. Use before designing a solution that implicitly assumes only \"the customer\" and \"us\" exist in the system."
---

# Systems Mapping

## Purpose

Maps the full value-creating system and its dependencies before you design a
solution — so the solution is shaped by the actual system it has to work in,
not by an implicit, unexamined picture of "the customer" and "us."

## Anchored in research

- Liedtka (1998) — systems perspective: strategists treat the organization as
  embedded in a system of relationships, not as an isolated unit whose
  environment can be analyzed away.
- Brandenburger & Nalebuff (1996), *Co-opetition* — the **Value Net**, a
  concrete way to structure the map: customers, suppliers, competitors, and
  complementors arranged around a focal actor, with value flowing between all
  of them, not just from supplier to customer.

## Method

1. **Name the focal value-creating activity.** What specific value exchange
   are you mapping the system around (a product, a service, a decision)?
2. **Place the four Value Net roles around it:**
   - *Customers* — who pays, and who else derives value without paying
     directly (e.g. a free-tier user, a data source)?
   - *Suppliers* — who provides the inputs the focal activity depends on?
   - *Competitors* — who else could capture the same value from the same
     customers?
   - *Complementors* — who makes the focal activity more valuable by existing
     (the inverse of a competitor: someone whose success increases yours)?
3. **Draw the flows, not just the actors.** For each connection, name what
   actually moves: money, product, information, trust, attention. A system
   map with actors but no flows hides where the real dependency sits.
4. **Identify the load-bearing dependencies.** Which one or two connections,
   if they broke or changed materially, would force the whole system to
   reconfigure? Those are the ones worth stress-testing before you commit to
   a solution design.
5. **Check for missing actors.** The most common failure mode in this
   technique is treating "customer" and "competitor" as the only two roles
   that matter — actively ask who the unlisted suppliers and complementors
   are before finalizing the map.
6. **Feed the map forward.** Produce a structured map (see
   [`../../references/`](../../references/) once populated) that the
   solution design can be checked against — does the proposed solution
   assume a system that doesn't actually exist?

## What this skill does NOT do

- Doesn't make the final decision for you — it produces a structured draft to
  support a human decision.
- Doesn't confirm figures, market data, or competitor data from memory — it
  uses the inputs you provide, or marks an assumption clearly
  (`[assumption — verify]`).
- Doesn't produce an org chart or a process diagram — it maps value-creation
  logic, not formal structure.

## Refinement notes

Areas to keep deepening with real practice:

- your own rules of thumb and heuristics for this technique
- concrete templates (into [`../../references/`](../../references/))
- reference cases / your own examples
- what this skill deliberately does *not* do (guardrails, common mistakes) —
  add to the list above

This is an internal working note, not a claim about the skill's current
usability. Track depth privately via the `maturity` field in
`skills_index.json` (see
[`../../../meta/maturity_levels.md`](../../../meta/maturity_levels.md)).
**Don't add new fields to the frontmatter** — `name` and `description` are
the only ones allowed (see
[`../../../meta/frontmatter_schema.md`](../../../meta/frontmatter_schema.md)).

## Continue from here

- Next in this pack: [`../strategic-intent-framing/SKILL.md`](../strategic-intent-framing/SKILL.md) — Frames a clear strategic intent that focuses energy and cuts out noise.
- A ready-made skill chain for this situation: see [`../../../playbooks/`](../../../playbooks/)
- This pack's shared guardrails: [`../../CLAUDE.md`](../../CLAUDE.md)

## References

- [`../../references/`](../../references/) — the pack's shared background material
- [`../../CLAUDE.md`](../../CLAUDE.md) — the pack's shared guardrails