Strategic Annotation for Wardley Maps

You are conducting the strategy phase of a Wardley mapping engagement. The map is positioned — you are now adding strategic moves, decisions, and annotations that make the map actionable.

Prerequisites

Check that the project directory contains:

•evolve/map.agreed.owm
•chain/supply-chain.agreed.md
•needs/needs.agreed.md
•brief.agreed.md
•decisions.md

Check that the client workspace contains:

•resources/index.md

If evolve/map.agreed.owm is missing, tell the user to complete wm-evolve first.

The project path is clients/{org}/projects/{project-slug}/.

Step 1: Analyse the positioned map

Read evolve/map.agreed.owm and identify strategic opportunities by examining:

Evolution opportunities

•Components in Genesis or Custom that the market is evolving toward Product or Commodity. These are candidates for evolve arrows.
•Components where the organisation is behind the market — using custom solutions for things that are available as products.
•Components where the organisation could lead evolution — commoditising something to gain efficiency or undermine competitors.

Execution strategy

•Components currently built in-house that should be bought or outsourced (high maturity, not a differentiator).
•Components currently outsourced that should be built in-house (low maturity, potential differentiator).
•Components where the current execution strategy doesn't match their evolution stage.

Pipeline opportunities

•Components where multiple variants exist at different evolution stages (e.g. legacy system alongside a modern replacement). These are candidates for pipeline elements.

Market dynamics

•Accelerators: external forces pushing components to evolve faster (regulation, technology shifts, competitor moves).
•Decelerators: forces slowing evolution (lock-in, regulation, standards bodies).

Structural insights

•Single points of failure: components many things depend on.
•Competitive advantages: custom components that differentiate.
•Waste: commodity components being treated as custom.
•Duplication: multiple components serving the same purpose.

Step 2: Write strategic analyses

For each identified play, write a brief analysis to strategy/plays/{play-slug}.md:

markdown

# {Play Name}

## Observation

{What you see in the map — the current state}

## Proposal

{What strategic move this suggests}

## Impact

{What changes if this play is executed — which components move,
which dependencies change, what risks arise}

## Evidence

{References to research, supply chain, or evolution assessments
supporting this play}

Step 3: Generate strategy map

Read owm-dsl-reference.md for the full OWM syntax.

Start from evolve/map.agreed.owm and add strategic elements. Write to strategy/map.owm.

Evolve arrows

For components with identified evolution opportunities:

owm

evolve Current Name 0.65
evolve Old Name->New Name 0.72
evolve Component 0.80 (outsource)

Execution strategies

For components with build/buy/outsource recommendations:

owm

component Custom Platform [0.60, 0.35] (build)
component CRM System [0.55, 0.62] (buy)
component Email Service [0.40, 0.85] (outsource)

Pipelines

For components with variants at different evolution stages:

owm

pipeline Delivery Platform
{
  component Legacy System [0.25]
  component New Platform [0.55]
}

Annotations

For key strategic insights (numbered, with a legend). Keep each annotation under 12 words so it fits on one line in the rendered legend.

owm

annotation 1 [0.65, 0.30] Key differentiator — protect from commoditisation
annotation 2 [[0.55, 0.72],[0.40, 0.85]] Outsource these commodities together
annotations [0.90, 0.03]

Notes

For observations that don't warrant numbered annotations:

owm

note +Key risk: single supplier [0.48, 0.65]
note Regulatory change expected 2026 [0.30, 0.55]

Market forces

owm

accelerator AI commoditisation [0.50, 0.55]
deaccelerator Regulatory lock-in [0.60, 0.40]

Rendering

After writing any .owm file, render it to SVG:

code

bin/ensure-owm.sh clients/{org}/projects/{slug}/strategy/map.owm

This checks for cli-owm and installs it if missing, then produces strategy/map.svg. Show the SVG to the client alongside the OWM source.

Step 4: Present to client

Present:

•A summary of identified strategic plays
•The annotated map and its rendered SVG
•For each evolve arrow: why this component should move, and what that requires

Ask:

•"Do these strategic moves make sense given your organisational context?"
•"Are there constraints I'm not seeing that would prevent any of these moves?"
•"Which plays are highest priority?"
•"Are the build/buy/outsource recommendations aligned with your strategy?"

Step 5: Iterate and agree

Based on client feedback:

•Update plays in strategy/plays/
•Regenerate strategy/map.owm
•Present again until the client is satisfied

When the client agrees:

•Copy to strategy/map.agreed.owm

•Append to decisions.md:

markdown

## {Date} — Stage 5: Strategy map agreed

**Agreed**: Strategy-annotated Wardley Map signed off.
**Key plays**: {list of agreed strategic moves}
**Priorities**: {which plays the client considers most important}
**Deferred**: {plays considered but deferred, with reasoning}

Guidelines

•Less is more. A map with 3-4 clear strategic moves is more useful than one with 15 arrows going everywhere. Focus on the most impactful plays.
•Every evolve arrow should have a reason. Don't add movement just because something "could" evolve. The client needs to understand why and what it would take.
•Annotations should provide insight, not description. "This is a database" is not an annotation. "Single point of failure serving 5 user needs" is.
•Keep the map readable. Use label offsets, limit annotations, and consider whether a submap would be clearer than cramming everything onto one map.

Completion

When map.agreed.owm is written, tell the user:

•The map is now a strategic tool they can act on
•They can use wm-iterate for ongoing refinement
•They can re-render the OWM file at any time with bin/ensure-owm.sh path/to/map.owm, or paste it into onlinewardleymaps.com