Expedition Mapping - Transcript

Geoff Watts: Hello Paul, how are you?

Paul Goddard: Hello Geoffrey Charles Watts. I still use your middle name.

Geoff Watts: Well, why not? Yeah.

Paul Goddard: And it’s me, Paul Kenneth Goddard. Hello everyone.

Geoff Watts: Yes. Not many people know that.

Paul Goddard: Before we started recording today, Geoff and I were laughing about our middle names that never get used. So there you are — a little Easter egg for those of you who didn’t know.

Geoff Watts: Neither of us particularly likes them, so we’re open to new suggestions. If any of you think you’ve got a better middle name for us, let us know.

Paul Goddard: Write in. And of course we should also say hello to Geoff Goddard. I always feel that’s important. We met Geoff Goddard at a conference and thought he was a fake Twitter account, didn’t we? Someone taking the piss out of us by blending both our names. But no — Geoff Goddard does exist. So hello, Geoff Goddard, if you’re listening.

Geoff Watts: Assuming he didn’t change his name by deed poll.

Paul Goddard: Maybe just a very avid follower. So, what are we talking about today, Geoff?

Geoff Watts: I think this is probably about as close to self-promotion as we’ll get on this podcast, but over the weekend my new book came out.

Paul Goddard: Oh!

Geoff Watts: And I’m going to take a technique from that. The book is called Surviving the Stakeholder Safari. It’s all about managing difficult personalities at work.

Paul Goddard: Right, okay.

Geoff Watts: If you ever find yourself doing a lot of stakeholder management — and really, if you’re trying to get work done, then you’ve got stakeholders and they need managing.

Paul Goddard: And it’s not really just an agile thing either, is it? This transcends all sorts of project management approaches. It goes beyond agile.

Geoff Watts: Yeah. It’s broadly applicable across lots of roles. A lot of people you and I come across have all these different personalities to deal with. Whenever we’ve done stakeholder management in the past, we’ve used a different metaphor: battle mapping.

Paul Goddard: Yes.

Geoff Watts: We’ve always been a little uncomfortable with the metaphor of war. We’ve caveated it heavily, and some people really dislike it, which I can understand. So for years we’ve been saying we need a better metaphor.

Paul Goddard: Yeah.

Geoff Watts: And I came up with one. It evolved out of a set of workshops I was running with a client. They were product people, but it quickly became clear this was bigger than product. These were people dealing with lots of stakeholders, and it was taking up a lot of their time and energy.

So we created a group of archetypes — organisational personalities you come across. Some of them are familiar already, like the seagull manager. But because, as we’ve said before, we love our acronyms, each animal is an acronym.

So a seagull swoops in, expresses authority, generates urgency, and leaves their load behind.

Paul Goddard: Very good.

Geoff Watts: And a lion loudly insists on now. These are archetypes. I’ve definitely come across people who basically put all their persuasion into volume: “This is what I want, and I want it now.” So how do you deal with stakeholders like that?

We came up with 50 different animals, and the technique is called Expedition Mapping rather than battle mapping. You think of your product, project, or change initiative as an expedition. Along the way, you’ll come across all these different animals on the safari.

Paul Goddard: Okay. I think I’m with you so far. I’d love to go on a safari where seagulls are one of the attractions, but yes — carry on.

Geoff Watts: As with all metaphors, there’s a bit of a stretch. You might not come across a turtle, a seagull and a crab in the same real safari as a rhino, hippo and cheetah. But you’re travelling through different terrain, so let’s allow it.

Some common scenarios where this helps are things like product owners bringing different parts of the organisation together around a roadmap or a release. Or scrum masters trying to protect the team from external disruption. Or agile coaches and change agents trying to nurture a new way of working, without formal authority over everyone involved.

Paul Goddard: So is this something visual as well? Something people would capture?

Geoff Watts: Yeah, definitely. The exercise actually started as a bunch of laminated cards — proper MVP stuff, printed on my home inkjet printer and laminated with a home laminator.

Paul Goddard: Right.

Geoff Watts: Cards are tactile. You can move them around a table, or use virtual cards on a Miro board. The downloadable content is an expedition mapping template — a structured way of thinking about who your stakeholders are, what traits they have, where they might show up, and what tactics you might want ready for when you encounter them.

There are six steps to the Expedition Mapping technique.

Paul Goddard: Okay.

Geoff Watts: The first is to set the destination. We’re not wandering aimlessly through the wilderness. We’ve got a goal in mind. Maybe it’s a product release, maybe it’s improved conversion, maybe it’s a bug-free release — something tangible and outcome-based rather than output-based.

Paul Goddard: Okay.

Geoff Watts: The second is to define your non-negotiables. Along the journey, there’ll be compromises and trade-offs. That’s just reality. But it helps to know in advance what your red lines are.

For example: we will not ship untested changes on a Friday. Or we won’t burn the team out with overtime more than once a month. Or we will always have a rollback plan. Write those things down so you’re clear, and so the team can help defend them.

Paul Goddard: Okay.

Geoff Watts: Step three is where it gets a bit more fun — but also a bit dangerous if misused. That’s to identify the animals.

Paul Goddard: So as a group activity, you’d call out which animals you think you’re going to encounter along the way?

Geoff Watts: Exactly. Some of them will jump out at you. You might say, “We’ve definitely got this executive who constantly drops in, stirs things up and leaves” — classic seagull. Or maybe someone in sales who keeps saying, “No, we need this now or yesterday” — that might be a lion.

Or you might have a goat — the greatest obstructer of all time.

Paul Goddard: Greatest obstructer of all time. Very good.

Geoff Watts: Someone stubborn and resistant who just blocks things.

Paul Goddard: Goats are stubborn, aren’t they?

Geoff Watts: It’s almost as if I’ve connected the animal to the behaviour.

Paul Goddard: Very good.

Geoff Watts: Or maybe you’ve got a goose.

Paul Goddard: Go on then — what’s a goose?

Geoff Watts: Guessing overly optimistic scheduling estimates.

Paul Goddard: Ah.

Geoff Watts: Your classic optimistic developer: “Yeah, I can do that in a couple of days.” So there are lots of different animals.

But here’s the caveat: this is not about labelling people and then going off and calling Ian from compliance a crab.

Paul Goddard: But there is probably a safety in it becoming an internal reference point, isn’t there? The team can form a shared picture and language without publicly naming and shaming anyone.

Geoff Watts: Exactly. And it’s important to stress that these behaviours are very rarely malicious. Your goose is optimistic. They want good things. Your lion might be under a lot of pressure and trying to create urgency in the only way they know how. The seagull may genuinely think they’re being efficient.

They often just don’t see the downside of their behaviour. So this requires some empathy. They’re not villains or enemies. But equally, those behaviours can still have significant consequences.

Paul Goddard: Okay. I’m with you.

Geoff Watts: Step four is to do a bit of risk assessment.

So for your seagull, for example: how likely is it that they’ll show up? Quite likely — maybe they appear every month in the update meeting, drop a bomb, then leave. And what’s the impact? Probably high. It can undo work, morale and progress.

You can also ask: what triggers this behaviour? Is it anxiety? Lack of visibility? Pressure? And what’s the cost of it? Not every stakeholder has the same level of impact.

Paul Goddard: And do relationships between stakeholders matter here too? Like how one goose might be influenced by a lion?

Geoff Watts: Definitely. There’s a pack dynamic aspect, and also a balancing aspect.

Some stakeholders are very action-oriented and don’t stop to think. Others overanalyse and delay everything. Sometimes pairing those types can actually create some balance. And sometimes stakeholder A listens more to stakeholder B than they do to you — so you don’t have to do all the stakeholder management yourself.

And then there’s the pack effect. One lion on its own is a lot easier to deal with than a whole group of lions all roaring.

Paul Goddard: A pride of lions, Geoff.

Geoff Watts: Very good. A pride of lions. So yes, whether they’re acting alone or as part of a group really matters. Ian from compliance might be easier to deal with than “compliance” as a collective.

When we’ve run battle mapping in the past, people often write groups on post-its: users, sales, regulators. That’s helpful. But if you can get more specific — down to actual people — it becomes easier to understand, relate to and manage.

Paul Goddard: Nice. What comes next?

Geoff Watts: Two more steps.

Step five is to choose your strategies and tactics. Once you’ve identified some likely animals and thought about their risk, you ask: how might we respond?

For a seagull, for example, you might use process as a boundary. You could say: we only revisit direction on the first Monday of the month — or something similar. You create some rules of the game.

You might also create trade-offs: every time a new request comes in, something has to come out. If they’re going to dump work on the team, they also have to help clear up the mess.

For a lion — someone who loudly insists on now — you can try to make “now” more expensive. If this truly has to happen immediately, then what gets paused? What assumptions are driving that urgency? What would need to change to make it less urgent?

And sometimes you can reflect their impact back to them. For example: when things get loud, other people in the team disengage. They don’t feel safe enough to contribute. I’m sure that’s not your intention, but that’s the effect.

Paul Goddard: So have you got tactics for every animal in the safari?

Geoff Watts: Oh yes.

Paul Goddard: Have you?

Geoff Watts: In the book there are at least four tactics for each animal — and often more, because not all lions are the same. And the same person might show up as a goat one day and a rhino the next.

Which brings us to the final step: pack your backpack.

Paul Goddard: Okay.

Geoff Watts: When you go on an expedition, you can’t carry everything. But once you’ve thought through what you’re likely to face, you can pack appropriately.

I imagine the backpack having five compartments — five kinds of tools.

The first is navigation tools. These are things that help you stay oriented when it gets messy. A compass, metaphorically speaking. That might be your product vision, your north star metric, your OKRs, your roadmap, your team principles — something you can come back to and say, “This is still where we’re trying to get to.”

Paul Goddard: Okay.

Geoff Watts: The second is evidence tools. These help keep you out of opinion warfare. Rather than “my opinion versus your opinion”, you can bring in customer evidence, stakeholder feedback, survey results, quotes, recordings, behavioural data, decision logs, leading indicators — things that help ground the conversation.

Paul Goddard: I’m trying not to stretch your metaphor too far by imagining what specific item in a backpack that would be. I’m also getting big Dora the Explorer vibes here.

Geoff Watts: Nice.

The third compartment is relationship tools. These help you build and maintain relationships. It could be a user manual for key stakeholders, or some kind of coaching-up canvas. Just simple ways of remembering what people care about, what their fears are, what motivates them, and what language they respond to.

Paul Goddard: A Rolodex, perhaps?

Geoff Watts: In the old days, yes.

Paul Goddard: Geoff, you’re showing your age. I think even when we started, Rolodexes had gone. Filofax, maybe.

Geoff Watts: Fair point.

The fourth compartment is boundary tools. These are things that help make sure you don’t cross lines you don’t want to cross. Meeting norms, agendas, timeboxes, escalation paths, clear “we will / we won’t” statements — things that protect the team and make the rules of engagement clearer.

And finally, self-management tools. Because stakeholder management takes its toll. Especially if you’re conflict-averse or a people pleaser.

These might be reset routines before difficult meetings. Or a stock phrase you can fall back on when you’re put on the spot, so you don’t react impulsively. Instead of immediately saying yes, maybe you say: That’s interesting — let me look at the options. Or: If enough things change, then maybe that could work.

What might your self-management tools be?

Paul Goddard: I think some sort of timeout procedure. Giving myself a pause before I say something. Not necessarily saying that out loud, but maybe counting in my head or doing a quick internal assessment before I respond.

And I think other people can be a self-management tool too — people I trust, people I can consult with before I react. That can act as a bit of a safety mechanism.

Geoff Watts: Nice. So buying yourself a bit of time, not reacting emotionally, not responding without thinking. And having people around you who can help you notice if you’re going too far into people-pleasing or avoidance.

That can be really useful.

So to recap:

• set the destination
• define your non-negotiables
• identify the animals
• do a bit of risk assessment
• choose your tactics
• and pack your backpack

You’re never going to prepare for every eventuality, and that’s fine. The goal in stakeholder management is not to eliminate every difficult situation. You can’t remove all the danger, and you don’t have to tackle everything head-on.

Sometimes you’ll look at the route and think: I’ve got to go through that herd of zebras. There’s no way around it. But sometimes you’ll spot an anaconda and think: Nope — I’m going around that.

Paul Goddard: Have you got an acronym for anaconda?

Geoff Watts: Of course. A numbers-addicted character openly neglecting discovery activities.

Paul Goddard: Ooh.

Geoff Watts: Someone so obsessed with numbers, metrics and efficiency that they squeeze all the discovery and creativity out of the team.

Paul Goddard: Very good. I like it.

I was also thinking this connects nicely to something else we used to do — treasure maps. It’s probably not a full episode in itself, but it fits here. We used to ask people on advanced Scrum Master courses to draw a treasure map of what they wanted to achieve over the two days.

And I think the same is true here: there’s a huge storytelling element, a huge metaphor element. It engages a different part of the brain. It probably also gives people a safer way to talk about difficult behaviours and uncomfortable relationships, because they can speak about them a bit more abstractly.

Geoff Watts: Nice. Yeah, I’d love to see those old tea-stained treasure maps again.

Paul Goddard: Oh yes. On a Sunday night before a class, I’d be in the kitchen putting bits of paper in the oven after staining them with tea and coffee and tearing the edges to make them look old.

Geoff Watts: Good old days.

Paul Goddard: We had all sorts on those maps — forests of frustration, swamps of prioritisation, mountains…

Geoff Watts: Yeah, very creative journeys.

Paul Goddard: Love it, Geoff.

So where can people go to find out more about this and about your book?

Geoff Watts: They can find it on my website. They can find it on Amazon. I was going to say “available in all good bookshops and some bad ones”, but I hear that joke quite a lot.

I’ll also provide a downloadable Expedition Mapping template, which is really useful alongside the book.

Paul Goddard: Nice. Good stuff. Love it, Geoff. Thank you very much for sharing.

And that’s all we have time for today. So thank you very much, Geoff, and thank you to our audience. That’s it for this one. See you all soon. Goodbye.

Geoff Watts: Take care everyone.