Official skill · Strategy
Wardley map
Builds a Wardley map: user need as the anchor, the value chain by visibility, each component placed on the evolution axis with evidence, then the moves to build, buy, rent, or watch. Use it when deciding what to build, buy, rent, or outsource across a product or operation.
AI skill
Have your AI map your value chain and where it's heading
14 days free · No card needed
Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, the official skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.
When to use it
- Deciding what to build, buy, rent, or outsource across a product or operation
- Finding where to differentiate and where effort goes into solved problems
- Checking a roadmap against how a market and its technologies evolve
What you give it
- The scope and the decision
- Users and their needs
- The components that meet the need
- Evidence on how evolved each component is
What you get
A component table with visibility, dependencies, evolution stage and evidence, a plain-text map sketch, what the map shows, moves with owners, and assumptions to check.
How it works
- Fix the anchor
- Build the value chain
- Place each component on the evolution axis
- Mark movement and inertia
- Draw the map
- Read the map for method mismatches
- Choose the moves
- List assumptions and how to test them
Example
What you give it
Map our business. We run an online math tutoring service for high-school students in one country. Users: parents who pay, students who attend. The parent's need: the child passes the end-of-year math exam. We match students with tutors (our own matching rules, built in-house last year), book lessons (we use an off-the-shelf booking product), run lessons over a video-call service we pay per minute, take card payments through a payment provider, host on a cloud provider. We vet tutors with our own interview and test, which parents mention in reviews. We send parents a weekly progress report written by tutors by hand; few competitors do this, and we're still changing the format every month. We built our own whiteboard tool 3 years ago, and 2 engineers maintain it; several whiteboard products exist now. Some competitors have started testing AI practice tutors. Decision: where to spend our 4 engineers next year." Output: `
What you get back (the start of it)
Wardley map: online math tutoring · next-year engineering plan
User: parent (pays), student (attends) · Need: the child passes the end-of-year math exam · Decision this informs: where 4 engineers spend next year
Components
| Component | Visibility (1 = top) | Depends on | Evolution stage | Evidence | Movement / inertia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly progress report | 1 | Tutor notes | Custom-built (early) | Few competitors offer it; format still changes monthly | [check: movement] |
| Tutor vetting | 2 | Interview and test | Custom-built | Own process; parents cite it in reviews | [check: movement] |
| Tutor matching | 2 | [check: dependency] | Custom-built | Own rules, built last year | [check: are matching products available?] |
| Lesson booking | 3 | [check: dependency] | Product | Bought off the shelf | [check: movement] |
| Whiteboard | 3 | [check: dependency] | Product | Several whiteboard products exist | Inertia: own tool, 2 engineers maintain it |
| Video calls | 4 | Video-call service | Commodity (+utility) | Paid per minute | [check: movement] |
| Card payments | 4 | Payment provider | Commodity (+utility) | Bought from a payment provider | [check: movement] |
| Cloud hosting | 5 | Cloud provider | Commodity (+utility) | Bought from a cloud provider | [check: movement] |
| AI practice tutor | 2 | [check] | Genesis | Competitors testing, not established | Moving right [check: speed] |
Sketch
The rest of this output, the full steps and the checks the AI runs before it answers are in your pod once you add the skill.
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Changelog
- v1.0.1 · · Example: the last assumption asks what current lessons would lose without the in-house whiteboard, instead of presuming lesson recordings the input never mentions.
- v1.0.0 · · First release.
Sources
- Wardley Maps, the book by Simon Wardley (CC BY-SA 4.0) - Learn Wardley Mapping (read 2026-11-04)
- An introduction to Wardley (Value Chain) Mapping - Simon Wardley (read 2026-11-04)
- Landscape: evolution stages - Learn Wardley Mapping (read 2026-11-04)
- Climate: climatic patterns - Learn Wardley Mapping (read 2026-11-04)
- Doctrine - Learn Wardley Mapping (read 2026-11-04)
- Leadership: gameplay - Learn Wardley Mapping (read 2026-11-04)
Adapted from Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps (CC BY-SA 4.0), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: The mapping method summarized in our own words as a step-by-step procedure, with our own example and checks.