Our book
This book explains, in a simple, systematic and pedagogical manner, how you can create your own enterprise map, use it and build a true anchor model for your enterprise. It is written for any business person - you do not need to be a tech nerd or architect geek to get great use of this book!
The book consists of five parts
The need for The Milky Way
Here we examine models already in use in organisations and their advantages and disadvantages. We look at geographical maps and why these are so functional. This gives us a foundation from which to understand what characteristics a model needs to have for it to be a real anchor model that generates understanding and context and helps us navigate between different models and perspectives in the organisation. This provides us with a genuine understanding of the problems and knots within organisations that can be resolved using The Milky Way.
Creating your own Milky Way
Here you find the “how-to-guide” on how to map your enterprise and relate that map to your customers and partners. 1. Identify the main steps in the value flow. 2. Make a rough division within the sectors. 3. Capture capabilities, IT systems and information flows. 4. Iterate and gain acceptance. 5. Follow the value flow. 6. Review the map. 7. Add explanatory information.
The Milky Way as an anchor model
Here we explore the benefits that the Milky Way map can provide an enterprise by being the anchor on which we can overlay different areas of knowledge and thereby connect them. A true anchor model. This part contains many examples of analyses created with a Milky Way map as the foundation, e.g., operational plans, budgets, organisational structures, project plans and strategies. This makes it possible to see how different initiatives affect different parts of the organisation while also letting us compare how initiatives affect one another. We examine how these analyses help us create better decision-making material in a broad range of cases, from strategy and change initiatives to new value propositions.
Getting it to happen
In this part of the book, we study various perspectives of time and the importance of being able to navigate between these. We will also connect initiatives from the strategic level to the tactical and operative levels. We take a look at how The Milky Way can help us organise all of this, accelerating our decision-making and our rate of change, thereby helping us more quickly derive profitable results from our change initiatives. We also look at ways in which The Milky Way can support agile development, certain aspects of Lean, and how it can enable event-driven solution architecture.
Going further
This part of the book is primarily aimed at those who are responsible for creating and maintaining a Milky Way map. We will take an in-depth look at issues that are important to keep in mind, such as responsibility and roles, how and where The Milky Way should be documented, how to manage complexity as well as recommendations regarding graphical details. Here you also find an example of a Milky Way guidebook.