Notes on Service Mapping

Jotting thoughts on repeatable processes for Service Mapping.

Quickstart

Start describing your organization and what it does, and simultaneously visualize each object.

Assertions

• Service Maps can increase situational awareness within an organization (leading to better service delivery [and operations])
• A Service Map can be created in under an hour
• A Service Map is like software, insofar as they are never DONE - done, like your lawn is done being mowed
• Service Map can be updated by non-expert staff
• Service Map conventions allow users to leverage established symbols to depict and understand higher-order concepts
• Service Map can be made executable within compatible software systems
• Service Maps can be shared across organizations, and re-used to some extent

Thinking in Objects (the puzzle pieces)

• Identify the objects on the map. Each object has a boundary (represented by a oval-ish).
• Objects may be nested within another.
• Agency is an object.
• Department is an object.
• Division is an object.
• Bureau is an object.
• Person is an object.
• The Person's Responsibilities are Objects.
• The policies or laws that supports these Responsibilities are Objects (Documents) that contain other Objects (Clauses)

Relationships between objects (verbs, attributes)

Verbs

• User1 passed Thing to User2
• System sends email to User
• User clicks email
• Web app validates user input
• User1 submits Claim
• User2 approves Claim

Generative and Concentrative Work (Double-diamond [WAVE] pattern)

• Some work is free-formed. Generative (or Creative) in nature.
• Some work is structured. Concentrative (or Administrative) in nature.
• A Person's work contains alternating aspects of both Generative and Concentrative work.

Thinking in Stories (scripting scenes from a play)

As a user I want to do something So I can realize some value

• Given preconditions
• When thing happens
• Then these conditions should occur

Over and over and over 🔁

Thinking in Animation (watching/observing scenes from a play)

• Think traffic flows (depicts capacity, throughput)
• Think live dashboards (data snapshots are a good start. would it be valuable to have more snapshots? higher-res or frequency snapshots?)
• Think Gource (many contributors contributing to single source, over time)
• Think Blender (single data-source, 3dimensional space, keyframe animations, many cameras [perspectives/resolutions]).

Thinking in Maps (an assembled puzzle)

• Stakeholder agreement on scope and vision (are we putting together the same puzzle?)

• Begin with the user

  • What does the user need to accomplish his goal? Form? An authorization?
  • Vertically: depict close to the user (in their line of sight) vs. far from the user (behind the scenes/on a server)