Actionable Futures
AF - System Actors
Map your product or service ecosystem. Identify key actors, stakeholders, and system dependencies. Visualize relationships to reveal opportunities and risks.
Duration
30 mins
Group Size
4-10
Category
Actionable Futures
Difficulty
Easy
Map stakeholders, users, and system components. Understand interactions within a system.
- Identified system actors.
- Understood system participants.
- Foundation for system design.
This exercise is best after defining the problem but before solution design. It helps visualize the complete picture. Teams often forget internal actors like finance or legal. Prompt with questions: 'Who pays? Who complains? Who fixes things? Who do we report to?' The relationship mapping reveals valuable insights. Give it time. Acknowledge when participants realize previously unknown interactions. For mature products, focus on a specific user journey. For new products, identify unknowns and risks. Remote teams can use Miro or FigJam with a template. I've seen teams get bogged down in ring placement; remind them it's about relative influence, not perfect categorization.
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