Rebundle
/wardley-map
Skill

Wardley Map

Mapea tu cadena de valor en un Wardley Map: componentes en eje de visibilidad, evolución en eje de commodity.

SKILL.md
---
name: wardley-map
description: Build a Wardley Map of a business or product. Y axis = visibility to customer (top = needs, bottom = enablers). X axis = stage of evolution (genesis → custom → product → commodity). Use it to identify where to compete (custom/product) vs where to consume (commodity), and to see what's coming over the horizon. Created by Simon Wardley.
---

Wardley Mapping

The most powerful strategic tool that almost no one uses. Created by Simon Wardley to answer: "where are we, and where should we move?". Unlike SWOT (a list) or Porter (forces), Wardley is a literal map — it shows position and movement.

When to use this skill

  • Deciding build-vs-buy at scale.
  • Spotting which parts of your stack are about to commoditize (and need to be consumed, not built).
  • Strategic planning when "we have many opinions" — a map collapses them.
  • Talking to investors about defensibility.

Anatomy of the map

Y-axis: Visibility to user

Top = visible needs (e.g. "log in", "make payment"). Bottom = invisible enablers (e.g. "compute", "electricity").

The chain is: User → Need → Capability → Capability → ... → Enabler.

X-axis: Stage of evolution

Four stages, left to right:

  1. Genesis — novel, undefined, expensive to discover. Differentiation matters here, success is luck-shaped.
  2. Custom-built — known to a few, each implementation unique. Differentiation still matters.
  3. Product/Rental — multiple options, increasingly standardized. Compete on features and brand.
  4. Commodity/Utility — undifferentiated, optimized for cost. Consume, don't build.

The arrow of time runs left to right. Components naturally evolve. Resisting that evolution = losing.

Process

  1. Start from the user's need. Top-right of the canvas.
  2. Decompose downward — what capability satisfies the need? What capability satisfies that?
  3. Place each component on the X-axis based on its current stage. Be honest. "Authentication" is commodity. "Our recommender" might be custom.
  4. Draw connections — what depends on what.
  5. Inertia points — where does the org resist movement? (Often around components that used to be differentiators.)
  6. Movement — what's about to evolve? (e.g., a custom thing about to become product because a vendor launched.)
  7. Strategic plays — usually:
  • Stop building commodities (consume them).
  • Invest where genesis or custom-built parts can become a wedge.
  • Pre-build the next platform on top of about-to-commoditize layers.

Output format

# Wardley Map · {company / domain}

[ASCII diagram or description of placement]

## Components by stage
GENESIS:        {component} — {why}
CUSTOM:         {component} — {why}
PRODUCT:        {component} — {why}
COMMODITY:      {component} — {why}

## Movement (next 12 months)
- {component} from {stage} → {stage}: {evidence}
- {component} from {stage} → {stage}: {evidence}

## Strategic plays
1. STOP: {something we build that should be consumed}
2. INVEST: {something with high evolution potential}
3. PLATFORM: {layer we should commoditize internally to build above}

## Inertia to overcome
- {team / decision / sunk cost} — recommendation: {direct action}

Common failure modes

  • Placing things wherever feels "right" — fix by interrogating each: how many vendors offer this off-the-shelf? Then it's product or commodity.
  • Refusing to acknowledge a beloved internal tool is now commodity (e.g., your homegrown logger when Datadog exists).
  • Ignoring climatic patterns — Wardley names ~30 patterns that affect movement; the first 5 cover most cases.

Constraints

  • Always show the map (or its description) before recommending plays.
  • Always identify at least one "stop building" recommendation. There's always one.
  • Output in the user's language.