Marketing, analytics, programming, customer support, HR. AI is changing office work from the ground up, and nobody can tell you what your job will look like in 3 years.
Still, you need to talk about the future. With your team, with your boss and with yourself. How do you do that when nobody knows what's coming?
A time of rupture
Simon Wardley describes 3 periods in a market: peace, war and wonder.
In peace, proven practices work. Planning works and a 3-year plan makes sense.
War comes when technology changes and someone offers a "good enough" solution for a fraction of the original price. The rules that held in peace stop working.
War then gives birth to wonder. New things emerge, built on top of what became cheap. Millions of apps… most of which will die, and some of which will make it all the way to peace.
Today we are at war. Generative AI is turning a whole range of office work into a commodity.
Estimating the direction
So what follows? In a time of war, the future is hard to predict. At the same time, in some cases you can estimate the direction things will take. I draw Wardley maps. I think about them and discuss them with colleagues.
That's how our newsletter China – EU – Tesla – VW came about. In it I claim that by 2040 the most common car on Czech roads will be a BYD. It still amazes people.
And yet there's nothing groundbreaking in it. Once you have a picture of the playing field you're on, a lot of things suddenly seem clear. For example, which way the European car industry will go. Not that it makes me jump for joy. At the same time, clarity is a trap. A map is something to discuss, not something to take as the truth.
What helps us discuss the future
We have a map of the playing field. Before you start talking about what will be, draw what is. Who your customers are, what they need and what the thing you deliver to them is made of.
We mostly discuss the present. Once you have a map, it's much easier to talk about where things will evolve, because Simon Wardley described a number of recurring patterns.
We don't focus much on goals. This is the hardest part, because many organisations can only talk about the future through goals. You set a 3-year goal and by the time you get there, the world has moved on.
We get rid of noise. In a time of war there's an awful lot of it, and in the age of AI even more so. Predictions about which professions will soon disappear make for a great read and give you nothing. I wrote about what to replace them with in Ignore AI predictions.
The first step
It works best when Wardley maps are adopted across the whole team. If you want to start mapping, you have plenty of options. The two simplest:
Get the book ŘEŽ. Mapping is the longest chapter in the book. It's not a rewrite of Wardley's book, but a series of practical insights and examples.
Join the Strategic Thinking training on 30 November, 1 and 15 December. The first 2 days online, the finale in person in Brno. You'll draw maps there for your own decision, with my personal guidance.
"Understanding where we are, and starting journeys with a sense of direction rather than abstract goals."
– Dave Snowden
Weekend reading
AI is creating an economy that can grow without needing more workers. Should we be worried?
Singaporean economists on growth that adds no jobs. Who will benefit from it?
